Job COST estimates

Not really Monika. To get you to the next level you take the basics of the program and apply that more broadly. Just a heads up.. I only know so much as I ran a family owned construction business for 20 years using Reckon Accounts with complex estimating. Unfortunately reckon no longer offers consulting as a service. If you would like me to try and find a partner that specialises in this, please let me know.

Thank you Jason.

I've learned about the estimates from Reckon partner and this is how far we got...
Are there any reckon instructions that maybe could navigate and teach me more around this topic?

Hi Monika. I suggest you engage an experienced Reckon partner to assist you here as this is all achievable as many contractors use similar methods when using contracted (fixed) pricing including complexities around unearned revenue. We do track cost estimates and actuals, and you can absolutely do this separately if you wish. It's all in the set-up, and a partner is best placed to show you how to achieve what you are after.

I understand that when creating the invoice from estimates or when generating quote for the customer, we can see only what we choose in template print options.

The problem is my item codes A, B, C don't necessarily add up to what the clients should see on the quote/invoice. Again, we are not manufacturing or retail business so it’s not as straight forward.

Let’s say we use cost item codes $A, $B, $C (because those are the estimated costs) but we charge for item $D (50% of A, 100%C, and margin) and $E (50% of A, 100%B, and margin). It normally would be way more complexed.

It would be great being able to create cost estimates separately to track the actuals, while revenue estimates can be easily created from the existing feature already.

As per my understanding: the below screenshot shows the estimate which we invoice the client from (what I called “estimated revenue”) and what the client sees on the invoice.

Hi Monika and thank you for the further information. Your statement above isn't quite correct however. The original screenshot shows estimated cost and revenue. Remember this is the SCREEN and is not what the customer sees. The customer sees what you have decided to show on the TEMPLATE PRINT OPTIONS, so in the example you would only show the Tax and Total Sell columns.

Here is how your recent example shows as SCREEN and PRINT.

SCREEN

PRINT (what the customer sees)

And here is the job report (of course its ex GST)...

Based on this we'll mark this idea as 'already exists' but please feel free to let me know if I still haven't completely understood.

Hello Jason

Thank you for promp response.

As per my understanding: the below screenshot shows the estimate which we invoice the client from (what I called “estimated revenue”) and what the client sees on the invoice.

We are not manufacturing business, therefore, we cannot just add the markup to all our service item codes.

As an example: we have signed consulting contract for a lump sum of $1,000 (and this is what client will be charged for). We priced the job using cost item A $50, cost item B $100, cost item C $500, profit $350.

I won’t show the client all the particular items, however I still would like to track the estimated costs vs actuals for this project. This example is very basic, but, when having few million $ project, it is impossible to track all the item codes (for different services) with added markups as this is not how the total contract amount is charged to the client and it is definitely not what client wants to see on the invoice.

I hope I didn't make it more confusing?

Thank you, Monika

Hi Monika. Could you please clarify as Reckon Accounts estimates are both cost and revenue based (see below).

As you add invoices and bills/purchases to this customer:job you can then report on:

• Estimated cost

• Actual cost

• Estimated revenue

• Actual revenue

• $ difference

• % difference

via the Job estimates vs actual (summary or detail) reports).