The Job Costing module of EBMS is used to analyze individual construction, manufacturing, or other types of jobs. This powerful tool is used by a manager that makes decisions based on the profitability of individual projects or jobs. Actual costs are compared to budgeted or estimated costs. These costs may include cost of materials, payroll costs, subcontractor billings, and miscellaneous costs. A job can be divided into stages so the user can properly analyze a portion of the job. For example, a building contractor may create a job for each building or project. The project may be divided into stages such as site work, foundation, framing, roof, electrical, plumbing, finishing, etc. The contractor may associate a job with the costs within a PO or vendor invoice as well as associate a job or jobs within an employee's timecard to allocate labor expenses.
Each job contains a variety of job related information such as contact information, dates, status settings, site information and type of job. Each job may contain one or many different stages. Each stage contains budget totals, actual costs, committed costs, and overhead costs. Job retainage may be calculated and processed for each sales invoice as well as recording vendor retainage for the user's subcontractors. The EBMS Job Costing module allows custom tailored information to meet the needs of a building contractor or a manufacturing company.
The job costing module of EBMS can be used for a variety of applications including some examples below:
Construction – Construction projects may include general contracting, mechanical, subcontracting, or specialty construction.
Contract projects – Contract jobs may include T&M change orders and A.I.A. (American Institute of Architects) billings. Review the Contract Billing and Progress Billing sections of this manual for more details.
T&M projects – An entire job, change order, or a small project can be managed in a time and material (T&M) basis. Review the Time and Materials section for more details.
Manufacturing:
Made to order projects – Made to order jobs should be created using the contract job type. Follow the Job and Job Cost sections of this manual. These jobs are configured in a similar method as the contract construction jobs.
Time & Materials projects – An entire job, change order, or a small project can be managed in a time and material (T&M) basis. The Job Type setting of a T&M manufacturing job should be set as Time and Materials rather than manufacturing. Review the Time and Materials section for more details.
Stock products – The job costing module of EBMS can be used to track the costs of a manufacturing batch of stock products. A job may consist of a single batch or an entire line of products for a specified period of time. Review the Stock Manufacturing Jobs section for more details on using job costing for stock inventory manufacturing jobs.
Equipment Cost Tracking:
The job costing module can be used to track the expenses incurred for a specific piece of equipment. Labor, parts (inventory), and other expenses can be posted to an equipment job. The user can ignore the budget, billing, and work in process sections of this manual if job costing is used solely for equipment cost tracking.
A company can use one or more of the job applications described above within the same company. Separate job folders should be created to separate the varied applications. Review the Adding and Deleting Job Folders section to create job groups or folders.
The system includes powerful time and material tools to simplify billing jobs that are not contract based and jobs that contain T&M change orders.
EBMS will conveniently report work-in-process totals and process appropriate monthly transactions to financial reporting purposes. Work in process transactions are generated using either the Completed Contract or Work in Process accounting methods. This feature will take the "headaches" out of the necessary work-in-process procedures.
Company or profit center overhead costs can be distributed to jobs, groups of jobs, or stages based on the stage classification or profit center. This allows the user to properly report the profits (or losses?) for a job including overhead or hidden costs. Comparing the actual costs with job budgets is the primary goal of proper job costing.
Job entry will be greatly simplified if the job classifications, stages, folders, and defaults are properly organized. Review the following Job Classifications, Entering Job Stages, Adding and Deleting Job Folders, and Setting Job Defaults sections before creating new jobs.