The #1 Tool to Increase Job Profitability
Have you ever compared your income statement at the end of the month to your jobs data and wondered, how did I not end up with higher profits? You’re not alone. Leveraging the job costing functionality in SingleOps is the key to unlocking more detailed profitability data, and ultimately improving profitability of your entire green industry business.
The system is not limited to material costs. Since there are labor, service, and other miscellaneous expenses associated with every job, the SingleOps team included all of them within the system. SingleOps job costing gives you the ability to construct each report to work in line with every good or service you provide.
Note: while the features discussed in this post are available to every SingleOps customer, they are not all turned on by default. Contact our team to confirm you have access to all job costing features.
Customize items to fit your company’s needs
The first step to better understanding profitability through job costing is determining which “items” fit your business. These “items” aren’t necessarily materials. SingleOps gives you the ability to create any number of services you provide under the “items” tab to configure job costing specifically for your business.
For example, as a tree care company you finally have the opportunity to enter detailed cost data for every single service you provide in one streamlined location. This could mean any number of things including tree removal, stump grinding, plant health-care, and much more. SingleOps allows you to create an “item” for any of these services, which includes the price to the customer, cost to your company, whether or not it is billable or subcontracted, and even an icon for the route planner.
More information about items can be found on the SingleOps Knowledge Base and the SingleOps Academy
A Webinar by CEO Sean McCormick on items – “Item List Setup Webinar”
Group your items for Recurring Jobs
The item grouping feature is extremely useful for companies who complete the exact same job for multiple clients on a regular basis. For example, if a tree transplant requires two men working for two hours plus mulch and a tie off, you can group all of them together under a “tree transplant” item group.
You can also group items for larger scale operations to optimize efficiency and profitability. Jordan Upcavage from Independent Tree Service says, “now, with SingleOps, I can see for a tree removal it might be $2000 to cut the tree down, $400 to haul the wood away, and $300 to grind the stump.” By looking at that information over time across several jobs, Jordan saw that stump grinding could be done profitably with his own equipment.
Adjust your Margins to Maximize Profits
We want to help grow your business. In order for us to maximize your potential for growth, our team created the ability to adjust quantities, margins, and costs in real time for each individual job. In essence, your crew is able to record man hours, actual vs. estimated quantities of materials used, and much more right after completing the job and enter it into the system. Afterwards, an administrative user can check for accuracy and apply the costs to the final bill.
As the office receives real time data, they can clearly see whether or not the estimated vs. actual margins are lining up. If your estimated costs are lower than your actual costs your administrative user can make same-day adjustments to the pricing and on your jobs to make sure you’re continuing to maximize profits. The estimated vs. actual margin for a completed, individual job can be viewed within the reports section under expenses and job-costing within the subsection “visit profit margin.”
Furthermore, you can also view similar reports specifically on items and labor hours. The “reports” section allows you to view your estimated vs. actual man hours on any given job under the “job labor” subsection of the “labor” report. It also shows just how efficient your crews are compared to the estimated labor hours. The items report is slightly different as it includes material data, but is just as important when calculating costs to your business.
Maximize every single hour on the job
Our customers have found a better way to maximize each day on the job by understanding exactly what it takes to grow their profits. Independent Tree Service said, “after pulling the 2018 items report I am delighted to find we grossed $114,715.00 in stump grinding, $29,930.00 in AirSpading and $19,600.00 in root pruning.” These services were previously subcontracted, but then brought in house once SingleOps job costing showed they could be profitable. This is just one example of how our system can help you get the most value out of every job, but we want all of our customers to experience this success. Make sure to contact us if you have any questions or concerns about optimizing your job costing abilities.
For more information on job costing as a whole check out this comprehensive webinar by CEO Sean McCormick.