Construction budget management software: seeing the overspend in week three
- Work order total
- $863.16
- Labour
- $510
- Parts, marked up
- $288
Every figure on this page is computed from the inputs entered, by the method stated below it. Jobcardo publishes no tax rate, no wage figure and no trade standard: the rate, the markup and the tax on the parts line are yours, and the defaults are a worked example to replace with your own figures.
A construction budget is only useful while it is being compared to something. The budget line says what the kitchen was supposed to cost; the tracker says what has been committed to it in purchase orders, what has been invoiced against it, and what is still to come. Construction budget management software is the thing that keeps those three columns beside each other in real time, so the overspend is visible in week three rather than discovered when the last subcontractor invoices in week eleven.
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Construction project cost tracking: budget, committed, actual on one line
Every cost line carries the budgeted figure, the value committed by order or subcontract, and the value actually invoiced. Construction project cost tracking is nothing more complicated than keeping those three in step, and nothing less useful than a spreadsheet that only ever holds the first one.
Construction cost tracking starts the day you place the order
A budget blows up between the phone call and the invoice. Recording the commitment at the moment the subcontractor is instructed, rather than when the bill arrives, is what turns construction cost tracking from history into a forecast. The projected outturn is then budget less committed plus what is still to buy.
Make every change move the construction cost tracker
Changes are where small builders lose the thread, because the price is agreed on site and the budget is updated at the weekend, if at all. A construction cost tracker that lets a signed change raise the budget line and the projected outturn at the same moment is the difference between a live number and a monthly guess.
Construction budget management software: common questions
What is the difference between committed and actual cost? Committed is money you have promised: orders placed, subcontracts let, materials scheduled. Actual is money invoiced to you. The gap between them is the part of the job that has already happened commercially and has not yet reached your accounts, and it is the part that ruins a budget you only ever check against invoices.
How often should a small builder update the tracker? On the day something is committed or something changes, not on a schedule. A weekly update is better than a monthly one, but a tracker that only moves when someone remembers it is always behind exactly when the number matters most.
Do I need separate software, or will a spreadsheet do? A spreadsheet does the arithmetic and fails at the audit trail. One person, one job at a time, and a spreadsheet is fine. Two people, changes agreed on site, and a tracker shared with the office, and the questions become who changed this line and when, which a spreadsheet cannot answer.
Jobcardo Pro
Keeping what you raise
The worksheets are free forever. Pro turns them into the record: every order you raise kept against the customer with its status from raised to done to invoiced, every change dated, your company name and logo on the sheet, no watermark, and an export when the bookkeeper asks.
- Download as PDF
- No Jobcardo watermark
- Save every work order and sales order and reopen it later
- Your business name and logo on the sheet
- Export every order and worksheet in one go
- Job-done and balance-due reminders emailed to your customers
- Connect your own Stripe account and get paid online
- Connect your QuickBooks Online or Xero
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