Logging Bills against Orders for Job Reporting

[Note - this feature is only available in Pro subscription]

MyConstruct has a suite of reporting tools that allow you to track the cost of your jobs by comparing the Ordered values VS the Bills received and comparing them to the Contract, also allowing you to log overruns / additional bills for any extras that may arise along the way.

To create your reporting and P&L breakdowns, first you must learn how and where to log the bills as they come in. Easy! Let's get started.

1. To navigate to "My Bills" simply click on the "Estimates" option and then the sub menu "Manage Bills". This will take you to a table that shows all jobs which have Estimates assigned to them.

Jobs show in a table that has an overview of the Ordered value VS the Billed values, click view on the job you'd like to start logging bills for.

This will take you into the 'My Bills' screen for that job, from here you can start to log bills and generate the Job Cost Report once you have some data logged.

Logging Bills:

To log bills against an order, simply click on the "View / Log Bills" button to the right of the order in the upper section of "Manage Billed Orders". It's important to note that for best results the orders need a supplier set and to be marked as 'sent' - you can set the supplier in the estimate and send (or mark as sent) in manage orders.

This brings up the form to log your incoming bill against the ordered value.

From here you can select the items on the order that the supplier has invoiced for (using the checkboxes), and those costs / quantities can be adjusted if needed. MyConstruct will calculate the variance after you log the bills, which helps you track if the cost was less or more than allowed for (ordered value).

You can also attach the suppliers invoice (PDF) to refer back to later in the reporting.

(Optional) Additional options for Xero users: If you have connected MyConstruct to Xero - your bills will be sent across to Xero after logging them, there's also an option to create a Purchase Order in Xero from this screen too if enabled in Xero settings.

Logging Extra Costs:

For any additional costs and extra bills there's a section below called "Additional Bills" this allows you to log any extras on the job.

Simply click on "Log Additional" and fill in the details to add extra bills to the job. This works well for items that have been picked up from the local hardware store or weren't allowed for in the initial estimate.

Variations:

Whilst logging bills to generate the job cost report, you may require to add extra works to the project without going back and editing the Estimate, the best way to do this is to create a Variation, this will allow you to charge the client for additional works without disrupting the initial base quote and then log bills against this variation. The process of logging bills against a Variation is the same as logging 'Additional Bills'.

Staff Labour (Timesheets):

This section will pre-populate based on timesheets that staff have logged against this job. If you have already set a 'Contract Price' on the job and it's based on an Estimate, your staff will have the ability to log hours against Cost Centres to help you see clearly where the hours were logged. The table will display a list of staff and a count of hours they have assigned to this job.

Click on the "View / Log Bills" as in previous sections, you will see a list of tasks they have logged against the job. From here you can simply approve or decline the hours and they will go against the job for the labour component of the job cost report. You can also add in a bill number here if the staff are contracted or manually invoicing their labour for the work.

Total:

The final section is a running total of costs logged against this job.

Once you've got your Estimate and Orders in check and you've started logging Bills as they come in, you can do in-depth reporting including P&L via our Reporting tools tutorial, check out the link below. The 'Job Cost Report' can be accessed via the button in the upper right of the 'My Bills' page that we've been working in.

Check out the Tracking and Reporting tutorial here.