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Estimated vs. Actual Cost
The purpose of this inquiry is to display the total costs to-date of a selected job, and to provide you with an analysis of those costs compared to the estimates you have entered into your system.
The first step is to select which job you want to view and what time period you want to cover in your inquiry.
Sort By: Click on either Name or Number to specific how you want your projects and jobs sorted. Name sorts alphabetically by descriptions you have defined, number by the numeric code you have defined.
Project: Listed here will be all of the projects that have been setup in your system. Select the project that you want to display.
Job: Listed here will be all of the jobs that have been setup in your system for the project you have selected. Select the job you want to display.
Phase: Listed here will be all of the cost codes that have been setup in your system for the project you have selected. Select the cost code you want to display.
Task: Listed here will be all of the tasks that have been setup in your system for the project you have selected. Select the task you want to display.
Once you have selected the job cost number you want to display, press the Find Selected Job button.
Hint: Remember, the hierarchy you have defined in your system for your projects, jobs and cost codes will affect your reports. For example, when you select a project that consists of more than one job, the job tab will display all of those jobs you have setup as belonging to that project. Likewise, for any job that has been defined as consisting of more than one cost code, all cost codes applicable for that job will be displayed under the cost code tab. You then can thus select and de-select (move back and forth between the left hand side and the right hand side) those projects, jobs and/or cost codes you do or do not want to include in your reports. This flexible approach allows you to create any number of combinations of reports as desired.
Begin Date: Enter the first date you want to include accounting and job cost transactions that have been entered into your system. This is typically a date that starts a fiscal period in your business.
End Date: Enter the last date for which you want to include accounting and job cost transactions on your reports. The default date the system will automatically select for you is today's system date on your computer. For fiscal period-end reports, set this date to the last date in the range of fiscal periods you want your inquiry to cover.
The basic format of the job cost summary report is to provide you with a comparison of estimates vs. actual job-to-date costs for all types of costs tracked in your system. Those include the following: labor hours, labor dollars, other payroll (vacation pay, sick pay, etc.), material, sub contractor costs, equipment, other accounts payable expense and committed purchase orders.
Specifically, the first column contains the estimates you have entered previously into the job cost master records in your system for your job. If you have created a job cost master record that provides for estimates down to the cost code level of detail, those estimates will be available and printed under the estimates column. The system "rolls up" your cost code level estimates into the estimates for a job. The burden and overheads applied are those you have defined on the job cost master record(s) you have setup in your system. If your reports are missing estimates or labor and overhead burdens you will need to define those in appropriate job cost master records.
The second column prints the actual job-to-date costs (make sure you are synchronized with the date range you specified in the report setup) for all types of costs contained in your system.
The third column provides you with a calculation of the actual job-to-date cost expressed as a percentage of the estimate you have made and entered into your system at this level of detail.
The heading information at the top of the page provides you with the name of the customer, the name of the project, the name of the job you have selected during setup. Also displayed are contract, change order, billed to date and retainage to date amounts.