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Job Profitability Analyzer

Compare quoted price against actual hours and material to see what a job really earned.

Quoted

What the estimate assumed when you sent the price.

hrs
$/hr

Your cost per field hour, not the rate you billed.

$
$
$
Actual

What the job really cost, including every hour you went back.

hrs
$/hr
$
$
hrs

Unbilled return visits. They belong on this job, because that is the only way the pattern shows up.

$

What actually cleared, after change orders, discounts and write-offs.

Overhead allocation
28%

Share of revenue that has to carry rent, insurance, admin and unbilled time.

Actual gross margin

41.8%

Missed the quoted margin of 53.8% by 12.1 points, worth $773.
Gross profit$6,400 collected less $3,727 of direct cost
$2,673
Effective hourly returnGross profit across 34.5 field hours including callbacks
$77.48/hr
Overhead at 28%
−$1,792
Net profit13.8% net margin
$881
Quoted gross marginFor reference
53.8%
Quoted versus actual
LineQuotedActualVariance
Labor hours24.0 hrs34.5 hrs+10.5 hrs
Labor cost$1,104$1,587+$483
Material$1,850$2,140+$290
Subcontractors$0$0$0
Direct cost$2,954$3,727+$773
Revenue$6,400$6,400$0
Gross profit$3,446$2,673−$773
Gross margin53.8%41.8%−12.1 pts
Effective hourly return$143.58/hr$77.48/hr−$66
Net profit after overhead$1,654$881−$773

Labor overran by 10.5 hours

That is $483 of unplanned labor cost, and it is 62% of the total movement between the estimate and the result. The job finished $773 behind the quoted gross profit. Labor is the line an estimator controls the most and misses the most — if it keeps running long on this work type, the hours in your estimating template are wrong, not the crew.

This job came back

4.0 hours of callback cost $184 and produced no revenue, which is 6.9% of the gross profit the job earned. A job that looked profitable at invoicing often is not after two warranty visits — cost the callback to the original job or the pattern never becomes visible.

What this assumes

  • Gross margin is revenue less direct job cost; net margin subtracts allocated overhead.
  • Effective hourly return divides gross profit by actual labor hours on the job.
  • Unbilled callback and warranty hours are treated as job cost, because they are.

Understanding the result

Job costing is how you find the losers

Most trade businesses know their annual profit but not which jobs produced it. It is common for a quarter of jobs to lose money while the rest carry them. Costing every job for a month reveals which work types, customer segments and estimators are the problem.

Count the callback

A job that looked profitable at invoicing often is not after two warranty visits. Warranty and callback hours belong on the original job's cost, because that is the only way the pattern becomes visible in your numbers.

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The next decision usually follows directly from this one.

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