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Job Costing · M.02

Estimate vs actual. Live. Per truck roll.

Every install, every truck roll, every change order — actualized in real time and reconciled against the quote. The number that tells you whether the deal you closed actually made you money.

job.live · #JOB-22418 +12% HOURS · ALERT
Operator G · Charlotte campus · Day 3 of 4
+$840 over budget · 22.4% margin
Hours
+12%
Materials
−2%
CO signed
$1,200
Crew B · trenching delay
+2.3hr · soil
+$214
change order · panel upgrade
e-signed by AP @ 11:42
+$1,200
materials · all SKUs received
on truck
PASS
Live · the variance bar estimated vs actual · 12 jobs · 3 over · 2 under · live reconciliation
EST · 0% +50% EST −50% 12 JOBS · 9 IN-BAND · 3 OVER
▸ Vault deposit
What this guardrail produces
▸ 6 mo in vault → first tier unlocked
▸ Evidence
Estimated-vs-actual variance · gross-margin history · cost-input drift
▸ Tier unlocked
Tier 1 · banksTier 2 · infra debt
Guardrail rule: every job has both estimate and actual, paired and persisted — see /the-vault for the full underwriting fabric.
What it looks like

Live P&L. Variance attribution.

Cost capture as the work happens. Quote-to-actual analysis on every job. Margin leaks named, not guessed.

§ 01 · Live P&L

JB-0312 · 67% complete

Quoted $77,655 · forecast final $83,890
Labor+$3,740
Materials−$260
Overhead−$1,100
§ 02 · Quote vs actual

Pattern detection across jobs

Last 5 jobs · variance signature
+8%−3%+1%+6%−4%
§ 03 · Margin forensics

Top leaks · last 90d

Drill: crew · supplier · scope
Crew B-04 · install hrs−$84K
Supplier B1 · cost spike−$42K
HVAC · scope creep−$28K
The problem

Your estimate vs actual arrives 30 days late.

By the time finance reconciles a job, the crew has rolled to the next one and the lessons are gone. Job Costing closes that loop in real time.

Without Job Costing

Today's status quo

  • Crews log hours on paper or texts; payroll catches up two weeks later
  • Material take-offs vs actuals reconciled monthly, by exception
  • Change orders signed verbally in the field — invoiced (or not) months later
  • Profitable jobs and losers indistinguishable until quarter-end review
With Job Costing

What changes

  • Crew time, materials drawn, and equipment hours captured live in the field
  • Estimate-to-actual variance visible the day the work is done
  • Change orders e-signed at the truck, billed on Friday's invoice
  • Per-job, per-crew, per-customer profit attribution — drill from P&L to truck roll
Capabilities

What's inside.

The six capabilities that make this module work end-to-end. Pick any one as your starting point — they compound.

01

Field time capture

Crews clock in and out per job, per task, on the mobile app. Geofenced, photo-verified, syncs to payroll automatically.

Mobile · Time · Payroll
02

Material reconciliation

Materials drawn from inventory tagged to the job in real time. Variance vs estimate flagged immediately, not at month-end.

Inventory · Materials
03

Change order capture

Field crew submits a change order from the truck. Customer e-signs on the same device. Flows straight to billing.

Change · e-Sign · Bill
04

Equipment utilization

Bucket trucks, lifts, generators — utilization tracked per job. Idle equipment shows up as cost; over-utilized equipment shows up as risk.

Utilization · Assets
05

Live P&L per job

Every active job has a live P&L. Burn-down vs estimate, materials vs spec, hours vs SOW. Stop-the-job triggers when leakage exceeds threshold.

P&L · Burn · Live
06

Crew + customer cohorts

Profit by crew, by foreman, by customer, by job type. The hidden truth: which crews are 30% more profitable than the median.

Cohort · Profit · Drill
The autonomous loop

From quote to signed-off P&L.

Quote becomes the budget. Field captures actuals. Variance fires alerts in real time. Closeout is one click. Cost Engine learns from every job.

§ 01 · Budget

Quote → SOW

Closed quote becomes itemized job budget — hours, materials, equipment, subs.

Auto
§ 02 · Capture

Field actuals

Crew clocks in, materials draw, change orders e-sign — geofenced, photo-verified.

Realtime
§ 03 · Variance

Threshold alerts

Hours over by 15%? Materials over by $5K? Foreman + PM get pinged. Stop-the-job thresholds configurable.

< 5min
§ 04 · Closeout

P&L + invoice

Final P&L, change orders, photos, sign-offs — pack generates and flows to invoice.

1-click
Policy you can read

Stop-the-job thresholds.

Every job runs against a thresholds policy — hours, materials, equipment hours, change-order pace. When a threshold trips, the right people are pinged with the right context. No more 'we'll catch it at closeout.'

Thresholds inherit from the SOW template, customer tier, and crew tenure. Senior crews get longer leashes; new crews get tighter ones.

policy · job-thresholds.alm
# Job Costing · Stop-the-job Thresholds
when hours.actual / hours.budget > 1.15:
  alert  foreman, project_manager
  require "reason"

when materials.variance > $5,000:
  alert  project_manager, ops_director
  block_additional_draws = true

when change_orders.unsigned.age > 24h:
  alert  account_owner

when margin.live < 8%:
  stop_the_job
  escalate  ops_director, vp_ops

# Tenure-based override:
if crew.tenure < 6mo:
  thresholds ×= 0.75  # tighter
Where it lives

Field captures into the systems your back office runs.

Mobile

Native crew app

iOS + Android — geofenced clock-in, barcode draws, in-truck e-sign.

Payroll

Hours flow

ADP, Rippling, Workday — clocked hours hit payroll without re-entry.

ERP

Cost capture

NetSuite, SAP, QuickBooks — material draws and POs reconcile to the GL.

Billing

Change orders

Native or Zuora — signed COs invoice on Friday's run, not next month.

Real outcomes

"We used to find out a job lost money 45 days after the crew rolled. Now we know on day three — and we course-correct. Two crews caught a soil issue live last month and saved a $14K loss."

James Holter VP Field Ops · Operator D
+12ppAvg margin lift
0 daysE2A lag
−58%Truck-roll rework
Operator D · install in progress 1,200 active jobs / week
See it on your data

Run it on a real install.

Pick a job that's about to start. We'll wire up Job Costing, run it live, and walk you through the variance feed in real time as the crew works.