Costs are recorded as Cost Entries against a work order: one row per block of labor hours, part, expense, or subcontractor charge. Labor rows are costed from the rate card the moment they are saved; every other cost type carries the amounts you enter.
Create a cost entry
- Open the work order and go to its Cost Entries, or go to Margin → Cost Entries and select New.
- Choose the Work Order and the Cost Type: Labour, Part, Expense, or Subcontractor.
- For a Labour entry, set the Resource, the Work Date, the Shift Band, and the Quantity in hours. On save, Job Margin 365 looks up the matching rate card line and fills in Unit Cost, Extended Cost (including burden), and Revenue.
- For any other cost type, enter the Quantity, Unit Cost, Extended Cost, and Revenue yourself.
Where hours come from
In the current version, cost entries are entered by hand. Job Margin 365 does not create them from bookings, time entries, or work order product and service lines. The Shift Band on a labor entry is chosen by the person entering it.
Correcting an entry
Cost entries are treated as facts. To correct one after the work order is completed, add an offsetting entry with negative amounts and mark it as a Correction Offset rather than editing the original. Negative rows net out of the totals automatically.
Adding or changing cost entries on a completed work order does not recalculate its margin by itself. After correcting, re-complete the work order. See Read a work order's margin.
When a labor entry will not save
A labor entry is rejected with a message if its rate cannot be resolved:
- "A labour cost entry requires a resource, a shift band, and a work date before its rate can be resolved." Fill in all three fields.
- "No rate found for resource … in shift band …" No active rate card covers that resource and shift band on the work date. Add the line, or fix the card's effective dates.
- "Found 2 rates … expected exactly one." Two active cards overlap, or a card has duplicate lines. Remove the overlap.
See Create a rate card for the rules.