Track Jobs to Make More Money

By Sara Smith, Job Nimbus.

Would you run your company without the necessary data to ensure its success?

In today’s world, it would be impossible to run a company successfully without knowing job costs, labor hours and time restraints. By not accounting for job costs, contractors would not know how well a job was done, how fast it was done, or how much money went towards the project.

Working blindly certainly isn’t a cost-effective or advantageous strategy. Instead, by using a CRM like JobNimbus, you can keep track and update all of your job costs to make more money. Job cost information also helps managers make decisions by allowing them to review what strategies work and adjust areas that need improvement.

Keep accurate and updated job cost reports

A great way to start your construction job cost tracking report is by putting your budget and your actual costs into JobNimbus. You can create a spreadsheet and divide it into columns including Cost Code, Trade Description, Contract Budget, Committed Subcontracts, Non-Committed Cost to Date, Estimated Cost to Complete, Estimated Final Cost and Estimated Variance. JobNimbus lets you update and keep accurate job costs from the start to the end of a construction project.

When tracking your construction job costs, you would first analyze your bid estimate, then begin planning monthly updates, including any approved changes for the project budget. Then you would track committed subcontracts, which are firm costs that are not subject to change. Non-committed costs like labor, equipment and materials should also be tracked as the project proceeds.

Project managers would then determine how much more money, if any, is needed for non-committed costs to complete the project. This estimate would be placed into the spreadsheet under Estimated Cost to Complete, and then the Estimated Final Cost would be calculated. After adding up the Estimated Variance entries, you would finally be able to tell if you went over or under your initial budget.

Regularly track and share your data

Companies that track their job costs are essentially gaining the knowledge they need to accomplish their goals. Without knowing the results of a project, there would be no way in knowing how to improve and no incentive to work harder or faster.

For the best results, your company should regularly record job costs on a weekly basis and share them with your contractors. This will provide the information everyone needs to know and show whether production strategies need to shift in order to reach your goal.

By taking the time to determine all the actual and estimated costs for each project, you can understand how each project is performing and motivate your crew to keep focused on getting results. This process also tells if a project is staying on the right timeline and if you are keeping within your budget. If not, it’s not too late to assess what adjustments need to be made so that you make money rather than lose money.

Job cost updates do not take much time to do. It should only take a few minutes per project to finish. Especially with the help of project management software like JobNimbus, this process is a simple, accessible and effective way for professionals to keep track of job costs and earn money. A few minutes out of your day can save you thousands of dollars on every project.

Try a free trial with JobNimbus to start tracking your job costs and set your team up for success.

Source: JobNimbus