Job costing in German is called Nachkalkulation – the calculation that comes after the site. That is its problem. Between the first day on site and the final invoice you write three new quotes – with the old prices. What the running site is teaching you right now is not in them yet. That is why Bautimer shows the result per position while the site is still running.
Three figures while the position is open
1. The result in the list. A site's list of services shows one figure per position at the end of the row: the result against the offered unit price, green from zero, red below. For a completed position with a final measurement that is the final figure; for an open position with a reported quantity it is the same calculation over the reported quantity, marked "preliminary". If no quantity has been reported yet, the row shows what share of the planned cost has been spent. The group heading adds up the results of its positions – marked "preliminary" as long as one of them is still open.
2. Cost so far. On the position sheet: "Cost so far €4,100.00 of €7,600.00 planned", as a bar, and underneath as a thinner line the quantity share – reported quantity over planned quantity. The two bars against each other are the real information: 54 % of the cost at 30 % of the quantity means the position is running away. The card then warns in amber that at this pace the planned cost will not be enough – the same rule as the hours warning. Planned cost is your cost base per unit times the planned quantity; spent is what the daily reports have booked onto the position in hours, machines and material.
3. The preliminary job costing. What used to appear only after completion with a final measurement, the position sheet now shows for an open position too: calculated and actual per unit, the comparison against the unit price, and below it the lines – labour minutes, each machine, each material – with quantity and euros on both sides. The divisor is the reported quantity instead of the final measurement, and the card is clearly marked "preliminary". If no quantity has been reported, the sheet shows only the totals next to the plan, without a deviation and without a verdict.
This applies to services with a quantity and a unit price; time-and-materials and lump-sum positions show only what can sensibly be calculated.
What is open stays open: nothing is adopted into the catalogue until the position is completed with a final measurement. A preliminary value over a half-reported quantity does not belong in the cost base of the next site.
After the measurement: into the catalogue
With completion the word "preliminary" disappears and the job costing becomes your next price: line by line you adopt the measured minutes per unit or the material quantity per unit into the service in your catalogue – visibly, with old and new value. For the labour minutes Bautimer divides out the site's difficulty factor, so that one site's narrow driveway does not become the standard for all of them. Minutes against minutes, not euros against euros: that is how "we were slower" separates from "the hourly rate went up".
An example
The Huber family's terrace from our homepage: €18,400 quoted, so far €11,797.50 labour (214.5 hours), €1,842 machines and €3,376.14 material – result plus €1,384.36. That is the figure per site. New is the line below it: which position earned the plus, which one nearly ate it? That is in the list now, on Tuesday of week two, not in March after the final invoice.
Only users with the analytics right see these figures – the crew sees their hours, not the euros. What else Bautimer does: feature overview.