Manage Budget Adjustments and Track Cost Commitments

User Personas: Project Manager | Field User

Once a project is configured for job cost reporting, the budget only stays meaningful if the work gets documented as it happens. Change orders, crew labor and purchases are the three things that move a job away from its original estimate, and each reaches the budget by a different route.

This article explains those three routes and the specific steps that determine whether cost lands in your reports. Each tool has its own full article, linked from its section.

To perform the actions described in this article, you must have the appropriate permissions for each tool. See the Permissions table at the end of this article.

Use the links below to jump to a topic:

• How Cost Reaches the Budget
• Budget Adjustments through Change Order Requests
  • Use Cost Codes on COR Line Items
  • Approve a COR
• Track Crew Labor Hours and Costs
  • Enable the Crew Tab for Daily Reports
  • Track Crew Labor on a Daily Report
• Track Purchases and Other Cost Commitments
  • Add Cost Commitments through a Purchase Order
• If the Numbers Look Wrong
• Permissions
• FAQ
  • Why is my change order not showing on the budget?
  • Why are crew hours showing with no labor cost?
  • Can a Purchase Order track something other than materials?

How Cost Reaches the Budget

If the budget itself is not set up yet, start with Project Budget Setup.

The same rule governs all three routes: a line item without a Cost Code still records the money, but it cannot be attributed to a part of the job, so it adds nothing to job cost reporting.  Selecting a Cost Code is optional in the interface and effectively mandatory in practice.

Budget Adjustments through Change Order Requests

User Personas: Project Manager

Change Order Requests track and manage changes to project scope. The COR log shows what is outstanding, which is how you keep approvals moving and stop changes stalling the job, and it is the only route by which the project budget itself is adjusted.

For the full tool, see Change Order Requests.

Build the project budget once, when the project is first created, and then leave it alone.  Every budget change after that is better made through a Change Order Request using the COR Type of Budget Adjustment. Include adjustments with zero quantity or zero dollars even with zero additional revenue, such as rebalancing between cost codes as the work progresses.  Editing the budget directly overwrites your original estimate and leaves no record of what changed, when, or why. Routing changes through CORs keeps the original estimate intact and gives you an auditable trail of every adjustment.

Use Cost Codes on COR Line Items

Using Cost Codes on COR line items is optional and strongly recommended, because it is what gives the change order any presence in project reporting. When building the COR, use the Worksheet tab to add line items under the cost category you want, and set the Cost Code field on each line item.

Approve a COR

A COR does not reflect on the project budget until it is Approved and the Approved Amount is recorded. While creating or editing a COR:

1. Select the General Info tab, then select Approved in the Status field
2. Enter the Date Approved and Approved Amount, and the Approval No. if desired
3. Select Save

Approved status and an Approved Amount go together. A COR marked Approved with the amount left blank is the most common reason a change order that everyone agreed to never appears on the budget.

Track Crew Labor Hours and Costs

User Personas: Project Manager | Field User

Daily Reports track progress on the job site, and the data they collect populates reports and widgets elsewhere in eSUB Fusion. That is the useful part of the arrangement: the reporting comes out of a tool the field already fills in every day rather than out of a separate exercise.

Daily Reports cover weather, Keywords, foreman commentary, images from the field and crew labor. For the full tool, see Daily Reports.

Enable the Crew Tab for Daily Reports

The Crew tab documents the labor hours and shift information of your crew, and those hours can also populate a time card in Time Management. The tab must be enabled before any of that happens, under Company Settings, then Daily Reports. See Company Settings.

Track Crew Labor on a Daily Report

Missing labor commitments or labor dollars after entering a Daily Report with timecards? Ensure you have Labor Classes Assigned to your Crew Members and Labor Templates assigned to your Projects! The usual cause is a missing Labor Class or Rate Template. Blank values in the Labor Class field on the Crew tab of a Daily Report, or in the Timecard Management log, are the first tell. If no Labor Class or Rate Template was assigned when the Daily Reports were entered, the Job Cost Report will not show any committed labor dollars. To correct it: Assign a Labor Class to every Crew Member and a Rate Template to each affected project. In Timecard Preferences, enable Labor Class Override. Open each affected past Daily Report, go to the Crew tab, select the employee, and use the Labor Class drop-down menu to set the correct Labor Class. Save the Daily Report. The Job Cost Report may take a few minutes to reflect the change.

While creating or editing the Daily Report:

1. Select the Crew tab, then select Add Crew
2. Select the desired crew members
3. Enter the Cost Codes and Hours for the crew
4. Select Add Cost Code to add another, or the delete icon to remove one
5. Select Done

Hours alone do not become cost. If you are recording labor on Daily Reports but seeing no labor cost commitments in your reports, the project's labor rate template is not configured. See Set Up Your Project for Job Cost Reporting.

Track Purchases and Other Cost Commitments

User Personas: Project Manager | Field User

Purchase Orders authorize purchase transactions between a buyer and a vendor, and track material commitments, vendor correspondence, PO statuses, shipments and invoice totals against what was ordered as items are received.

For the full tool, see Purchase Orders. For the field-purchase workflow specifically, see Tracking Field Purchases with a Purchase Order.

Add Cost Commitments through a Purchase Order

The PO tool is mainly for material purchases, but it can carry other expense types too, and they appear as committed costs in job cost reports. On each line item, use the Cost Code field to select the code under the cost category that best matches the expense.

While creating or editing a PO:

1. Select the PO Lines tab
2. Use the input fields at the top of the page to build the line item, then select Add PO Line
3. Repeat for additional line items
4. Select Save

If the Numbers Look Wrong

Permissions

FAQ

Why is my change order not showing on the budget?

A COR only adjusts the budget once it is in Approved status and an Approved Amount has been recorded. Both are required. See Approve a COR.

Why are crew hours showing with no labor cost?

Hours become cost only when the project has a labor rate template configured. See Set Up Your Project for Job Cost Reporting.

Can a Purchase Order track something other than materials?

Yes. The PO tool is mainly used for materials but accepts other expense types, and they appear as committed costs in job cost reports. Select the Cost Code under whichever cost category best matches the expense. See Add Cost Commitments through a Purchase Order.