Job Costing

FOUNDATION® for Windows® is renown for powerful job costing capabilities. The definition, tracking and costing of simple to complex jobs is handled efficiently. The classification of completely customizable job cost detail allows users to record and report information as precisely as they need it. Job Costing seamlessly integrates with Payroll, Accounts Payable, General Ledger, Accounts Receivable and Equipment.

Definition of Jobs
FOUNDATION for Windows allows the definition of various attributes for each job. Among them are the following:

• Job Name
• Customer
• Customer Contact Information
• Project Manager
• Geographic Area
• Project Class
• Status of Job (active, inactive, closed, etc).
• Sales Tax Authority
• Payroll Tax Authority
• Certified Payroll Information
• Union Information

Additional summary information includes the original contract amount and costs, change order amounts, percent complete and associated revised amounts. All summary data is fully supported by detailed transaction analysis within Job Costing and other modules in the system.

Job Cost Detail
The organization and classification of costs within jobs may be designed in a format consistent with your way of doing business. Different breakdowns may be created to suit the type and scale of each job. For instance, on each job you may define any number of phases, cost code groups, cost codes and cost classes.

Expenses and Related Quantities
FOUNDATION for Windows provides a comprehensive and flexible framework for tracking all expenses and associated quantities. Direct burden, such as employer FICA expense, union fringes, workers’ compensation and liability insurance are allocated automatically.

Budgets
A budget may be created for each job using a simple click-and-drag interface. The budget allows the definition of take-off quantities at the cost class level for dollars, hours and units. Totals by cost class, cost code, cost code group or phases are easily reported and the budget may be easily revised as the job progresses.

Job Expensing Methods
The system can budget jobs by defining a specific set of allowable job cost detail, or simply setup a job and begin tracking costs against the standard set of user-defined job cost detail. Job cost detail attached to a specific job may be renamed for job specific customization without losing the ability to associate the detail with other jobs.

Audit Trails
Job Costing provides detailed audit trails in all facets of the system. Automatically updated from the other modules, all transactions may be traced to their sources. For example, invoices posted from Accounts Payable will retain the invoice number, vendor and transaction date. Payroll transactions may optionally retain the employee, the trade and the type of earnings (e.g. regular, overtime). This data is not only valuable for creating an audit trail, but may also be used in job analysis.

Change Orders
FOUNDATION for Windows provides comprehensive tracking abilities for change orders. Change order status can be tracked as approved, pending, cancelled, internal or estimated. Distribution of change order amounts can be performed among any number of cost codes within the job or simply as a lump sum amount. Approved and estimated change orders are reflected as changes to the budget in all appropriate job cost reports as well as work in progress, percent complete and bonding reports. Tracking the status or progress of all change orders against a job is easily accomplished. The system can extract change order data based on various selection criteria.

Historical Data
Since job history transactions are preserved in full detail, reports may be run for prior periods, allowing you to “go back in time” to any prior date. For example, you could run a variance report for an instant in time which occurred several years ago.

Balances with General Ledger
The system provides numerous controls which will ensure that the Job Costing and General Ledger Modules balance. Special reports verify the integrity of the system by validating the flow of data in both the Job Costing and General Ledger Modules.

Unit Cost vs. Lump Sum
The system allows you to alternate between lump sum and unit cost methods of tracking cost codes within a given job.

When viewing variances and cost over/under-runs, lump sum cost codes and unit cost codes will be computed independently. This element simplifies your evaluation of job progress and profitability in instances where you are paid for a job on both unit-cost and lump-sum bases.

Production Reporting
Reports will show the production formula which you consider most meaningful to the evaluation of jobs. For example, you may prefer to see units produced per man-hour, man-hours per unit or the ratio of cost code labor hours as a percent of job total.

Bonding Reports
The system allows various bonding reports which were designed by a leading accounting firm. These reports may show, in summary or detailed form, the following information:

• Original Contract
• Estimated Cost
• Profit
• Change Orders
• Revised Estimated Cost
• Total Profit
• Total Contract
• Current/Prior Costs
• Current Billings
• Original Profit
• Total Cost
• Prior Billings
• Revised Profit
• Prior Profit
• Billings Over/Under Cost

Reports
A great variety of useful reports are available in Job Costing. Reports can be run for any prior period and any date range. Among the different report topics are:

• Job History Detail
• Committed Cost
• Work in Progress
• Job Cost
• Unit Cost
• Job/Cost Estimate
• Job Overhead Worksheet
• Contract Status
• Job/Cost Estimate
• Unit Labor Cost
• Over/Under Billing by Cost Code

Job Costing DataGenie©
The revolutionary Job Costing DataGenie© allows you to define and lay-out reports using any combination of data from the Job Costing Module. The simple click-and-drag interface contains tools to define report headers, columns of data and equations. Reports can be run by job, phase, cost code, cost class or project manager. The built-in equation editor facilitates the definition of simple equations, algebraic formulas and if-then statements. All user-defined reports are stored in the system and can be run for any prior period at any time. The report template can be modified at any time.