Job costing spreadsheet template for tradies (free Excel download)

Job costing is knowing what a job is costing you against what you are charging for it, while there is still time to do something about it. If the idea is new, job costing for tradies explains it from scratch. This page is the spreadsheet that does it.

What's in the spreadsheet

• Summary: the job value (quoted price plus approved variations), a budget for each cost line, actual so far, what is left, expected profit at finish, the early warning and what has been invoiced and paid
• Labour: a timesheet for the job, one line per person per day, with hours and their true cost per hour
• Costs: every docket and invoice against the job, with a category picked from a list: materials, subcontractors, hire and disposal, or other
• Example summary, Example labour and Example costs: the deck below, part-way through the build
• How to use: the steps, on one page

Setting it up for a job

1. Save a copy of the file for the job and fill in the job name, client and site.
2. Enter the quoted price ex GST. Add each variation to the approved variations line only once the client has agreed it in writing.
3. Enter a budget for each cost line from your pricing: the labour, materials, subbies, hire and other costs you allowed in the quote. If you used the quote template, they are on its pricing worksheet.
4. Log hours on the Labour tab and dockets on the Costs tab the day they happen. The Summary does the rest.

Worked example: the deck, part-way through

This is the same merbau deck priced in how to quote a carpentry job: $14,000 ex GST, with $6,300 of labour (90 hours at a $70 true hourly cost), $5,200 of materials and $400 of hire and tip fees in the budget. Four days in, here is the Summary.

The useful part is the last line. The job has $4,210 left in it and 28 hours of labour still to come. If those 28 hours turn into 45, the extra 17 hours at $70 cost $1,190, and the profit drops to $910. You can see that on day four, not at handover.

Reading the numbers

Budget against actual shows each cost line on its own, so you know whether it is the labour, the materials or the hire that is running over. Expected at finish assumes every line still under budget finishes on budget, and any line already over budget stops where it is. That is the honest best case: if a line is still climbing, raise its budget to what you now expect and the profit updates.

The early warning compares costs so far with the job value. It starts at 85%, the same point TrackYaTradie uses for its own alert, and you can change it. Once costs pass it, the status line on the Summary says so. On a fixed-price job that is the moment to look at what is left to do, and whether some of it is a variation you have not priced.

Five habits that keep the numbers honest

1. Log hours and dockets the same day. A spreadsheet filled in at the end of the job is a post-mortem, not job costing.
2. Cost labour at the true hourly cost, not the wage. The tradie hourly rate calculator works yours out.
3. Log the small stuff: the box of screws, the second tip run, the hire you extended by a day.
4. Only add a variation to the job value once the client has agreed it in writing, and log its costs like any other.
5. Look at the Summary at every stage. Fixing a job at frame is cheap; fixing it at handover is not.

When the spreadsheet stops keeping up

A spreadsheet works well for one or two jobs and a crew of one. It gets harder with several jobs on at once, a crew who need to log their own hours, and dockets that live in the ute. TrackYaTradie does the same sums on every job: the crew logs hours from their phones, you add costs as you go, and each job's profit updates live, with an alert at 85% of the invoice. The template is free either way, and it is a good way to see whether job costing changes how you quote.