How to turn daily reports into job cost
Your super logs hours against the right cost code on site. That same entry flows into job cost, then payroll, with someone checking the total before anything posts. No re-typing in between.
Answered in short
4 things that decide this
- 01You turn a daily report into job cost by capturing labour hours against the correct cost code at the point of entry, on your super's tablet, rather than re-keying a paper report into your accounting system later.
- 02That same cost-coded data flows into your job-cost report and your payroll, so the hours your crew worked and the hours you pay them come from one record instead of two.
- 03You, or usually your controller or office manager, check the total before it posts to payroll or your job-cost ledger. Automation carries your data across; it doesn't sign off on it for you.
- 04Photos and weather ride along on your report, which matters when a delay claim or a productivity question comes up months later.
The daily report and the job-cost report rarely agree
You've probably seen this gap yourself. Your super fills out a daily report on paper or in a field app nobody reconciles. Payroll runs off timecards, a separate record. Job cost gets built later, often by someone in your office retyping numbers from both into a spreadsheet or the ERP.
By the time your job cost shows up, it's three weeks old, and it rarely matches what your super actually saw on site. That's not because anyone's careless. It's because the same hour of work gets recorded twice, by two different people, with two different chances to get the cost code wrong.
You close the gap by capturing the cost code once, at the source, and letting that single entry flow everywhere it needs to go.
One entry, three destinations
Your super logs hours on a tablet at the end of the day, or through the shift if that's how your crew works. Each entry gets tagged with a cost code from your project's own list. Nobody types it free-hand, so there's no guessing later what "framing" or "punch list" was supposed to mean.
That cost-coded entry becomes the input for two reports at once. Job cost sees labour hours against budget, by cost code, updated the same day rather than three weeks later. Payroll sees the same hours, ready for your approval instead of a second manual entry.
Weather and photos attach to the same daily report. They don't feed job cost directly. They sit on the record for the day the hours were logged, which matters if a delay claim or a productivity question comes up later.
- 01Cost code selected from your project's code list at the point of entry, not typed free-hand.
- 02Job cost updates the same day, by cost code, against budget.
- 03Payroll pulls the same hours, ready for a person's approval, not a second manual entry.
- 04Photos and weather stay attached to the day's record for later reference.
- Hours loggedBy cost code, on site, same day
- Job cost updatedAgainst budget, by cost code
- Payroll queuedSame hours, no re-entry
- Person checks the totalController or office manager, before it posts
- PostedTo payroll and your job-cost ledger
The gap this closes isn't the math. It's the three weeks between the work and the report reaching someone who can act on it.
Some of the systems we have shipped
Related questions
01Does this replace our accounting system?+
No. It writes into whatever you already run, Sage, Foundation, Viewpoint or another system, to the depth your account exposes. Your accounting system stays the financial record. This is the capture layer that keeps it fed with accurate, cost-coded data.
02What if a super picks the wrong cost code?+
The code comes from your project's own list, selected rather than typed, which removes most spelling and guessing errors. A genuinely wrong pick still happens sometimes, and that's why a person reviews the total before it posts, not after.
03How is this different from what our field app already does?+
Most field apps capture the daily report and stop there. What happens after is the real gap: whether that cost-coded entry reaches job cost and payroll the same day, or waits for someone to retype it. That handoff is what this closes.
04Does job cost update in real time?+
Same day, which is the practical version of real time for most GCs. Your labour hours post against budget by cost code as soon as they're logged and approved. No more waiting to reconcile once a month from three different sources.
05What about equipment and material costs alongside labour?+
Labour is where the daily-report-to-job-cost gap usually bites hardest, since it's the most frequent, highest-volume entry. Equipment and material costs typically flow from purchase orders and rental logs, and we map those into the same job-cost view during the audit.
Related
- Field-to-office automation →The full daily-report and job-cost service this answer belongs to.
- How to get T&M tickets back from the field →The other field record racing the same three-week gap.
- Best construction management software →How the platforms you already run handle this, and where they stop.
- Construction software development →What we build for contractors beyond a single workflow.
