Most small businesses don’t actually know which jobs make them money
They think they do. They don’t. Sales are up. The bank balance says otherwise. When we look under the bonnet, the issue is usually simple:
- No job costing. or bad job costing.
- Materials get lumped together.
- Labour isn’t tracked properly.
- Subcontractors “just get paid”.
- Overheads are ignored.
So pricing becomes guesswork. Job costing fixes that — fast. When a business tracks what each job actually costs, a few things happen straight away:
- You see which jobs are profitable
- You see which jobs are bleeding cash
- You stop underpricing without realising it
This is one of the quickest profit levers available, and it doesn’t rely on more clients, more staff, or longer hours.
From an accountant’s point of view, job costing is gold. It turns vague conversations into commercial ones:
- “Your margins are too thin on these jobs.”
- “Your labour is running over by 18%.”
- “This work isn’t worth doing at this price.”
Hard to argue with the numbers. I’ve seen businesses lift profits just by stopping the wrong jobs or repricing the right ones. No hype. No theory. Just better visibility and better decisions.
If you want to reduce material wastage, labour overruns and subcontractor leakage, start with job costing. You can’t manage what you don’t measure.