Job costs and supplier bills
Page: a job's Job Costs page
Job Costs is one job's money out, trade by trade: what it was meant to cost (the budget, one line per estimate section), what you have committed (issued purchase orders), what it has actually cost (cost entries — mostly supplier and subcontractor bills, plus labour and other costs) and the forecast at completion. The page has tabs for Budget Lines, Cost Entries, Purchase Orders, Subcontractor Claims, By Cost Type, By Cost Code, Schedule of Values and CVR. It is for the project manager and whoever approves bills.
- The Job Costs module must be on (Settings → Team modules).
- The job needs a budget. With the award automation turned on, Base builds it from the approved estimate when the job is won; otherwise press Create from Estimate on the Budget Lines tab.
- Cost codes exist. They are seeded for every business; see Cost codes.
- Approving a bill needs the approve-costs permission; recording one needs the edit-costs permission; closing a month or moving budget needs the set-forecasts permission. The page tells you when you lack one rather than showing a button that fails.
- On Budget Lines, press Create from Estimate. If the job already has lines, a dialog explains that they will be replaced and that figures you edited by hand are lost; cost entries and purchase orders linked to the old lines move to the new line for the same section or trade, and any with no match are unlinked.
- Press Replace N lines to go ahead, or Reconcile instead (set-forecasts permission) to keep every line, bill and order where it is and have Base propose one logged adjustment per difference for you to approve or reject line by line.
Add a line by hand with Add Trade. Analyse with AI asks Base to read the budget against your past jobs.
- On Cost Entries, press Add Bill / Cost.
- Pick the Order the bill pays, or "No order — standalone cost". If the amount is more than the order has left, the form warns that it will be flagged over its order.
- Pick the Budget Line (or "No trade — outside every trade figure"), the Type, the Supplier, a Description, the Amount (ex GST) and the GST on the invoice as the invoice states it. Left blank, the GST is assumed at 10% for the life of the row.
- Press Add. The cost counts toward the job immediately. If you hold the approve-costs permission it is approved as you save it and the next payment run can select it; otherwise it counts against the job but is Not payable until someone who can approve ticks it. A bill that matches its order, its delivery and your policy limit approves itself as it lands, and the page says so.
Bills pulled from Xero, read off an emailed invoice, or added from a scanned receipt arrive Awaiting review. They are not counted in Actual yet. A banner at the top of Cost Entries says how many wait and for how much.
- Filter to Awaiting review (or press the banner).
- Tick the approve box on a row to put the cost on the job and make it payable. Or press Approve all N to approve the queue in one go; it stops at the first bill that fails and says which.
- The same tick, unticked, takes a bill back out of actuals.
Approving from Money → Decide runs exactly this tick, as you.
A machine-read bill that would take its purchase order past its value is Held. It is never approved on its own. The Held banner names each one with the order and the amount over. Vary the order (or move the bill to the right order), then approve it. Every held and unmatched bill across all jobs is also on Procurement → Pending review.
The Cost Entries tab carries a badge when Base has suggestions from this job's orders: goods receipted with no bill, an order marked completed with nothing posted, a certified subcontractor claim with no cost entry, a bill on the job that pays an order nobody linked it to, an order on no budget line. Each suggestion says why, in facts that were read, with one button beside it; Edit first opens the ordinary add form with the draft in it. Nothing is written without a person pressing something, and a recorded cost is not approved by this panel.
On Budget Lines or CVR, press Close month (set-forecasts permission). Pick the Month, read the Movement since the last close for each line, add a note, and confirm. Every line is frozen at the cut-off and each forecast's movement is recorded with a reason for every reduction. The CVR tab shows the closed months.
The chips above the table: All, Not payable (counted against the job but no payment run can pick it up until approved), Awaiting review (machine-read, counts toward nothing until approved), Held, Approved (approved and unpaid — what the next payment run can select), Paid, and No trade (on the job, on no budget line — outside every trade figure).
- Approving a bill recomputes the budget line's actual and forecast. The bill is then pushed to Xero as a bill within a day, on the cost code's account with the job's tracking option.
- A bill links to its order when Base can say so without guessing — the PO number is on the bill, or the supplier has one open order on the job, or one order with room for the amount. Once linked, the order's invoiced and remaining figures move on the Purchase Orders tab.
- A bill approves itself only under the three-way match: it fits what its order has left, is from the order's supplier, the delivery is recorded and it is under the limit set on Settings → Finance → Automation. The basis is recorded as a three-way match, nobody's tick. An over-invoiced or unmatched bill never does.
- A new machine-read bill is announced to the reviewer in the inbox.
- Amounts are ex GST everywhere on this page. A $1,100 invoice with GST is a $1,000 cost. The GST you type on the invoice is kept beside it.
- Committed cost comes from issued purchase orders. A draft order is not a commitment and does not move the number.
- A cost you typed yourself counts at once but may not be payable. The Not payable chip is the tell; someone with the approve permission has to tick it before a payment run will pay it.
- Replacing the budget from the estimate loses hand-edited figures. Reconcile instead keeps them and proposes the differences.
- A bill on no budget line is outside every trade figure. It is on the job and nowhere else until you give it a line.