Understanding the profitability of each job is crucial for any business owner.
With Job Costing, you can easily see:
Revenue generated from each job
True costs incurred
Actual profit margins
This comprehensive, real-time overview gives you the confidence to price jobs accurately, protect your margins, and grow profitably—all in one convenient location.
Why Accurate Job Costing is Essential
Successful business owners like you need a clear and structured approach to understand where they make or lose money. Job Costing provides the critical comparison between your estimates and your actual performance:
Projected Performance: View expected revenue, costs, and margin before the job begins. This is based on your Estimate records and/or Material Lists.
Actual Performance: Compare against real results once the job is complete. This is based on your final invoices and timesheet/labor records.
This structured analysis delivers two crucial metrics on every job, allowing you to quickly assess your financial health:
Total Profit: The final monetary gain (or loss) from the job.
Profit Margin: The percentage of revenue that translates into profit.
Intro To Job Costing In FieldPulse
The Job Costing tab is available on every Job record, offering a complete financial overview for the service that was performed.
At-a-Glance Profit Summary
The top of the tab is divided into two primary summary views:
Projected: This view displays your anticipated profit, margin, revenue, and costs before the job starts, helping you confirm your pricing strategy.
Actual: This view presents your finalized profit, margin, revenue, and costs after the job is complete, based on your final invoices and logged labor.
To the left of the screen, a ring chart illustrates total sales and shows the portion that consists of costs versus pure profit.
On the right side of the screen, a stacked column chart provides a visual breakdown of your costs, categorizing them into Products & Materials, Labor, and Commission.
Setting Up Job Costing
To ensure the Job Costing analysis accurately reflects your business operations, you must define which internal records drive the calculations and how labor is tracked.
Step 1: Adjust Costing Sources
As an admin, navigate to Company Settings > Jobs > Job Costing to configure which records will be used to calculate the Actual vs. Projected Costs and Sales for your Job records.
Metric | FieldPulse Record Options | Purpose |
Projected Cost | Material List and/or Estimates | Determines the anticipated cost of materials. |
Projected Sales | Estimates | Determines the estimated revenue from the customer. |
Actual Cost | Invoices, Material lists or Purchase Orders | Determines the final cost incurred for materials. |
Actual Sales | Invoices | Determines the final revenue billed to the customer. |
Flexibility: You have full control over whether commission and discounts are included in your margin calculations, accommodating different accounting practices.
Step 2: Mark Service Items for Labor
To ensure accurate cost tracking, you can designate specific service items as "labor."
When creating a new service item, a fourth option, "Service - Labor," appears in the item type dropdown. Selecting this automatically categorizes any costs associated with this item as Labor in your job costing calculations. For existing service items, you can manually update their item type.
Step 3: Set User Permissions
Only Admin and Team Manager users within FieldPulse have access to view the Job Costing tab for each of your Job records.
Ability to View Job Costing Tab Toggle:
If toggled off: The Job Costing tab will not be visible on your Job records.
If toggled on: Admin or Team Manager users will be able to see the Job Costing tab. However, the information displayed will only reflect the records they have permission to access in FieldPulse, as specified in their User Feature Permissions. This may include Material Lists, Purchase Orders, Timesheets, Estimates, and Invoices.
Detailed Cost and Sales Analysis
In addition to the summary at the top of the Job Costing page, you will find quick access to detailed breakdowns toward the bottom, allowing you to see precisely where you are gaining or losing money, down to the individual line item.
Granular Comparison Views
The bottom of the Job Costing tab offers three powerful comparison views:
Actual Margin:
Displays the true cost, final sale price, and realized profit margin for every product, material, and labor entry associated with the Job.
Projected vs. Actual Costs:
Compares your estimated costs to the final actual costs for each item, highlighting any variances due to material price changes or overages.
Projected vs. Actual Sales:
Compares your estimated revenue to your final actual sales. This view is invaluable for quickly identifying and analyzing positive variances from change orders or upsells made after the initial estimate.
Labor Tracking Logic
Our system utilizes a specific logic to track and prevent double counting for labor costs.
In Company Settings, you need to define how your labor costs will be tracked. You can choose one of the following options:
Reference only your team's timesheets if you use that feature within FieldPulse.
Reference only your labor line items on estimates and invoices.
Use a combination of both methods.
To avoid accidentally counting labor twice (once as a line item and once via Timesheets), you can toggle on the option to automatically hide labor line items on the invoice if Timesheets exist on the Job record.
Important Notes
Taxes: Sales tax is excluded from the Job Costing calculations, as it is not considered income.
Scope: The Job Costing feature is currently only available on our web application.
FAQs
How do commissions and discounts affect my calculations?
Discounts: These reduce the total revenue from a job, impacting your overall earnings.
Commissions: Treated as a cost, these are deducted from your profits.
A new line item for commissions will appear in your detailed breakdown, showing the precise amount deducted.
What happens if I use a flat-rate discount?
A flat-rate discount will appear as a negative balance at the bottom of the relevant section.
This amount will be subtracted from your total, affecting your overall earnings.
For example, if your total before the discount is $500 and you apply a flat-rate discount of $50, your new total will show as $450.
What if I don't use timesheets? Can I still track labor costs?
Yes, you can still track labor costs without using timesheets. Here’s how:
Add a Service Item: Choose the type "Service - Labor".
Set the Cost: Enter the cost per hour for the service.
This method provides an estimate of your labor costs, even if you don’t utilize our Timesheets feature.
Have additional questions?
Contact us at support@fieldpulse.com or use the chat feature in the bottom right corner of your screen.