Construction Job Costing

Track labor, materials, and subcontractor costs by project. See exactly where you're making money and where you're not.

What This Is

Standard bookkeeping tells you whether your company made money overall. That’s useful, but it doesn’t answer the question contractors actually need answered. Which jobs made money? Which ones lost it? Job costing tracks every expense back to the specific project where it was incurred.

This means labor hours, material purchases, subcontractor invoices, equipment rentals, and permits all get assigned to individual jobs. Each cost is coded to a project, a phase within that project, and a cost category. The result is a clear picture of what each job actually cost versus what you billed for it.

How It Works

Every cost gets matched to a job number. Labor hours tracked by project. Material receipts assigned to the job where they were used. Sub invoices coded to the specific work they performed. Nothing floats in general overhead when it can be traced to a job.

What You See

Job profitability reports showing revenue, costs, and margin for each project. Comparison of estimated costs versus actual costs. Breakdown by category so you can see exactly where the money went and whether the job performed the way you expected.

Why This Matters

A remodeling contractor finished what looked like a strong year. Revenue was up 20%. The crew stayed busy all twelve months. But when the numbers came back from the accountant, profit margins were thinner than expected. Two large projects had gone way over budget while several smaller jobs carried the company. Without job costing, there was no way to see that until it was too late.

This pattern is common in construction. You bid a job, win the contract, do the work, collect payment, and move on to the next one. Months later, you’re either ahead or behind, but you can’t point to which jobs made the difference. You’re making decisions without the information you actually need.

Bidding Without Data

If you don’t know your true costs on past jobs, every estimate is a guess. Maybe you’re adding 15% for overhead when the real number is 22%. Maybe you’re competitive on certain work but losing money every time you win it. Without historical cost data, you won’t know until the damage is done.

The Busy Trap

Plenty of contractors stay busy while making little profit. They assume more work means more money, so they keep saying yes to jobs. But if certain project types consistently lose money, staying busy just accelerates the problem. Job costing reveals which work is worth chasing and which isn’t.

What Changes

You finish a job and know within days how it actually performed. Did you hit your target margin or miss it? Where did the overruns come from? Was it labor running long, materials costing more than expected, or that subcontractor who billed higher than the quote? You get answers while the project is still fresh in your mind.

Over time, you build a library of real cost data from your own projects. You know what a bathroom remodel actually costs to deliver, not what you hope it costs. You know which types of work are most profitable for your company and which ones you should price differently or stop taking altogether.

Bid With Confidence

Real numbers from completed jobs become the foundation for future estimates. You stop guessing at labor hours and material costs because you have actual data from similar projects. Your bids get more accurate. You win work at margins that make sense for your business.

Catch Problems Early

When costs are tracked throughout a project, you can see a job going over budget while there’s still time to respond. Adjust the crew, address scope creep with the customer, or at minimum understand what went wrong before repeating it. You’re managing projects, not just completing them.

Utah's Construction Bookkeeping Specialists