Job costing software for contractors
Business Genie includes job costing software for contractors: it tracks what each job costs, in the same software that schedules, routes and bills the work.
Why job costing matters
Profit is known job by job rather than only at the end of the year, and the next estimate can be built on what past jobs actually cost.
What each job cost you, so you can see what it made.
What each job cost you, so you can see what it made.
Cost per job
Job costing adds up what each job cost, so profit is known job by job, not only at the end of the year.
Better estimates
What past jobs cost is what the next estimate should be built on.
What is job costing?
Job costing is adding up everything a single job cost — labor, materials, the drive — and setting it against what the job was billed. It shows which kinds of jobs make money and which only keep the crew busy.
Worked through the sample furnace repair above: 1h 30m on site at a loaded labor rate of $62 an hour (the wage, its taxes and the truck’s share) is $93 of labor. The parts it used, an igniter and a flame sensor, are $88 of materials. The drive to it, 18 minutes at the same rate plus 7.4 miles at 70 cents, is $24. That is $205 of cost against a $340 bill, so the job left $135, 40% of what it billed.
Job costing works with time tracking, estimates and proposals, the dashboard and QuickBooks Online.
Where job costing sits in a job
A job runs through eleven stages from the quote to the follow-up, and job costing is the tenth: what the job made. Every line it adds up was made at an earlier stage — the price when the job was quoted, the drive when it was routed, the labor and parts on the job, the bill when it was invoiced.
- $340 quoted · not yet billed
Scheduled
Dispatched
- The drive · $24
- Labor $93 · parts $88
- $340 billed
Paid
In the books
- $205 cost
Followed up
Sample job · furnace repair, Harper Residence · to scale
Work it out on your own numbers
The same arithmetic as the ledger above, one part at a time: free calculators for the cost of a job, its labor and its margin, and a guide to pricing the work.
- Job cost calculatorThe cost, leg by leg
- Profit margin calculatorWhat is left
- Labor cost calculatorOne leg: labor
- How to price plumbing jobsThe price
Job costing by trade
Cost your own jobs, free for a month
Business Genie is free for a month, with no credit card to start. The Business Genie team sets up your account and moves your existing data over for free. Plans start at $50 a month.
Your first month, costed
What trying Business Genie costs you, on the same ledger
Your first month, costed
What trying Business Genie costs you, on the same ledger