The job you discovered was unprofitable in hindsight
You know the revenue per job. You're estimating the cost.
Labour, materials, subcontract and overhead attributed to the job that incurred them — rebuilt so margin is visible while the work is still running, not at year end.
You will recognise at least three of these.
- Revenue is tracked per job; cost is tracked per month, per department, or per supplier.
- Labour cost is allocated by a percentage, or by an estimate of hours.
- Materials are booked to a cost centre rather than to the job that used them.
- Job profitability is calculated occasionally, by hand, for the jobs someone suspects.
- Overhead recovery is a rate set annually and never revisited.
Signals it is costing more than anyone has measured.
- You can name your best customer by revenue but not by margin.
- Certain job types feel unprofitable and nobody has proven it either way.
- Estimators have no feedback loop, so the same jobs get underpriced repeatedly.
- Variations and extras get done and sometimes never get billed.
- Year-end reveals a margin figure nobody predicted in either direction.
What it becomes.
Cost gets attributed at the point it is incurred rather than reconstructed later. Time is captured against a job, materials are issued to a job, subcontractor invoices are coded to a job, and overhead is applied by a rule you can defend. That gives you live margin per job, per type, per customer and per crew — while the work is still running, which is the only time the information can change anything. The estimate-versus-actual comparison is the part that compounds: it feeds the next quote, so pricing improves from evidence rather than from argument. And uncaptured variations stop leaking, because a change on site raises a variation record instead of a verbal agreement.
What the system does
- Live cost capture against the job — labour, materials, subcontract, plant
- Defensible overhead application rather than a blanket annual percentage
- Margin by job, job type, customer, crew and region, available during the work
- Estimate-versus-actual feedback into future quoting
- Variation capture on site, so extras get billed
What it connects to
- Time capture and payroll, for real labour cost
- Inventory and purchasing, so materials land on the right job
- Quoting, closing the loop between what you priced and what it cost
- Accounting, so job margin reconciles to the P&L rather than contradicting it
It augments the systems of record you already run. Nobody is asking you to replace your accounting package.
Where we would start, and how long it takes.
Live job costing for one job type, including labour and materials, in one to two weeks. The first month of data usually reorders people's beliefs about which work is worth having.
Others in finance
The month-end that eats a week
“You close the books accurately. It just takes until the 12th.”
Time capture & payroll prepThe timesheet that arrives as a photo of a piece of paper
“Payroll week is a manual reconciliation exercise, every week.”
Recurring & usage billingThe recurring invoice somebody remembers to raise
“Revenue that depends on a person remembering is revenue you will eventually lose.”
Let's build
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