Job costing: what it means
DefinitionJob costing is the practice of adding up what a job actually cost to deliver, including labor hours, materials, travel and a share of overhead, and comparing it with what was charged. It reveals which services and customers earn money and which quietly lose it.
How it works in a service business
Revenue tells you what came in, not what stayed. A cleaning with a big invoice but three hours of driving and two helpers may earn less than a quick standard visit. Tracking costs by job needs timecards tied to jobs and recorded materials. The tradeoff is effort: perfect accuracy is expensive, so most small owners track labor and materials and use a flat overhead rate. A common mistake is pricing from competitors without knowing your own costs. Start with one service type, record real hours and supplies for a month, and compare the totals with the price. If the margin is thin, adjust the price, the scope or the route. Repeat the exercise each season as costs move.
Example
After tracking a month of gutter jobs, an owner sees that long drives to outlying houses eat most of the profit, and adds a travel charge for those addresses.
Where Apex touches this
Rolling out
The screen and the rules are built and tested. Saving real customer data is not connected yet. Status as of 2026-10-07; the badge shows the least-built feature involved.
- RP07Job costing / profitability(Rolling out)
- RP08Budget vs actuals (WIP reporting)(Rolling out)
- ES14Budget-based estimating (labor, materials, overhead margin)(Rolling out)
Apex Flow Scheduler is in early access. See how we label status.