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The Job Costing module can be used to keep track of expenditure that has gone into performing a job for a customer. Jobs can be divided into milestones.


Expenditure can be both inventory and service in nature, and include your own services/inventory and those of suppliers. The Job Costing module can be used to accumulate this expenditure and produce an invoice for the customer adding a margin if required. 


NOTE: Job costing is part of the Advanced Manufacturing module, which requires an add-on to your base subscription. Add the Advanced Manufacturing model from the My subscription page. Users whose subscription dates from before 1 September 2023 will continue to have the same level of access to job costing as they previously held. 


Prerequisites

  • Subscribe to the Advanced Manufacturing module
  • Familiarity with Processing a Purchase (necessary)
  • Familiarity with Processing a Sale (necessary)
  • Set up Accounts – including an expense account for Jobs performed (necessary)
  • Users will need the Production: Jobs List & Tasks permission in order to use this feature. 


Table of Contents

  1. Create a new Job
  2. Add Expenses to a Job
  3. Invoicing a Job
  4. Print job costing documents


Creating a New Job

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New Jobs are created from the production module. You will need to add an expense account for jobs performed to your Chart of Accounts before creating a new job. 


Fill in the job details

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The first step is to create a new job entry and enter the job details into the document header. 

  1. Navigate to Production → New → Job.
  2. Enter a Job Description and a Customer. The customer details will be filled in automatically from their record but can be edited here if required. 
  3. Choose the jobs performed Account and select a Tax Rule
    • NOTE: Once an expense account is selected, a sub-account for this job will be automatically created.
  4. Enter a Start Date and Completed Date (optional).
  5. Select the Job Status. Available options are Prospect, In Progress, Completed and Cancelled.
    •  NOTE: If the job is kept in Prospect, you will not be able to accumulate any expenses against the sub-account.
  6. Enter the Estimated Value of the job (optional) and the Budgeted Margin % to be added onto the expenses when invoicing your customer.
  7. Save your job to continue.


Set job milestones

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Once you've completed the job header, you can move on to creating milestones, which will be used to invoice the client.

  1. In the selected job, go to the Milestones tab.
  2. Use + or Add more items to add milestones to the job.
  3. For each milestone, add a Description, Comments (optional), Estimated Date and Actual Date (optional), and Status.
  4. Save the job to begin assigning expenses to it.


Assign Expenses to a Job

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Once a job and job milestones have been created, expenses can be assigned to it. Expenses can be assigned either to the whole job or to a single milestone.


NOTE: Each expense can only be assigned to a single job. E.g. It is not possible to select different job accounts for purchase order lines.


Expenses can include those ordered from your own suppliers or those directly from your inventory. The margin specified in the document header will be added to these expenses when invoicing the client. 


Expenses ordered from suppliers

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The purchase module is used to assign inventory and labour expenses outsourced from a supplier to a job.


Assign supplier expenses to a job:

  1. On the job screen, click New expense → Purchase. Alternatively, navigate to Purchase → New → Purchase.
  2. A pop up window will appear, where you can choose to assign the expense to a milestone or select all milestones to assign the expense to the whole job. The milestone can be re-selected from the document header if required.
  3. Fill in the purchase order document header as usual (see Processing a Purchase for more info).
  4. IMPORTANT: In the Inventory Account dropdown field, make sure to pick the inventory sub-account related to the specific job. If the expense has been created from the job screen, the inventory sub-account will be automatically assigned.
  5. Add products and services to the Purchase order as usual (see Processing a Purchase for more info).
  6. Authorise the purchase order as usual. Confirm the write off of the inventory during invoice. Once the stock has been received, the customer can be invoiced (see below).


Expenses ordered from your own inventory

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The Inventory Write-off/Expense Allocation function can be used to assign product and service expenses from your own inventory adding a margin for the client. To invoice the client directly for labour/services without adding a margin to expenses, see Create a direct invoice for labour/services


Assign expenses ordered from your own inventory:

  1. Click New Expense → Inventory write-off/Expense allocation or navigate to Production → New → Inventory write-off/Expense allocation.
  2. A pop up window will appear, where you can choose to allocate the expense to the whole job, or to a single milestone. The milestone can be re-selected from the document header if required.
  3. Enter the Location of the Products and make sure to select the Expense Account associated with the job (this is the debit account). The milestone can be re-selected from the document header if required. 
  4. Use + or Add more items to add product or service expenses related to the job. Specify the Expense account (credit account).
  5. Click Complete to finish and enable invoicing the customer.
  6. Debit and credit transactions for the write-off can be viewed from the Transactions tab.


Assembly Costs

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Assembly cost expenses can be added from the job screen or via the Production module. 


Assign expenses from assembly costs:

  1. Click New Expense → Assembly or navigate to Production → New → Assembly.
  2. A pop up window will appear, where you can choose assign the expense to the whole job, or to a single milestone. The milestone can be re-selected from the document header if required.
  3. Enter the Location of the Products and make sure to select the Expense Account associated with the job. 
  4. Fill out assembly details as usual. See Finished Goods Assembly for more information if required. The milestone can be re-selected from the document header if required. 
  5. Click Complete to finish and enable invoicing the customer.


Invoicing a customer

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You can generate invoices for a Job from the expenses that have been assigned to it, or invoice the client directly for labour and services.


Each sale invoice can only contain expenses from a single job. It is not possible to add several jobs to one sales invoice. For cases where you do many jobs for one customer, we recommend to use multiple milestones for a single job instead to facilitate invoicing and auto-invoicing.


Before invoicing a customer:

  • Expenses must be assigned to the correct job sub-account.
  • Purchase orders must be authorised with stock received.
  • Inventory write-offs must be completed.


Generate a new invoice from expenses

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All expenses that have been already assigned to the job will be visible on the Job Details screen. 


Generate job invoices for a customer:

  1. Navigate to Production → Jobs → View All.
  2. Select the job to invoice.
  3. Go to the Generate a new invoice for expenses tab.
  4. Select the Milestone you wish to invoice for from the dropdown menu.
  5. Check the boxes next to all the invoices you wish to generate for that milestone and click Generate. You can generate partial invoices for each milestone, or one invoice that incorporates all the expenses.
  6. You will be notified that a sale invoice has been created for this job. 
  7. An invoice will have been generated with all of the expenses for the job, separated by milestone, plus the margin specified in the job document header. Authorise the invoice and process the sale as usual (see Processing a Sale for more information). Generated invoices can be viewed from the Invoiced tab.


Create a direct invoice for labour/services

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You may wish to invoice your client manually for labour/services, without having the final total be calculated from expenses and specified margin. This is done using a service sale initiated from the Job Details screen. 


Invoice labour/services directly:

  1. Click New Quote or navigate to Sale → New → Service Sale.
  2. Enter the job client details into the document header. If the quote was triggered form the job details screen, these details will be automatically filled in. 
  3. Add labour/service items to the sale. See Service Sale for more information. 
  4. Authorise the service sale invoice. It will then be visible on the Invoiced tab of the Job.


Link expenses to an existing invoice

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You may have expenses assigned to a job which are already covered by a previous invoice. These can be linked to an existing invoice generated for the job or for a milestone.


NOTE: This function merely creates a logical link to ensure accounting transactions are correct. Linking expenses to an existing invoice does not add lines to the invoice.


Link expenses to an existing invoice:

  1. On the Job Details screen, go to the Link expenses to an existing invoice tab. 
  2. Select a Milestone, and choose the Sales Invoice you wish to link the expenses to from the dropdown list. 
  3. Check the box next to the relevant expenses and click Link
  4. The linked expenses vanish from the job details screen, and the logical link is created.


Auto-invoicing

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Rather than manually invoicing every expense, DEAR also gives you the option to automatically generate invoices for a job at regular intervals. Automatically generated invoices will still have to be authorised as usual. Invoices are generated only when milestone is In Progress status.


Automatically generated invoices for the interval will contain all expenses which have not yet been linked to an invoice, whether the expense has been assigned to a milestone or not. One invoice for expenses will be generated and assigned to the first milestone, even if some of them are assigned to other milestones.


Set up auto-invoicing: 

  1. Select the job you wish to set up auto-invoicing for.

  2. In the document header, check the Auto Invoice box. This allows you to also pick an Invoice Date and Invoice Frequency.

  3. Save the Job to finish.



Print job costing documents

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There are two available job costing documents in DEAR. Use Print and select Job Costing Planned Expenses or Job Costing Actual Expenses to print documents or save them as a PDF.


The Job Costing Planned Expenses document pulls expense data for Authorised Assembly Orders added to a Job milestone. Once an Assembly task is completed, it will not be able to print as data is pushed to Job Actual Expenses


Job Costing Actual Expenses shows all expenses that have been invoiced for a job:

  • Purchases with stock received
  • Completed Inventory Write-Off
  • Completed Assembly Order


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