How job costing figures are calculated

Every job costing figure comes from three things: what you bid for each line, what your crew reported and what that work cost, and what the schedule of rates priced the work at. This page explains each figure with worked numbers. To find the figures on an order and work with them, see Track job costs.

A figure that can't be worked out yet reads N/A. Hover over it to see why, and what would fill it in. A figure your permissions don't let you see is hidden instead; hovering over it tells you so.

What you bid

• Bid Total Cost is Bid Qty times Bid Unit Cost: 50 hours at $60.00 is $3,000.00. An activity or section adds up the lines under it.
• Total Budget on the Project Cost Summary, and Budget in the Cost Breakdown, add up the Bid Total Cost of every line.
• A Time and materials line with nothing bid on it is billed on what it costs, so its cost to date counts as its budget. The Cost Breakdown shows that part on its own row, From time and materials lines.
• A line with no bid quantity or no unit cost isn't on the bid and adds nothing to the budget. See Lines that aren't on the bid.
• Contract Value adds up the contract value of each variation you've selected. A contract value of $0 counts as none. In the Table view, an order's Value is its contract value, or the total it was imported with when it has none; with neither, it reads N/A.

How each line earns revenue, its Sell, is set when you create a bid or on the order; see How lines are priced.

What has been done so far

• Reported Qty is what your crew has reported against the line, in the line's own unit.
• Cost to Date, shown as Actual on the Project Cost Summary, is what that work cost. A void or correction takes cost off.
• Actual Unit Cost is Cost to Date divided by Reported Qty: $1,440.00 for 24 hours is $60.00 an hour. It reads N/A until something is reported.
• % Complete on an activity is its Reported Qty divided by its Bid Qty: 40 of 100 cubic metres is 40%. The order's percentage averages its activities, each weighted by its budget, so an activity bid at $9,000.00 counts nine times as much as one bid at $1,000.00. Lines billed on what they cost are left out.

On a labor, equipment or material line, the percentage under Reported Qty is how much of that resource has been used, not how much of the work is done. A line 50% used on an activity 60% complete is a sign to watch, not an error.

What it will cost

Forecast Cost at Completion projects each line to the end of the job at the rate it's going:

• A line on the bid is its cost to date divided by how complete it is. A labor line under an activity uses the activity's percentage: $1,440.00 spent at 40% complete forecasts $3,600.00.
• Before anything is spent or reported, the forecast is the line's budget.
• A line billed on what it costs, or one that isn't on the bid, forecasts its cost to date.

The order's forecast adds up its lines. Hover over a forecast to see where it came from.

Over Budget and Under Budget compare the forecast with the budget, for the lines on the bid only. A line nobody bid can't run over its bid, so its cost goes into the forecast but not into how far over or under budget the order is.

Anticipated Profit is the Contract Value less the Forecast Cost at Completion. It needs both a budget and a contract value.

What you can bill

Billable to Date is what you've earned the right to invoice:

• A fixed-price line earns its fixed price times how complete it is: a $20,000.00 section at 40% complete has earned $8,000.00, whatever has been invoiced.
• Any other line earns what the schedule of rates priced its work at, including a price it flagged for review. Work it hasn't priced yet, work it found no price for, work priced on a docket and work entered by hand aren't billable. A material's own cost isn't a sell price either.
• A unit-rate line also earns its own rate for the work the schedule of rates didn't price.

Billed is what has gone out on an invoice. Unbilled is Billable to Date less Billed; a negative amount means you've billed ahead of the work.

Current Margin is Billable to Date less what the billable work cost. Work that isn't priced is left out of both, so it never shows as a loss. A fixed-price line and a unit-rate line set it against all of their cost, because all their work bills.

Forecast Margin, in the Bid View, is the line's Sell less its Forecast Cost at Completion: where the line lands if it carries on at the same rate.

Example: an order with no bid

An order has two lines and no bid quantities, unit costs, sell prices or contract value:

• Operator: 40 hours reported, costing $2,400.00. The schedule of rates priced 30 of them at $90.00 an hour, $2,700.00. The other 10 hours, costing $600.00, are waiting on it.
• Concrete: 10 cubic metres reported, costing $2,500.00, not priced by the schedule of rates yet.

The Project Cost Summary reads No bid yet and shows:

• Billable to date $2,700.00: the 30 priced hours.
• Cost to date $4,900.00: $2,400.00 plus $2,500.00.
• Cost of billable work $1,800.00: what the 30 priced hours cost.
• Not billable yet $3,100.00: the 10 hours and the concrete. Hover over it to see that both are waiting on the schedule of rates.
• Current Margin $900.00, on SoR-priced work only: $2,700.00 billable less the $1,800.00 it cost.
• Not billed yet: $3,100.00, under the bars: the 10 hours and the concrete, both waiting on SoR pricing.

In the Cost Breakdown, Labor notes $600.00 not processed under its Current Margin, and Materials notes $2,500.00 not processed.

With no bid there's nothing to measure a budget, a forecast, a percentage complete or a profit against, so the page doesn't show them. Under Reported Qty, both lines show 10 unpriced in amber.

Example: an order where part of the work is priced

An order has a contract value of $12,000.00. Its Excavation activity is bid at 100 cubic metres, with 40 reported, so it's 40% complete. Under it:

A Traffic control line, not on the bid, has 8 hours entered by hand, costing $440.00.

The cost side:

• Total Budget $9,000.00: the Operator and Excavator bids. Traffic control isn't on the bid.
• Cost to date $4,280.00: $1,440.00 plus $2,400.00 plus $440.00.
• Forecast Cost at Completion $10,040.00: the Operator and Excavator projected from 40% complete ($1,440.00 / 40% is $3,600.00, and $2,400.00 / 40% is $6,000.00), plus Traffic control at its cost to date, $440.00.
• Over Budget $600.00: the $9,600.00 forecast for the lines on the bid, less their $9,000.00 budget. Traffic control's $440.00 isn't an overrun of the bid.
• Anticipated Profit $1,960.00: $12,000.00 less $10,040.00.

The billing side:

• Billable to Date $4,440.00: $2,280.00 plus $2,160.00. Traffic control isn't priced, so it reads N/A on its own line.
• Current Margin $1,560.00: $4,440.00 less the $2,880.00 the priced work cost (the Operator's $1,440.00 and 12 Excavator hours at $120.00). The Excavator's 8 waiting hours and Traffic control aren't counted as a loss.
• Under Reported Qty, the Excavator shows 8 unpriced in amber and Traffic control 8 by hand in grey.

If you give Traffic control a unit rate of $70.00 an hour, its 8 hours bill at that rate: Billable to Date rises by $560.00 to $5,000.00, and Current Margin by $120.00 to $1,680.00. Billed on its own rate with nothing bid, its $440.00 cost also counts as its budget, so Total Budget reads $9,440.00 while Over Budget stays $600.00.

Ask Milo about a figure

With an order open, select Ask Milo and ask about a figure on it. Milo answers from the order's own lines and transactions. For the order in the example above:

• "Why is Billable to Date $4,440.00?" Milo adds up the parts: $2,280.00 for the Operator and $2,160.00 for the 12 Excavator hours the schedule of rates priced. It says the other 8 hours are waiting on the schedule of rates.
• "Are we over or under budget?" Milo says $600.00 over, and which lines the forecast comes from.
• "What is Traffic control's Billable to Date?" Milo says it reads N/A because the work was entered by hand, and doesn't call it $0.00.

A figure your permissions hide stays hidden. Milo tells you it's hidden and doesn't work it out from the other figures.

Across a project

A project adds up its orders, so the order above, with $9,000.00 budgeted and $10,040.00 forecast, adds both to its project. An order with no bid adds its cost to the project's forecast but nothing to its budget, so it never puts the project over budget. Each order adds its own Anticipated Profit, and one without a budget and a contract value adds none. When only some orders have a profit, the line under the figure says how many, such as 5 of 10 orders have a profit. See Add up a project's orders.

Billable to Date, Billed, Unbilled and Current Margin add up the orders' own figures.