Job Costing
At the heart of any successful company is an optimized, efficient and automated business management and job costing system. With the right business management software solutions in place, companies are able to adjust their workflows at a fairly rapid pace.
Why are automated job costing and cost accounting programs the backbone of a business?
Anyone in business who has searched manually for a purchase order, determined what has been billed to a client or performed any number of other non-value adding activities knows how quickly these costs add up. Non-value adding activities comprise any that are not done to meet customers’ requirements or to benefit the business directly.
Non-value adding activities climb to the tune of $2,400 annually if done once per day. Now, what if you have five people who do them once a day, maybe more? Improved integration and trackability, achieved through business management software systems, are vital to keeping the data accurate and your business profitable.
Ease of use also plays a significant role in trackability. Having the ability to do something, and being able to do something, create two completely different results.
At Accent Software, a seller and servicer of Microsoft D365 Business Central, our goal is to help your small or medium-sized business automate its job costing and cost accounting processes. We’ll walk you through every step of the implementation process, including training your employees so that ease of use becomes second nature. Our reputation as a leader in our industry is proven by our over 15 years of success and the recognition we’ve received within the prestigious Microsoft Partner Network.
The differences between job costing and business management software
Of all costs associated with business jobs – labor, materials, outside processing, overhead and others – many remain hidden. If all of these items aren’t dynamically linked to that job, you won’t be able to get a true look at the costs. How many jobs have you done that you lost money on, but you didn’t even know it? What about when you estimate the next job using those inaccurate figures, just to lose money again?
Here are the differences between job costing software and business management software, which really should be part of the same system because of the pool of information being analyzed :
Job Costing Software: Calculates total cost of a given unit by adding together all material and labor costs, both direct and indirect, that are involved in manufacturing. It’s important to track these costs in order to properly allocate materials and labor.
Business Management Software: Involves accounting, inventory control, order processing, and relationships between customers and vendors.
If software programs operate distinctly from one another, companies may face the “islands of information” pain, where duplicate entries can undermine the efficiency of these systems and force companies to divert vital resources toward drilling down into an inventory to determine current figures.
What is the goal of job costing software?
If you aren’t making money, you’re losing money. The ability to see when and why you are making, or losing, money should be the ultimate goal for your job costing software. Many companies aren’t able to track labor, not to mention labor allocation, to a specific job. More often than not, these companies don’t know what each of their jobs cost and how profitable they are. The problem usually ties back to multiple systems that aren’t integrated – the “islands of information” issue again.
Another benefit is improved auditability. In today’s world, auditability is more crucial to a business’s success than ever before. Many companies struggle to grow simply because they can’t comply with their lenders, vendors or customers. Being able to audit the information with a proven business management software system enables you to meet those requirements.
Accent Software supports small and medium-sized businesses throughout the Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio region, and across the country, as they design and implement job costing and business management software systems.
