Lesson 39-- Job Costs

The Job Cost command shows you a 'quick report' of costs and income for each of the projects, customers, and other jobs that you track, with Goldenseal cost accounting software.

Looking at job costs is a valuable way to manage your business. It shows the profitability of each part of your business, and helps you to increase the accuracy of your project cost estimates. We make job costing a central part of the Goldenseal accounting software.

Viewing Job Costs

Goldenseal lets you see the current financial state of each job very quickly. To see a summary of job costs, follow these steps:

Choose Job Costs from the Costs menu.
You will see a listing of projects, with a simple cost analysis for each.

The first five columns for each job show the five basic expense classes, with the amount that has been posted to each project. The next columns show the total costs for each job (from expense transactions), the original budget amount (from the project estimate), and the variance between estimated and actual costs.

The far right columns show income received (from deposits and billing records) and the current net cash flow (income minus expenses).

Category Breakdowns

To see a detailed breakdown of costs by cost category, double-click anywhere in the row of the job you'd like to see.

You'll see a list of cost categories, along with the expense amounts posted to each category.

NOTE: The breakdown will only show categories that have a contract amount or an expense amount. If you'd like to include all cost categories in the display, hold down the Shift key when you double-click on the row.

To see further details for costs within a category, double-click in its row. If the selected category has subcategories, you'll see a list of its subcategories, with a breakdown for each. If the selected category does not have subcategories, you'll see a breakdown of expense items.

HINT: To bypass the subcategory display, hold down the Shift key when you double-click on the row. That way you'll see a list of cost items for the category.

When you are finished viewing the category breakdown, click the Close button, and you will return to the list of jobs.

Item Breakdowns

To see a breakdown of specific cost items for a job, follow these steps:

Choose Job Costs from the Costs menu.
Click on the Details popup menu at the bottom of the window, and choose Item Breakdown.
Double-click in the row of the job for which you'd like to see a list of items. HINT: If you double-click in the Job column, you'll see a list of all costs. If you double-click in the column for one of the expense classes, you'll only see items of that class.
A list of specific cost items will be shown.

NOTE: Material and other cost amounts are the same as the amount of the expense transaction. Equipment, labor and subcontractor costs are based on the Job Cost Amount in the expense transaction.

Location Breakdowns

To see a breakdown of job costs by location, follow these steps:

Choose Job Costs from the Costs menu.
Click on the Details popup menu at the bottom of the window, and choose Location Breakdown.
Double-click in the row of the job for which you'd like to see the breakdown.
You'll see a list of locations for the job, with job costs for each.

Viewing Other Job Types

To see costs for other types of jobs, use the Job Types menu at the upper right corner of the main Job Cost window.

You can view job costs for any of the following account classes:

Projects-- Totals for active or completed projects.
Customers-- Totals for job costs assigned directly to customers.
Equipment-- Expenses used to maintain equipment, and income that results from equipment use.
Real Estate-- Expenses used to maintain real properties, and income that results from rentals.
Investments-- Expenses used to maintain investments, and income that results from the investment.
Overhead-- Expenses assigned to Overhead accounts, and income that results from overhead allocations.

Progress Tracking

You can use the Job Costs command to track project completion, and get a prediction of the final project cost.

NOTE: The completion percentages are also used for progress payment billing (see page 310).

To track progress by cost category, follow these steps:

Choose Job Costs from the Costs menu.
Click on the Details popup menu at the bottom of the window, and choose Progress by Category.
Double-click in the row of the job for which you'd like to see the breakdown.
You'll see a list of categories, and the costs to date for each.
Enter the percentage done for each category.
The predicted cost for each line item is shown in the Predicted column for that row. The Variance columns show you the difference between the predicted cost and the original budget-- as both a dollar amount and as a percentage.
The predicted cost and net profit for the entire project is shown at the top of the dialog window.
To save the changes you have made, click OK. Click Cancel to leave the progress window without saving changes.

To track progress by location within a project, follow these steps:

Choose Job Costs from the Costs menu.
Click on the Details popup menu at the bottom of the window, and choose Progress by Location.
Double-click in the row of the job for which you'd like to see the breakdown.
You'll see a list of locations and the costs to date for each.
5Enter the Percentage done for each location.
The predicted cost for each line item is shown in the Predicted column for that row. The Variance column shows you the difference between the predicted cost and the original budget.
The predicted cost and net profit for the entire project is shown at the top of the dialog window.
To save the changes you have made, click OK. Click Cancel to leave the progress window without saving changes.

Job Cost Reports

You can view job costs in several other formats using Reports under the Projects menu (see Lesson 20).

Finishing Up

In this lesson, you've learned how to use the Goldenseal job costing software to view job cost breakdowns, and how to enter job progress so you can see a prediction of the final project cost.

You might want to take a break now for a walk to check out some of your local wildlife. Do you have sea otters nearby? Mallard ducks? Moose? Raccoons? Giant cockroaches?

Which animals would you like to see returning to your area someday?

Which animals do you think would look best wearing the chic hats that you made in previous lessons? There's only one sure way to find out1 This might be a good time to clean out your hat closet, and at the same time practice your wildlife-stalking skills.

HINT: It's hard to put a chic hat on a moose, and it's even harder to keep it there. You might want to consider adding Velcro strips on either side, so it will stick to the antlers.