Projects
Project costs and job costing
Set a contract value, budget and labour rate, then see hours, stock and bills booked to the project through the record graph — broken down by cost code.
On this page
A project's Costs tab shows what the work was sold for, what it was allowed to cost, and what it has actually cost — hours, materials and bills booked to it from across the workspace.
- See money on a project
- View Finances as well as access to the project
- Set contract value, budget and labour rate
- Manage Projects
- Where
- a project's Costs tab
Without Finance access, the tab says Money on this project is hidden — it needs the Finances permission.
Contract and budget#
Choose Edit under Contract and budget and set:
- Contract value — what the work was sold for.
- Budget — what it is allowed to cost.
- Labour rate — the cost of an hour, used to cost logged time.
What is booked to the project#
Every hour, item and bill attached through the organization graph is added up:
| Cost | Comes from |
|---|---|
| Labour | Hours logged against the project in time tracking, multiplied by the labour rate |
| Materials | Stock moved to the project in Inventory, valued at item cost |
| Other costs | Bills in Finance booked to the project |
Alongside, Invoiced shows what you have billed for the work.
The result#
- Total cost — labour, materials and other costs together.
- Margin — contract value less cost. At a loss when cost exceeds the contract value.
- Budget variance — under budget or over budget.
Cost codes#
Cost codes break a project's cost down by kind of work — groundwork, electrical, design. Define them in Projects → Settings → Cost codes (Add a cost code and press Enter), then set a code on each cost booked to a project. The By cost code breakdown shows where the money went; anything without a code is Uncoded. Retiring a cost code keeps it on past costs.
Why this works across modules#
Job costing needs no special setup because hours, stock movements and bills are already linked to the project through Unobits' record links. The same approach works for a construction job, an agency retainer, an event or a manufacturing run. See Connected records.