Set Up Your Project for Job Cost Reporting – eSUB Fusion

User Personas: Admin | Project Manager

Job cost reporting only tells you the truth if the project underneath it is set up correctly. A report cannot calculate a margin without a contract value, cannot cost an hour without a rate template, and cannot group anything sensibly without cost codes.

This article walks through the four things to configure on a project before you rely on its job cost numbers. Do them once, at project setup, and the reporting takes care of itself from then on.

To perform the actions described in this article, you must have the Project Admin - Project Settings - Edit permission. See the Permissions table at the end of this article.

Use the links below to jump to a topic:

How the Pieces Fit Together
Enter the Project Contract Value
Set the Project Rate Template
Set Up the Project Cost Codes
Configure the Project Budget
- Enter the Budget Manually
- Import the Budget
Check Your Setup
Permissions
FAQ

How the Pieces Fit Together

Each setup step feeds a different part of the job cost picture. Skipping one does not produce an error message, it produces a report with a blank or misleading column, which is harder to catch.

Order	What you set up	What breaks without it
1	Contract Value	There is no revenue figure to measure costs against, so margin cannot be calculated.
2	Rate Template	Field hours record as hours but carry no dollar value, so labor cost reads as zero.
3	Cost Codes	Costs land against the wrong buckets, or against a list so long that users pick the wrong one.
4	Budget	Actual costs have nothing to be compared against, so every variance column is meaningless.

Once the project is configured, you do not re-enter any of this by hand. Budget adjustments flow in through Change Order Requests, and committed costs to labor, materials and production units flow in through Daily Reports and Purchase Orders.

Setup item	What consumes it
Contract Value	Revenue and margin calculations on job cost reporting.
Rate Template	Daily Report crew hours and Change Order Request labor items, which is how hours become dollars.
Cost Codes	Every costed document: Change Order Requests, Daily Reports and Purchase Orders.
Budget	The budgeted side of every variance comparison, including labor hours and production units.

Enter the Project Contract Value

The Contract Value is the revenue side of the equation. Job cost reports use it to calculate margins against your committed costs, which accumulate as a byproduct of documenting the purchases and labor performed on the contract.

Go to the project, then select Project Info under Settings in the slide-out menu
Select Edit on the action button
Enter a dollar amount in the Contract Value field
Select Save

Enter the contract value even if the number is provisional. A close estimate produces a usable margin, and an empty field produces none at all. Approved Change Order Requests adjust the figure as the job progresses.

Set the Project Rate Template

Rate Templates are configurable rate structures that turn recorded hours into dollars. They allow crew hours from Daily Reports and labor items from Change Order Requests to populate labor rates on job cost reports.

An Admin configures the Rate Templates available to your company. For guidance on building them, see the Labor Rates Setup article.

Go to the project, then select Project Info under Settings in the slide-out menu
Select Edit on the action button
Choose the desired rate template in the Craft Template field
Select Save

A Rate Template does nothing until it is assigned to a job. This is the step most often missed, and it is the usual cause of labor hours appearing on a report with no cost attached.

Set Up the Project Cost Codes

Configuring the project cost code list makes job cost reports more accurate. You can rename cost codes to match how this particular job is bid, and hide the ones with no budgeted activity so they cannot be selected by mistake on Change Order Requests, Daily Reports or Purchase Orders.

An Admin configures the default company cost code list under Company Settings. See the Cost Codes Setup article for guidance.

Go to the project, then select Cost Codes under Settings in the slide-out menu
Select Edit on the action button
To rename a cost code, select it and edit the cost code name
To change a category, select the Category field on the cost code, then add or remove categories as needed
To assign or remove a cost code from the project, toggle Use for Project to Yes or No
Select Save

Hide the cost codes that do not apply to this project. It simplifies the workflow for your field users and cuts down the risk of somebody selecting the wrong code while creating project documentation, which is far more time consuming to correct after the fact.

Configure the Project Budget

The budget is what every actual cost gets measured against. You can enter it manually or import it from the provided template. For complete steps and additional guidance, see the Project Budget Setup article.

Select a project from the project list, then select Budgets under Settings in the slide-out menu
Follow the steps in one of the two sections below, depending on your preferred method

Enter the Budget Manually

Manual entry suits smaller jobs, or a budget that is still being finalized.

Select Edit on the action button
Enter the budgeted values against each cost code
Select Save

Import the Budget

Importing suits a job that was estimated outside eSUB Fusion, which is the more common case on larger work.

Select the import option on the action button
Download the file template
Fill out the template with your budgeted values
Upload the completed file
Review the imported values and correct any that did not map as expected
Select Save

The budget import template used to load an estimate into the project.

Check Your Setup

Before you rely on the numbers, confirm the four pieces are in place. Each check takes a few seconds and catches the failure modes that are otherwise easy to miss.

Check	How the field should look
Contract Value	Project Info shows a dollar amount, not a blank field.
Rate Template	Project Info names a template, and the labor classes your crew actually uses appear on it.
Cost Codes	The project list contains the codes this job needs and excludes the ones it does not.
Budget	Budgeted hours, units and dollars appear against the cost codes you expect.

A useful final test is to open a job cost report on the project before any real cost has accumulated. The budgeted columns should be populated and the actual columns should be zero. If a budgeted column is unexpectedly empty, the setup step that feeds it was missed.

Permissions

Permission	What it allows
Project Admin - Project Settings - Edit	Edit Project Info, including Contract Value and the rate template, and configure project cost codes and budgets.
Company - Labor Classes - General Permissions	Build and edit the Rate Templates that projects draw from. Held by an Admin, not usually by a project user.
Analytics - Labor Reports - View	View the labor reporting that this setup feeds.

If a user cannot see an option described in this article, review their permissions. Admins manage these from User Permissions.

FAQ

Does the setup order actually matter?

For the most part, yes. Cost codes should exist before the budget, because the budget is entered against them. The contract value and the rate template can be set at any point, but any hours recorded before a rate template is assigned will not carry a dollar value until it is.

Can I do this on a project that is already running?

Yes. All four settings can be changed on an active project. Be aware that changing a rate template affects how hours are costed going forward, so confirm with whoever owns the job costing before changing rates mid-project.

My report shows costs but no margin.

The Contract Value is almost certainly blank. Margin is calculated against it, so with no contract value there is no revenue figure to measure against. See Enter the Project Contract Value.

Labor hours are showing with no dollar value.

The project has no rate template assigned, or the labor class used on the Daily Report is not present on the assigned template. Check the Craft Template field on Project Info first, since an unassigned template is the more common cause. See Set the Project Rate Template.

The budget changed after we started. Do I edit it?

Not by hand. Budget adjustments should flow through Change Order Requests so the original budget, the approved changes and the revised total all remain visible and auditable. Editing the original budget directly erases the record of what changed and why.