Job Cost Control and Labor Tracking

Maintaining financial control over a job is one of the most talked about and least understood areas of construction management. Frequent costing errors and earnings surprises are very disruptive to the contractor’s organization. In addition to the more obvious financial impacts of these earnings surprises, is the potentially more destructive impact to creditability with bonding company and banking relationships. Over the years the Sutor Group has assisted contractors and their project managers to gain a better understanding of job cost control and successfully integrating cost controls into the more traditional project management functions. Job cost control typically includes some of the following areas:

• Job cost integration with estimating. Consistency between estimating and job costing. Budget control and estimating to project management handoff
• Job costing work breakdown structure (WBS) or costing breakdown. Streamlining and implementing effective cost and work break down to enhance better cost control and simplify accounting and field reporting requirements
• Labor tracking. Establishing streamlined and effective processes and procedures for tracking major labor activities. Training project managers on effective methods of tracking labor and setting up workable management routines
• Reviewing and establishing methods for compliance with Federal Acquisition Regulation and financial accounting standards