Job Cost Management

Job Cost Management is one of the hubs of the Bluegrass Solution. While General Ledger keeps track of your financial position, the Job Cost Management module enables you to effectively manage jobs from a revenue and cost perspective.

 

To do this effectively, we allow for a work breakdown, which we refer to as a cost code. User defined cost codes can be established as a master by type of job and can be quickly copied to similar new jobs. An unlimited number of masters are allowed, and any job can be customized. Cost Codes are automatically copied to any job established through work orders. Once the cost codes have been established, budgets may be entered (this is automatic if job was created from estimating).

 

Incurred labor cost and benefits are automatically updated from Payroll. Incurred material costs are updated from Accounts Payable, received Purchase Orders, Inventory transfers and from stock taken from service trucks. If company owned equipment is charged to the job, it may be entered along with labor hours. Committed cost, from both subcontracts and open purchase order are included on some reports.

 

Production or percent complete may be entered by cost code. All billing modules update revenue. Variance and projected cost at completion reports enable the contractor to effectively manage and control job cost. Even small job cost variances have a high impact on the bottom line. For a typical mechanical construction firm, a reduction of 5 percent in direct job cost from what was budgeted, results in an increase in net profit before taxes of 253 percent Bluegrass gives you the ability to have job cost that is up-to-date each day so that cost overruns can be identified while there is time to make corrections.

 

Special features of the Bluegrass system include the ability to divisionalize within the job. Contract, revenue, budgets and cost, can all be separated by department or division. Foreman, estimators and salesman can be tied to each division of the job. In order to obtain true job cost it is necessary to allocate indirect cost. Bluegrass allows for separate allocation percents, by job, division for labor materials and subcontracts. These allocations are kept separate from actual job cost.

 

Job Inquiry - Provides quick reference to job status information and provides drill down to view cost and budget summary or detail. Anything you need to know about the project is available at the push of a button or double click. Labor detail viewing is limited by password. You may view or print any free form comments that were entered for the project. Any document can be linked to a project. Any E-mail, or out going faxes can be stored. Any incoming document such as faxes, or even a set of plans can be scanned and stored. Job inquiry can be made available to users with out ability to make changes to job master information.

 

Change Orders - Projects are always changing, therefore; change orders are tracked and automatically update appropriate totals. Change order inquiry includes proposed and approved change status option.

Change orders may be printed and the status can be easily changed from proposed to approve.

 

Sub-Contractors / Committed Costs - If your business involves the services of sub-contractors, our Committed Cost file gives you complete control. This file is linked with the Accounts Payable module and will prevent the entry of an invoice for a sub-contractor if the invoice will result in an overpayment of the contract. Tracks amount paid, retainage, change orders.

 

Close Job Process -  provides a screen display of contract/sale amount, cost by class or type of job expense and gross profit. Job close date and warranty expiration dates default to current date but may be modified. If a commissioned salesman is assigned to the job the commission is calculated. If your contract amount includes sales tax, the tax is accrued automatically. A hard copy of the completed screen may be printed. The job is marked closed and only warranty cost may be added to the job.

 

Transfers from Stock to Job – transfers material from any warehouse you designate to a Job and /or work order, A cost code may be selected so that the cost for the items may be properly distributed to job cost and General Ledger profit center. Bar coding is supported, and picking tickets by bin number, may be printed for selected job or requisition.

 

Permits and Inspections - allow tracking of this vital function. A handy template is provided to prompt the user for the applicable permits and inspections for the location or type of job.

 

Use Tax – Bluegrass offers a sophisticated method of computing use tax if the job controls your use tax requirements. A recalculation program is provided, in the event the job was miscoded when it was originally entered. Both Job Cost and General Ledger transactions are automatically created. Reporting is provided and includes use tax determined at the invoicing step, for those contractors that only have occasional use tax requirements.

 

Reports

The Bluegrass Job Cost Management module contains over 40 reports. They provide comprehensive reporting of normal contract jobs, time and material jobs and service contracts. Information includes cash flow, unit costing, percent complete and projection of cost to complete. All reports provide the option of printing to screen or printer or any report may be saved to disk. Reports saved to disk are available to fax or e-mail or may be imported into Excel™ to add additional calculations or produce charts and graphs. Selected pages of any report saved to the screen can be printed. If by chance the report is not available, all information in your database can be directly linked to Access, ™ Crystal Reports, ™ Excel, ™ or any other windows product to produce a custom report made to your specifications.

Extensive inquiry screens allows, you to view information immediately without having to print reports.

 

The Bluegrass philosophy is to give management concise summary reports from which to make decisions, but with the ability to print detailed information when needed.

All reports provide a flexible selection menu that allows you to filter the data that is included on the report. A global preference table allows you to choose which type of costs (referred to as class) should be grouped together and which should be kept separate. For example, some contractors prefer to see labor and burden separately, others want labor and burden combined on reports but with the ability to see separately if requested. We let you choose. You can label column headings on reports and direct which type of cost is to appear under each heading.

Below are just some examples of the included reports and the selections allow.

 

Job Cost Summary report gives you a one-line summary of all jobs showing contract amount, actual cost, billed amount and amount paid. Select job range, Project Manager Range, Open or Complete Jobs, department or division and one or all customers. A detail option is included which gives one line per cost code.

 

Cost Analysis by Cost Code report gives you a complete picture of your job. Variations of this report include option for sub totals by phase.

 

Cost Analysis by Phase summarizes by phase and gives budget actual and remaining for each phase.

 

Cost Analysis by Class prints summary by type of cost.

 

Cost Analysis by cost-code/class prints each class of expense with budget, expanding the report to 2 lines per cost code.

 

Cost Analysis with Committed cost includes both purchase order and sub contract committed cost. These reports may be selected by job range, open or complete jobs, department, or division and one or all customers.

 

Other Reports Include:

	Bonding Report
	Job in Process
	Detail Cost report
	Billing Report and by class
	Gross profit report project manager type of service salesman
	Excess Billing
	Completed jobs summary
	Job Cost Summary by Class is a profit and loss picture of each job
	Job summary with committed cost
	Unit Cost Analysis
	Job in Process
	Detail cost report
	Billing Report and by class
	Excess billing
	WIP Report-produces report for Excel™
	Dept/Division report for Excel™
	Labor reports

More Bluegrass Features:

	Drill down Job Cost Inquiry.
	Prints over 40 reports with numerous selections using the option button
	Report menu can be defined by user
	Maintains sub-contractor committed cost
	Supports change orders
	Links to job site.
	Maintains both actual, estimated and committed cost.
	Separate cost is maintained for both the original job and for change orders.
	The entry of comments is allowed for each job.
	Job cost history is retained for a user specified period of time.
	Jobs may be categorized by type.
	Job cost reports show estimated units and cost, actual units and cost and variance by activity and job.
	Ability to eliminate closed jobs or include when necessary
	A job may be sub-divided by departments or division (including contract values, estimated cost, actual cost, change orders, billing etc.).
	Use tax is calculated and distributed to job cost.
	A recalculation program is provided to recalculate used tax, if the job should be incorrectly entered.
	Overhead recovery is automatically calculated based on percent mark-up of direct cost.
	Either quantity complete or percentage complete may be reported.
	Insurance contracts status of all subcontractors are monitored.
	Upon authorization of subcontractor or vendor payment, the insurance limits and expiration dates are checked. Payments will be held if violations are found. Phase code may be tied to a profit center, so that tracking revenue and cost to multiple departments and divisions is automatic once the job is set up.
	Modern "drill down" and filtering functions make it easy for managers to review job information.
	Phase code may be tied to a profit center, so that tracking revenue and cost to multiple departments and divisions is automatic once the job is set up.
	Maintains sub-contractor-committed cost.
	Upon approval of a bid, the estimating system will interface to job cost to create the Job and budget records.
	Cost codes are user defined. They may be customized to your needs and preferences. You may set up a different code structure for each job, or create a set of master cost codes for each type of job. This master set of cost codes will be automatically copied each time a job of this type is created.
	Balancing your jobs to general ledger is easy because nothing hits job cost without hitting general ledger.
	Payroll and job cost interface to allow for workman’s comp to be task specific where required.
	If you determine workman’s comp by task, the actual workman’s comp is applied to the job as burden.
	As an option, Workman’s comp may be tied to the man and a percent applied to the labor for taxes and insurance burden.
	Reporting of labor burden cost allows you to have a more accurate job cost by allowing you to see not only what you pay an employee, but also what he/she is costing you in invisible cost. These costs cannot always be applied directly to the job. The system allows for actual, percent or actual plus a percent labor burden, which can change from job to job.
	The job determines the union area, which determines the rate and benefits. Any union burden is applied to the job.
	Unlimited number of jobs with alphanumeric characters.
	Tremendous user flexibility in formatting jobs and job breakdowns (divisions, phases and sub phases).
	Ability to have several maser job breakdown templates, based on a job type, to facilitate the original set-up of a job.
	Complete editing and audit trail of entries for verification prior to posting to permanent records.
	Ability to track units, work units (assemblies), actual costs and committed costs for each breakdown of a job.
	Detailed change order tracking included.
	Job history reflecting all details entries, for any job breakdown, by date range.
	User defined cost indicators (i.e. labor, material, equipment, miscellaneous, etc.) that can be tied to job breakdowns.
	In-built Report writer providing the ability to create customized reports.
	Project manager inquiry routine allowing screen display of information at various levels of detail without having to generate paper.
	Capability to view reports on the display in addition printing.
	ODBC option provides the ability to create customized reports.
	Bonding report based on USF&G Form 250.
	Field estimate worksheets produced for gathering percent complete from the field.
	Budget worksheets produced to facilitate the original set-up of a job.
	Ability to copy beginning budget entries from estimating module.
	Ability to quickly and easily transfer costs from one job to another with full audit reporting.
	Reporting cut-off date independent of other applications.
	All job cost information automatically updated from other accounting modules.
	Labor has the greatest import on profitability therefore is monitored very closely and numerous reports are provided.

 

Interfaces to:

	All Billing Modules
	Service Management
	Service Contracts
	Estimating / Proposals
	Equipment Management
	Purchase Orders

 

It All Checks Out !

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Bluegrass Technology, Inc.

1-800-784-9669

Visit Our Website:

 www.bluegrasstech.com

Email: sales@bluegrasstech.com