Charges that aren't on a task: materials and the Job Specific back costing section

Tasks help you break a job into pieces of work and track costs against each one. This article covers whether you can make your team allocate materials to a task, and what the Job Specific section of the back costing report shows.

Can I force my team to select a task when they add materials?

No. There isn't currently a way to make selecting a task mandatory when adding materials. Your team can still add materials directly against the job without choosing a task.

If you need everything allocated at task level for your back costing, make selecting the correct task part of your team's process.

This is different from timesheets, where you can require time to be entered against a task. See How to - Forcing time to be added to tasks.

What does the Job Specific section of the back costing report show?

The Job Specific section shows the charges that are assigned to the job itself rather than to any task.

• Actual Cost is the total buy price of those charges.
• Invoiced Amount is the total invoiced for those job-level charges, plus any amounts invoiced manually against the job rather than a task. For example, a deposit invoice, or lines you typed straight onto an invoice that aren't assigned to a task.

Because deposit invoices and manually added lines are included, the invoiced amount in this section can be much higher than the actual cost.

To see the charges that make up this section:

1. Open the job and go to Charges.
2. Click Sections View.
3. Turn off any filters.

The charges that aren't assigned to a task are listed here, and the cost totals for these sections add up to the Actual Cost in the report.