Job Costing
Construction Job Costing That Catches the Bleeder Mid-Project
Real-time estimate vs. actual on every project. Labor, materials, bills, and sub costs tied to the same projects you estimated, scheduled, and invoiced.
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Real-time profitability
Estimate vs. actual updates the moment any cost is recorded
Mid-project alerts
See the bleeder before the close-out call, not in tax prep
Per-line costing
Optional line-tagging on time entries for true line-level margin
See it in action
One report, every project, ranked by what's losing money
Sort by margin %. Filter by stage / customer / PM / date. The 8% project rises above the 32% project. You intervene before the close-out call.
Profitability · 12 active projects
YTDContract value
$842,114
Actual cost
$613,720
Gross profit
$228,394
Avg margin
27.1%
Reyes Bath Remodel
K. Reyes
Hughes Re-Roof
G. Hughes
Walker Re-Roof
S. Walker
Patel Kitchen Remodel
A. Patel
Tate Roof Repair
M. Tate
Reyes Bath Remodel — margin 8.1%, target 28%
Labor +$2,800 over estimate. 60% complete. Click through to see which lines exceeded their cost target.
The whole job-costing workflow
Profitability you can act on, not just report on
Every pain below comes from contractors discovering loss-making projects too late. Each maps to a specific Breche feature.
The pain
End-of-year tax prep is the first time you find out a project lost money.
What Breche does
Profitability is a real-time report, not a year-end discovery. Every approved time entry, expense, bill, and subcontractor invoice flows into the project's actual cost the moment it's recorded. The Profitability report shows estimate vs. actual side-by-side with gross profit and gross margin %.
The pain
Job costing lives in QuickBooks; the estimate lives in your CRM; nothing reconciles.
What Breche does
Estimates, time entries, expenses, bills, and sub invoices all live in Breche tied to the same project. The contract value (estimates + service contracts + change orders) and actual costs are calculated from the same source data. There is no reconciliation step because there's no separate ledger to reconcile against.
The pain
Labor cost is a guess because nobody tracks hours per estimate line.
What Breche does
Field users picking the estimate line they're working on at clock-in is supported on the mobile app. Their entry's labor cost rolls up to that line. Untagged entries roll up to the project level. You can run the line-tagging requirement loose (project-level only) or strict (require a line) per tenant.
The pain
Subcontractor spend disappears into vendor bills nobody links to a project.
What Breche does
Vendor bills attach to a project AND a vendor. Subcontractor totals roll up into the project's actual cost so profitability accounts for sub spend, not just internal labor + materials. Bid requests close into bills with the project tie pre-set, so the link is automatic for work you bid out.
The pain
Gross-margin variance is buried — you can't tell which projects are bleeding.
What Breche does
Profitability report defaults to all projects, sortable by margin %. Filter by stage, customer, project manager, date range. The project losing 12 points of margin surfaces above the project running on plan — you intervene mid-job, not in tax prep.
The pain
Comparing trade profitability across a year is a multi-day spreadsheet exercise.
What Breche does
Closed Projects report aggregates by month / quarter / year with average margin per trade. Twelve months of roofing vs. twelve months of remodeling is a click — surfacing which trade is actually profitable for your shop, not just busy.
Features
Eight pieces of a true job-costing stack
Estimate vs. actual on every project
Approved contract value (estimates + service contracts + change orders) compared to actual costs (labor + expenses + bills + subs) — gross profit, gross margin %, variance. The single most important number in construction, on screen.
Per-line labor tagging
Field users pick the estimate line they're working on at mobile clock-in (optional or required, per tenant). Approved time entries × labor rate roll into actual labor cost at the line you choose.
Quick Expense + receipt capture
One-tap expense logging with photo upload, project tie, vendor, and category. Receipts attach to the project's documents library AND to the expense itself for audit trail.
Vendor bills + partial payments
Bills tab tracks unpaid balances per vendor and per project. Partial payments roll up; 'paid in full' status locks bills from edit once paid through the accounting platform.
Subcontractor cost roll-up
Sub bills tied to a project flow into the project's actual cost. Bid-request flow closes into bills with the project tie pre-set, so subs invoiced via Breche are automatically costed correctly.
Profitability report with filters
All projects with newest first. Filter by stage, customer, project manager, date range. Sortable columns for contract value, actual cost, gross profit, and gross margin % so the bleeders rise to the top.
Margin-loss alerts (visible)
Projects whose actual cost exceeds 80%+ of contract while the work is still open visibly flag in the Profitability report. You see the problem before the close-out call, not after.
Closed-project trend reports
Aggregate closed projects by month, quarter, year. Compare trades, customer types, project sizes — the strategic picture, not just the per-job snapshot. Drives next year's GTM concentration.
FAQ
Job Costing FAQ
Common questions about Breche's profitability + cost tracking.