Project cost tracking for small construction and renovation firms

Most small firms know the contract value and the final bank balance, and little in between. The margin leaks in the middle: extra days on site nobody logged against the job, a subcontractor invoice that arrived after the last stage was billed, a small extra agreed on site and never invoiced, and a stage payment that is 45 days late while the next stage is already under way.

None of this needs a construction ERP to see. It needs the job’s value, its hours and its costs in one place, updated while the job is running.

• The contract value and how it is split into stage payments.
• Hours by person, against the phase or task they belong to.
• Subcontractors and other job costs: electrician, plumber, skip hire, equipment rental, materials invoices.
• Extras agreed with the client, each as its own line with its own hours.
• Invoices and payments by stage, so an unpaid stage is visible before the next one starts.

• A project per job, tasks per phase. Create the job under its client, with its value and estimated hours, and a task for each phase: strip-out, first fix, plastering, second fix, finishing. Use a custom field for the site address.
• Hours on the phase. The team logs hours against the phase task with a timer or by hand in the weekly grid, from any web browser. From Core, a manager approves each person’s week, and submitted and approved weeks are locked. See time tracking.
• Costs on the job. Record subcontractor invoices under the subcontractor category, equipment hire under equipment, and materials invoices as other project expenses, each against the job. External workers’ fees can be added to the job too.
• Invoices by stage. Write an invoice for each stage when it is reached; payments and what is still owed sit on the same client. Overdue amounts show by age on the leadership dashboard.
• Margin per job (Core). Project profitability sets labor cost (every logged hour × each person’s hourly cost, derived from salary) and the job’s costs against the contract value. See project budgets and profitability.
• Client view (Core). A private, read-only link shows the client their invoices, payments and balance. See the client portal.

An example. A kitchen and bathroom renovation has a contract value of $38,000, including one agreed $1,200 extra, billed in three stages. The job ends like this:

Margin: $38,000 − $29,260 = $8,740, or 23%. The $1,200 extra was a run of wall tiles the client asked for halfway through. Logged as its own task, it took 16 hours of fitter time ($384) and $420 of tiles, both already in the costs above, and it went on the final stage invoice.

Without its own task, those hours would have been absorbed into “second fix” and the extra would not have been invoiced. Revenue would have been $36,800 against the same $29,260 cost: $7,540, about 20%, with nobody knowing why.

The figures show the method. The profit margin calculator runs the same check on your own numbers.

• No estimating or takeoff. Price the job in your estimating tool or spreadsheet, then enter the contract value.
• No change-order workflow. Record an agreed extra as its own task with its own hours and add it to the next invoice by hand.
• No purchase orders or materials inventory. Materials are recorded as expenses when the invoice arrives.
• No retainage or progress billing in AIA format. Invoices are simple stage invoices you write.
• No field dispatch, crew scheduling or GPS. Attendance check-in works on the office network only, so site hours are logged by hand.
• No mobile app. PLYNTUM runs in a web browser. There is no native iPhone or Android app and no offline mode.
• Not accounting or payroll. Keep your accountant’s system for bookkeeping, tax and wages.

If you need estimating, field scheduling or change orders in one system, look at construction-specific software. PLYNTUM is the office layer for firms that price in a spreadsheet and want to know what each job actually made.

PLYNTUM is priced per workspace, not per user: $55 a month for up to 5 members, $150 for up to 10 (Core, needed for profitability, approvals and the client portal) and $450 for up to 25, or 20% less billed annually. Site staff who only log hours count as members. See pricing and small business management software.

1. Pick one running job and create it with its value, stages and phase tasks.
2. Ask the site lead to log hours against the phase every day for two weeks.
3. Enter every subcontractor and materials invoice against the job as it arrives.
4. Compare hours and costs with the value at each stage invoice.
5. Start on Launch’s 7-day trial, with no card. Profitability, approvals and the client portal need Core. Questions about your set-up? Write to us.