Two contractors can do the same volume of work and end the year in completely different financial shape—usually because one knows their job costs and the other does not. Job costing is the discipline that turns "we were busy" into "we made money on these jobs and lost it on those."
What is job costing?
Job costing is the practice of tracking all the costs of a specific project—so you can compare what a job actually cost against what you estimated and charged. It turns your books into a scoreboard for each job instead of one big lump.
What costs should you track per job?
- Labor – wages and burden for time spent on the job
- Materials – everything bought for that project
- Equipment – rental or allocated equipment cost
- Subcontractors – amounts paid to subs
- Other direct costs – permits, disposal, and job-specific expenses
How does job costing help you bid better?
When you know your real costs on past jobs, you can bid future work with confidence instead of guessing. You spot which types of jobs, customers, or crews are most profitable—and stop bidding the ones that lose money.
We set up job costing so you can see profit by project at a glance. See our construction bookkeeping services.