Job costing software for trades: labour, materials and margin on every job

What job costing means in ServiceCrown

Job costing connects the work recorded during a job with the revenue expected or invoiced from it. ServiceCrown groups direct cost into labour, materials and other costs, then compares the complete total with the job’s revenue. The resulting gross profit and margin belong to that job, so an owner can review which kinds of work are earning what they expected.

This is part of the same operational record used for jobs, scheduling and technician time and the quote-to-invoice workflow. The browser presents the server’s figures; it does not independently calculate or store a second version of the profit.

The figures behind each job

From recorded work to gross margin

1. Set technician cost ratesAn owner records the internal hourly cost for each technician. Rates are effective-dated, so completed time is valued using the rate that applied when the work happened rather than whichever rate is current today.
2. Record time on the jobA technician starts and stops the job timer from their portal, or the office adds or corrects a time entry. Completed minutes stay attached to the job and technician.
3. Record materials and direct costsMaterials can be entered as a quantity and unit cost. Other direct costs, such as a fee attributable to the job, are recorded separately. The server calculates stored totals.
4. Receive job materialsOn Pro and Business, a purchase order can be linked to a job. Receiving its lines creates material cost history on that job; a correction is recorded as a reversal rather than editing the receipt history.
5. Read revenue against costBefore invoicing, an agreed job price is identified as expected revenue. Once an invoice exists, invoiced revenue is used and identified with its invoice status.
6. Review profit and marginWhen revenue, labour, materials and other direct costs are all available, the job shows total cost, gross profit and gross margin. Every figure excludes GST.

Labour follows the time and the rate that applied

Technician time reaches the job through completed timer entries or office-entered timesheets. An owner maintains each technician’s internal hourly cost rate. When a rate changes, ServiceCrown keeps an effective date and uses the rate that covered each time entry, so an older job is not silently re-costed at today’s rate.

A running timer is called out as provisional because its labour will increase when it stops. Internal cost rates and job profitability are management information; the technician portal does not expose those figures.

If a technician has recorded time but no applicable cost rate, ServiceCrown does not describe that labour as free. Labour is marked unavailable, the missing technician can be identified, and gross profit and margin are withheld until the cost can be worked out. An incomplete total is labelled as incomplete rather than being presented as the full cost of the job.

Materials, other direct costs and purchase-order history

Materials recorded directly on a job carry a description, quantity and unit cost. Other direct costs are separate lines, which keeps a one-off fee from being confused with stock quantity. These records are job costs, not a general ledger or an inventory count.

Pro and Business also connect purchasing to costing. A purchase order names the supplier, the job and the materials ordered. When goods are received—in full, in part or across several deliveries—the receipt creates the corresponding material cost on the job. Receipt-created costs cannot simply be edited by hand. If a receipt was wrong, the supported correction records the reversal and replacement so the history remains reviewable.

ServiceCrown does not currently claim inventory management. It records suppliers, purchase orders, receiving and the costs attributable to jobs; it does not promise warehouse stock levels, reorder points or inventory valuation.

Expected revenue is not the same as invoiced revenue

When a job has an agreed price but has not yet been invoiced, the costing view identifies that amount as expected revenue. It is a working view of the potential result, not a claim that the customer has been billed or has paid. Once an invoice exists, revenue comes from the invoice and its status is shown.

Gross profit is revenue less the complete direct job cost. Gross margin expresses that gross profit as a percentage of revenue. ServiceCrown shows these only when the required revenue and cost components are available; a missing price or cost explains why the result cannot yet be shown.

Costing figures exclude GST

Every figure in the job-costing view excludes GST. That keeps labour, materials, other costs, revenue, gross profit and margin on the same basis. Customer invoices separately apply GST from the business settings when the business is GST-registered. The costing label is visible so an owner does not compare a GST-exclusive cost with a GST-inclusive customer total by mistake.

Per-job costing and date-range profitability reporting

The job view answers the immediate question: what did this job cost, what is its revenue, and is the result complete? The Profitability report provides the wider view across a selected date range. It lists jobs created in that period and can be filtered by status, customer and result, with revenue, cost, gross profit, margin and completeness for each row. The report can be exported as CSV.

The broader reporting area also separates invoiced revenue, payments received and outstanding invoices rather than treating them as one number. Its Purchasing report shows ordered value, received spend and open supplier commitments. These reports use the server’s stored and calculated figures rather than rebuilding financial totals in the browser.

Available on Pro and Business

Job costing, profitability, purchase orders, receiving and reporting are included on Pro and Business. Starter still records technician time, suppliers, materials and other direct job costs, but it does not include the costing and profitability view or those purchasing and reporting capabilities.

See current prices, the trial and exact limits on the pricing page.

The current Xero boundary

ServiceCrown can manually send a ServiceCrown invoice to Xero as a draft. The export is one-way and happens only when a user chooses it; Xero does not write costing data back and ServiceCrown remains the source of truth for its job, cost and invoice records. This is not automatic accounting synchronisation.

What this is not

ServiceCrown job costing is designed for direct operational profitability per job. It does not currently provide WIP accounting, project or stage accounting, budget-versus-actual stage costing, subcontractor accounting, construction progress claims, variations or retentions. It is not an inventory-management or general-ledger system, and a large construction project requiring those controls should not be represented as though it were a single ServiceCrown job.

For industry-specific examples, see job costing for small builders and property maintenance, electrical contractors, and HVAC and heat-pump businesses. See also how the AI assistant works with the operational record and the complete feature inventory.