The Financials tab in BuildBook allows you to track your job costs while keeping your clients up to date on the status of the Project Budget, including any Expenses, Change Orders, Credits, and Payments. As you start adding Budget Items, everything rolls up into your Summary and shows both the original Costs, the Estimated price, and the final Price (taking into account change orders, selections, etc. in the remaining balance).
The Financials consists of six sections:
Budget Summary
Budget
Bills & Expenses
Change Orders
Credits
Invoices
Budget Summary
The Summary is broken down between Cost, Estimated, and final Price. The total includes all items and selections along with any additional markup, taxes, and/or management fees:
Change Orders that are approved and Credits are included in the Summary beneath the Total and added or subtracted from the Total Price. Any Invoices marked as paid will be reflected beneath the Total Price:
Cost
The Cost column in the Financials Summary totals all bills or expenses broken down by Item Costs, Selections and Unassociated Costs which allows you to track your costs against your Estimated price and final Price. Bills & Expenses are not designed to adjust the Price of the project but will allow you to independently track the project's costs. Learn more about tracking expenses.
Estimated and Price Columns
Estimated refers to the amount approved in your contract or by the Client when you sent out their proposal to them. Price reflects the final price after any updated pricing or unplanned changes, most likely via a Change Order or Credit.
Item Costs: This is the sum total of all budget items outside of Selections
Markup: This is the sum total of any items that have markup applied
Selections: This is the sum total of all Selection Category allowances, i.e. how much you’ve planned to spend on selections. Selections in the Budget create the Selection Categories that you can then add items and options to.
Pro tip: Selections are calculated on the Budget and updates once all items in the Selection Category are marked completed or if they go over the total allowance of the Selection Category.
Management Fee: Add either a Fixed Fee or Cost Plus Percentage to be added to your Summary. This is the total of the Management Fee applied to the sub-total of the Items.
Tax: This is the sum total of any items that have a tax percentage added to them.
Unassociated Costs: This is the sum total of any Bills or Expenses not linked to a Budget Item.
Change Orders: Displayed in the Price column, this shows the sum total of all Change Orders that have an "Approved" status.
Credits: Displayed in the Price column, this shows the sum total of all Credits.
Total Price: Total of Item Costs, Selections, and Change Orders, minus Credits.
Payments: The sum total of all Invoices marked as "Paid".
Balance Remaining: Project Total minus Payments made.
Budget
The budget is edited within the Budget tab, where you can also add new items or create a budget from scratch. The Budget tab gives you a comprehensive look at the Items that are associated with your Project. Items are organized by Cost Code Category in the Category View or in order of the items entry in Spreadsheet View.
The Budget contains all of your line items including things like the Management Fee. You can add your management fee depending on your business model at the bottom of the Budget using the Management Fee drop down:
The three management fees we support are:
No Management Fee - this is used when you're adding individual markup on items instead to the sub-total of the budget.
Fixed Fee - this is a single fixed total that is added to the sub-total of the budget.
Cost Plus - this is a percentage that is added to the sub-total of budget and will adjust based on items added or as the sub-total adjusts.
Management fees can also be invoiced for just like other budget items.
Selections
Track both the original allowance as well as the actual amounts once selections have been made. Your Selection costs will be managed per Item in your Selections tab or by clicking on a specific Selection.
Adding an item with the type Selection to the Budget will create a Selection Category. The Selection Category is the container for similar finish items that need to be selected by the Client. Selection Categories are tracked on the Budget while the individual items costs are tracked within the Selection Items. Once all items in the Selection are completed, the Price on the Budget will reflect the actual allowance amount.
If you haven't already, take a look at Setting Up Your Client Selections. Selections can be added to your Budget by procuring an item from your Price Book, adding an item with Type as a Selection, or adding a Selection Category to your Selections.
Change Orders
As we all know, it wouldn't be construction if things went exactly according to plan!
Change orders can be created by going to the Change Order tab within the Financials. Simply select + Add Change Order in the top right corner. Within the Change Order, you'll have the ability to:
Specify who the CO is from (this defaults to your company information)
Specify who the Change Order is going to (you can select a contact or add a new one). This will typically populate with the first Client invited to the project's info.
Specify the date of the Change Order and when it is due
Add line items to specify what is changing (including cost code, markup, and tax)
Attach related documents
Only approved change orders have an impact on the Budget Summary.
Change Orders created before Approvals were released will fall into the new workflow. If it was previously approved, it can be unapproved using the new controls.
Approvals for Change Orders
Getting approval on a change order has never been easier. Our approval workflow allows you to create a draft, and then send it off to the client for approval.
Learn more about Approvals for Change Orders
Credits and Invoicing
Track any discounts, write-offs, or other items that you need to reverse out of your budget.
Create and send out Invoices to your Client to let them know a payment needs to be made, and track payments through your Invoices tab. Invoices marked as paid will be reflected in the "Payments" section on the Budget Summary.
This allows the client to always see an accurate view of their outstanding balance in the budget summary. You can set up a full payment schedule upfront, or you can add payment items as the project progresses. To learn more about invoicing, head over to this article: Create and Send Invoices
Client Visibility
The Financials are client-facing and you can choose what information you want to be visible to your client by clicking the "Client Visibility" dropdown in the Budget tab of your Financials.
Here you'll see the same settings that are included in the Estimate. If you created your budget from an estimate, the visibility settings from the estimate will carry over to your budget.
Clients do not see the Cost to Date or Expense details
You can customize which item details you would like to share including:
Categories (this is only applicable from the "Detailed" Total vs. the "Summary" Total
Category Totals
Individual Line Items
Descriptions
Price
Qty, Unit Price
There are two options to display the total:
Summary with lump costs, taxes, and fees in a single total sum:
Detailed with costs, taxes, and fees as separate line items in the subtotal
Once you've applied the visibility settings you'd like, you can preview what the client sees by clicking on See what the Client sees at the bottom of the Client Visibility dropdown.
You will notice that the client is unable to see any markup and management fees, allowing you greater flexibility in your pricing. The client will be able to keep track of any change orders, credits, or payments applied.
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