How do you actually track job profitability (not just revenue)?

Question

Quick question for other Jobber users — when you want to actually know how profitable a job was (after labor and expenses, not just the invoice total), or how your crew's utilization looks over a month, how do you currently figure that out? Pulling into Excel? A separate spreadsheet? Just gut feel? I'm curious whether this is a real pain point or if I'm overthinking it — trying to understand how people actually track profitability day to day.

travisshepherd · Answer

It's definitely a real pain point—revenue only shows half the picture.

Right now, the most accurate way within Jobber is using Job Costing (available on the Connect and Grow plans). If your crew logs their time directly against specific jobs using the Jobber app and you enter your material expenses directly on the job, Jobber automatically generates a Job Profitability Report. This compares your quoted total against logged labor costs and tracked expenses to give you a true net margin without needing outside tools.

If you aren't using Jobber's built-in time tracking or are on the Core plan, most business owners sync Jobber with QuickBooks Online, where labor costs, payroll, and overhead expenses are pulled into a custom Excel spreadsheet or QBO’s Projects feature to calculate true job margins and crew utilization.

You’re definitely not overthinking it—tracking true job profitability instead of just top-line revenue is what separates a business that's just busy from one that's actually profitable.

constructioncfo · Answer

Are you working with an accountant or are you trying to tackle this on your own?

constructioncfo · Answer

The only thing I would add is that the Job Costing feature within Jobber is a great start, but the Jobber integration with QuickBooks Online is a better system to get true job costing, especially when we think about true payroll cost, workers' compensation, and overhead.

laurenellis · Answer

Adding one number and one check that usually get missed even with Job Costing set up.

The number is drive time. An hour of driving costs the same wage as an hour on site, but it almost never gets logged against the job, so route-heavy days look more profitable than they really were. If the crew clocks in when they leave the shop instead of when they arrive, that mostly fixes it without any extra admin.

The check is jobs marked complete that never got invoiced. Worth a quick pass once a month, because that money never shows up as a bad margin on any report. It just never arrives.

And agreed with the others, you're not overthinking it.

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How do you actually track job profitability (not just revenue)?

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