Cost control

Job costing that catches
a loss while you can
still fix it.

Most contractors find out how a job went at the final account, six weeks late. Unibuild builds the position from hours clocked and orders approved, so the number is there on Tuesday.

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Construction manager reviewing live job costs in Unibuild

In plain terms

Job costing software puts every cost on the job while the job runs: labour from the clock-in, orders at committed value, invoices, hire and expenses.

Unibuild’s cost control module does this for trade firms of 5 to 300 people, with unlimited users and a 14-day trial of the full platform, no card.

Last reviewed November 2026.

Why the number arrives late

The true cost of a job is
discovered six weeks after
the last operative left site.

By then the only decision available is whether to price the next one differently, which is not management information. It is a history lesson.

Labour

Known only after payroll runs, and then filed by employee rather than by job.

Weeks behind

Materials

Bought on account with a job name given verbally. The office finds out when the statement arrives.

A month behind

Variations

Done on a nod. The paperwork never follows, so the cost lands but the revenue does not.

Silent loss

Hired plant

Hired for four weeks. The job ran two weeks over. Nobody sent it back.

Still invoicing

Every month

The commercial manager rebuilds the same spreadsheet from payroll, the purchase ledger and the subbie file.

≈ 2 days

The question

Which of our current jobs is in trouble? Answering it means doing all of the above, for every job.

Never asked

The mechanism Cost accrues from operational events, not accounting events Which is weeks of warning

Labour costRates with a start dateCommitted order valueSupplier credits nettedApproved reimbursementsSubcontractor invoicesDerived contract valueClient purchase ordersCost against valueLine level breakdownSource documentsJob overrunPlant still allocatedEstimate versus actual Labour costRates with a start dateCommitted order valueSupplier credits nettedApproved reimbursementsSubcontractor invoicesDerived contract valueClient purchase ordersCost against valueLine level breakdownSource documentsJob overrunPlant still allocatedEstimate versus actual

See the margin on a live job, worked out while it is still running.

Thirty minutes, live, with you driving. Or a written monthly figure by email, usually the same working day.

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What is in the module

Six things, and the whole argument rests on the first.

Cost as
it happens

Labour costs the job the day it is worked, not the week payroll runs. Materials cost the job when the order is approved, not when the statement lands.

Clocked in against a project
Hours land on the job
Monday’s cost seen on Tuesday
Weeks before the money moves

Early warning, not a post mortemLive

Committed,
not just spent

Approved purchase orders count against the job at commitment rather than at invoice. A four-week hire ordered this morning is exposure this morning.

Counted at order, not invoice
Where jobs usually get away
Nothing waits for the statement
Supplier credits netted off

Exposure the day it is approvedLive

Real hourly
rates

Each person carries a cost rate with a start date. Hours are priced at the rate that applied on the day they were worked.

January’s work at January’s rate
Whatever the April review did
86 rates across 63 people, in live use
No blended company average

Historic margins stop movingLive

Every figure
opens up

Click any project and see the timesheet lines, the reimbursement receipts, the subcontractor invoices and the purchase orders behind the total, each linking to its own document.

Labour opens onto timesheet lines
Supplier totals open onto orders
Numbers you can check get believed
Spreadsheet numbers get argued about

Showing the workingLive

One contract
value

Project value is the sum of the client purchase orders on file rather than a number somebody typed into a form.

Project, applications and report agree
One calculation behind all three
Add an order, every screen moves
Nothing for one person to miss

One figure, with paperwork behind itLive

Plant that outstayed
the job

A single page lists projects past their recorded end date that are still open, with the plant categories still allocated to each one.

Hire past practical completion
The cheapest loss to stop
Ten seconds to read
Not found on an invoice

Ten seconds, real moneyLive

What is counted

What is in
the cost figure.

A cost report whose contents you cannot list is a report
you should not act on. Here is exactly what makes up the number.

Counted

Labour from timesheets, at each person’s cost rate for the dayPurchase orders raised against the project, at approved valueMaterials, hire, waste, fuel and the other order typesSupplier credit notes, netted offSubcontractor invoicesApproved and paid reimbursements

The other side

Contract value, derived from client purchase ordersShown alongside cost, on the same rowMargin worked out live against it

Subcontract, read alongside

Committed cost covers materials, hire and everything else bought on a purchase order. Subcontract carries its own committed position through the order, the variations and the payment schedule. The two are read together, against the same project.

Real-time profitability

The margin on every job, while the job is still running.

Most contractors find out what a job made at the final account, months after anything could be done about it. This is the half of the question that answers itself as the work happens. The report across every job, by project manager and by department, is on the job profitability page.

What lands on the job by itself: Labour from the timesheet at each person’s rate for the day, purchase orders at committed value, supplier invoices, stores issues and staff expenses as they are approved. All of it attached to the job by the people already doing the work, with the contract value derived from your client's own orders sitting next to it. Nobody assembles this and nobody retypes it.
What it computes: The live cost position and the margin against it, for one job or across the portfolio, current to the hour rather than to the last month end. The commercial team stops waiting for a period to close before it can answer what a job is making.
Estimate against actual: A discrepancy view compares estimated hours against hours logged and estimated quantities against quantities used, section by section. A programme view plots planned contract value against actual billed value week by week, so a job drifting away from its tender shows up while there is still job left to run.
Where every figure comes from: Each number traces back to the record that produced it: the timesheet line, the order, the approved invoice, the valuation. That matters more than the arithmetic. A margin nobody can trace is a margin nobody acts on, which is how firms end up with a report they do not believe and a spreadsheet they run alongside it.

Workers on a construction site, whose hours and costs feed the live margin on the job

Where it stands Multi-year, and in daily use across UK trade firms Current to the hour

Choosing job costing software

Job costing software: what it has to do.

Five things to ask of any job costing software for a trade firm, and what Unibuild does about each.

Committed cost: An approved purchase order counts against the job on the day it is approved, at its committed value, not when the invoice arrives a month later. A four-week hire ordered this morning is exposure this morning. Supplier credit notes are netted off.
Actual cost: Supplier invoices are matched to the order, and subcontractor invoices, approved expenses and stores issues land on the job as they are approved. Committed and actual sit side by side, so the gap between them is the invoices still to come.
Cost codes: Every order and invoice is coded to a job, a cost code and a nominal code, so the figure reads by trade and by material as well as by job. Budgets by job, department, cost centre or nominal code show what is left before an order is placed.
Labour from the clock-in: Hours come from the QR clock-in on site, costed at each person’s rate for the day, and land on the job the day they are worked. Nobody re-keys a timesheet into a costing spreadsheet, and payroll week is not the first time labour shows on a job.
Margin by job: The contract value, built from the client’s own orders and approved variations, sits on the same row as the cost. The margin is worked out when the page opens, for one job or across every job, with the split by project manager and department on the job profitability report.

Questions

Asked by directors and
commercial managers.

Is Unibuild job costing software?

Yes. Unibuild’s cost control module is job costing software for UK trade firms. Labour from the clock-in, purchase orders at committed value, supplier and subcontractor invoices, hire, expenses and stores are each costed to the job the day they happen. Cost codes, nominal codes and budgets are set up as your firm already runs them, and the margin on each job is read against the client’s orders. It is one module of a bespoke platform in daily production since 2016, so the same records run the timesheets, the orders and the applications for payment.

Can it tell me a job is losing money while it is still running?

Yes. Labour costs the job the day it is worked, and purchase orders count the day they are approved. The contract value, taken from your client’s own orders, sits on the same row, and the margin is worked out live against it. Estimated hours and quantities are compared with actual, section by section, so a job drifting from its price shows while there is still job left to run. The report across every job is on job profitability.

How is cost control priced?

It is part of Unibuild’s monthly platform fee, quoted in writing, with no separate module fee and no charge per user. The fee covers unlimited users, configuration, training, data migration and support, and is fixed for three years. How pricing works, or ask for your firm’s quote.

Can we try it before we commit?

Yes, 14 days of the full platform, no card. Every module is switched on, so the trial runs on your own jobs and your own people. Most firms book a 30-minute demo first and start the trial from there.

How long does it take to go live?

Most firms go live in about two weeks, in phases. Configuration, training and data migration are carried out by Unibuild and included in the monthly fee, so nothing waits on your own team building a system.

Does it flag materials or labour going past the estimate?

Yes. Materials are tracked to the last quantity against the estimate, and labour hours come from the timesheets. When either runs past what was quoted, or the scope grows, the job is flagged. Out-of-scope work is raised as a variation and invoiced to the client.

How current is the figure?

It is worked out when you open the page, from the same records the rest of the system uses. Nothing waits for an overnight update. If an operative clocked out an hour ago and a purchase order was approved this morning, both are in the number.

What exactly is in the cost figure, and can we check it?

Labour from timesheets at each person’s cost rate for the day, and purchase orders at approved value across materials, hire, waste, fuel and the rest. Supplier credit notes are netted off, and subcontractor invoices and approved reimbursements are added. Every total opens onto the timesheet lines, orders and invoices behind it, each linking to its own document.

Our hourly rates are confidential. Who can see them?

Only the people you choose. Access to the reports area, and to individual pages within it, is set per user, so the cost report can be limited to the directors and the commercial manager. A separate setting controls whether a given person can see hourly rates at all. Operatives never see a cost or a rate in the app, and clients and subcontractors have no access to it.

How are labour rates set up, and what happens when pay goes up?

Each person carries a cost rate with a start date, loaded at implementation as one of the first tasks. Hours are priced at the rate that applied on the day they were worked. The April pay review leaves January’s job costs where they were. In live use, 86 rates are held across 63 people.

What if a project manager does not raise a client order for every instruction?

It shows straight away. The contract value sits on the project page next to the cost. A job where cost is climbing against a value that has not moved is obvious to a director within seconds. The missing order can be chased while the instruction is still fresh.

Does it catch plant still on hire after a job has finished?

Yes. A single page lists projects past their recorded end date that are still open, with the plant categories still allocated to each. It takes ten seconds to read, and it finds the hire before the next invoice does. From there, Unibuild emails the supplier to end the hire. Hire management.

Can we set budgets by department, cost centre or nominal code?

Yes. Budgets are set by job, department, cost centre or nominal code, over the periods you choose, and a project budget can be ring-fenced so only that project can spend it. The person raising an order sees what is left, and an order that would overspend is flagged to the approver. Goods received but not yet invoiced are listed for month-end accruals. Approval workflows.

Does it work with our accounts package?

Yes. Your accounts package stays as the financial record, and Unibuild runs the job up to it. Unibuild syncs with QuickBooks, Xero and Sage 50, and payroll and any other data export as CSV, XML or JSON. The integrations page sets out every connection.

By trade