Guides / Job Costing for Contractors: See the Real Profit on Every Job
Job Costing for Contractors: See the Real Profit on Every Job
Updated 2026-10-08
Billed isn't the same as earned
A $4,000 job that needed $2,900 of materials and a sub is a very different job from a $4,000 job that needed $600. Without job costing, both look the same in your income — and you find out which kinds of work actually pay only at year end, if at all. Job costing means recording the costs of each job against that job, so you can see what each one made.
What to count as a job cost
- Materials and supplies bought for that job
- What you paid subcontractors on it
- Equipment rental, dump fees, permits — anything that wouldn't have been spent without the job
General overheads — insurance, your phone, software — usually stay out of individual jobs and get tracked as ordinary business expenses instead. Keeping them separate is what makes the per-job number meaningful.
How it works in Trades Chaser
Every invoice has a Job costs & profit section. Log an expense against the invoice — by hand, or on Enhanced by photographing the receipt — and the invoice shows the job's total costs, its profit and its margin. Accepting a subcontractor's bid logs it as an expense on that job automatically, so it's in your expense totals and budget without re-typing the number from a text message — log the sub's cost against the invoice too if you want it in that invoice's profit figure.
- Costs are recorded per job as you spend them, not reconstructed later
- Each invoice shows profit and margin, so you can compare jobs at a glance
- Expenses also count toward your category budgets and year totals, so nothing is entered twice
What it tells you
After a few months the pattern shows up: which job types carry a healthy margin, which ones you've been under-quoting, and how much your materials markup actually covers. That's the information that makes the next quote more accurate.