Understanding the financial, back costing and WIP reports

This article explains where the main figures in a job's Financial Report come from, how to run the back costing report for one quote or for many jobs at once, why non-billable charges still count in the Charges subtotal, how WIP report snapshots work, and how to keep back costing tasks out of your team's timesheets.

How do I read a job's Financial Report?

The Financial Report gives a breakdown of your Labour, Material, Disbursements and Other items. See Financial Report for how to open it.

The two key columns are:

• Estimated Cost – based on the buy prices from your quotes. This is what you estimated the entire job would cost you.
• Actual Cost – based on the buy prices of the charges actually added to the job. This is what the job has actually cost you so far.

Think of them as "what I thought it would cost me" versus "what it has actually cost me". The rest of the report, such as Cost Variance, Revenue, Gross Profit and Margin, makes more sense once you read it that way.

Does the Financial Report include every quote on the job?

Yes. The Financial Report pulls together all of the quotes attached to the job.

Why is the Financial Report showing higher labour or disbursement costs than I expected?

Check where each figure comes from:

• The estimated amounts come from the quote. If a quote item is marked as labour (for example, a sub-trades cost), it increases the labour estimate.
• The actual amounts come from the job's charges.

Review the item types on the quote, then review the charges on the job. The Job Actual Charges article shows how to preview, print or export the job's charges so you can cross-check them.

How do I run a back costing report for only one quote on a job?

If a job has more than one quote and you only want one in the back costing report, do both of the following.

Remove the other quote's tasks from back costing

1. Go into the job and click the Scheduled Tasks folder.
2. Click the task, then click Edit.
3. Scroll down to the Back Costing Link column and select Clear. This removes the task from the back costing.
4. Repeat for each task you want to exclude.

Decline the other quote

Clearing the tasks removes their costs, but the quote total can still be added to the report. To hide it, decline the quote.

1. Open the quote.
2. Select More > Decline Quote.

The declined quote still exists against the job. Declining it puts a label on it and removes it from the back costing report.

Why doesn't marking a charge non-billable change the job's Charges subtotal?

This is intentional. The Charges subtotal adds up all charges on the job, whether they're billable or not, because they're still costs to your business.

To see only billable charges:

1. Open the job and click the Charges folder.
2. Switch to Sections View.
3. Use the filter to select Show billable items.

The list then shows only billable charges, with the matching subtotal. To make Sections View your default, click the settings cog (top left) > Default Charges View > Sections View.

You can also use the back costing report. Non-billable charges show in the Write Off column, and billable charges show in the Unbilled Charges column. See Make Labour charges non-billable.

How do I run an end-of-month back costing report for all completed or archived jobs?

1. Go to Reports on the left-hand menu and open the Job Back Costing report.
2. Click Filters.
3. Filter by Status = Completed, or by Archived Jobs Only if you've already archived the jobs.
4. Select the jobs you'd like to include and run the report.

This gives you a back costing report for all of those jobs at once.

Can I backdate the WIP report to a previous month?

The WIP Report Snapshots setting saves a snapshot of your WIP at the end of each month, so you can go back and view previous months. It can't create snapshots retrospectively for months before the setting was enabled.

To turn it on, follow How to enable WIP Monthly Snapshots. Snapshots will then be saved each month from then on.

If the setting was already on last month and you can't access that month's snapshot, contact support.

Can I back cost by task without those tasks showing in my team's timesheets?

There isn't a direct setting to hide specific tasks from the app, but you can use task assignments as a workaround:

1. Assign your team only to the tasks they should log time against. In the task, scroll down to the Assign To section and select the team members who need to see it.
2. Leave tasks created purely for tracking quoted items (such as plumbing) unassigned.
3. Ask support to update your team's user permissions so they only see tasks assigned to them in the mobile app.

This keeps your team's timesheet list focused on their own tasks, while the other tasks stay in NextMinute for back costing. If you turn this on, remember to assign any existing tasks you still want your team to see.

When a task is finished, unassign the team from it:

1. Open the job and click into the task.
2. Click Edit at the top.
3. Scroll down to the Assign To section, untick the team members you want to remove, and click Save.

The task then disappears from their list in the mobile app, so they can't log any more hours against it. The same permission can also apply to jobs, so your team only sees jobs assigned to them.

See What are tasks and how are they best used? and Job Tasks - Assign To.