Job costing tracks actual materials, labor, subcontractor and equipment cost against the estimate for each job, using consistent cost codes. Done weekly rather than at year end, it tells you which trades, clients and job types make money, and lets you correct a job while it is still running.
Use the same categories in your estimates, purchases and time entries. Without shared codes, actuals cannot be compared to estimates and job costing collapses into bookkeeping.
Labor is the largest variable cost and the hardest to reconstruct later. Crews should clock into a job and a phase, not just to a day. Retroactive timesheets guarantee inaccurate job costs.
A job reviewed at completion produces a lesson. A job reviewed weekly produces a correction: catching a labor overrun in week two lets you adjust crew size, sequence or scope before the money is gone.
Estimated versus actual by cost code. Gross margin by job. Margin by job type and by client. Labor hours variance by phase. Committed cost versus actual on outstanding purchase orders.
WinkScope links estimates, purchases, time entries and invoices to the same project and cost structure, so estimated versus actual updates continuously. Analytics reports margin by project, client and trade, and project financials flag overruns while the job is live.
Weekly for active jobs, and always within a few days of completion while the details are fresh.
Work in progress: the accounting view of revenue earned versus billed on jobs that are not finished. It reveals whether you are over-billed or under-billed relative to work completed.