If this is where you core business activities are recorded, you will be well aware of the need for accurate, up to date information. You need to know if you REALLY made money on that last job, if you are currently over budget for another, and ideally should be able to quickly locate details for jobs similar to the one you are doing a quote for at the moment.

Stamina Job Costing addresses these needs, and also provides you with a framework that makes it easy to implement Quality Assurance and Total Quality Control Systems. Best of all, most of the hard work is done automatically within other Stamina systems, so being in total control does not mean a lot of additional effort.

For example, Payroll will automatically update your labour figures using prime cost or overhead recovery costing, and actual times are also recorded. Purchase Orders update outstanding commitments for a Job, or materials and expense allocations when receipts are recorded. Inventory stores requisitions may also update material figures, and expenses can also be recorded directly from the Accounts Payable System.

In the absence of these other systems, this information can be recorded directly within the Job Costing System, but obviously greatest gains are made from a totally integrated system, where General Ledger Work in Progress figures can easily be substantiated and reconciled to, say, a Job Progress Report.

Jobs can be manually initiated for any costing project, or can be generated from other related systems, like Service for repair work, or Inventory for manufactured items. You have control of the static detail maintained for all jobs, ensuring that the system retails all of the information you will require for future reference and identification.

These is no limit to the number of jobs that can be active at any one time, and each job can be broken down into individual activities. Costing information is then recorded down to the activity level, allowing you to monitor the progress of each phase of a job in greater detail, and identify individual problem areas sooner.

Obviously activities can vary from job to job, and separate budgets can be set for each activity if required. If a job is generated from the integrated quotation system, these budget figures are extracted from the original quote.

Jobs for customers can be invoices when completed, or for progress payments, using the normal procedures of Accounts Receivable, with relevant details appearing on the invoice from job costing. When a manufacturing job is completed the Inventory System stock levels will be increased for the finished product, and completed service jobs update the Service system with actual costs, materials used etc.

Full transactional detail is kept for each revenue and cost component, allowing for extensive onscreen enquiry and reporting, which is important for QA purposes. For example, imagine you have a bearing collapse from "Supplier X", or a butt weld performed by "Fred Nerk" is found to be defective.

You can quickly identify other jobs where bearings from the same batch were used, or where Fred did the butt weld, and warn these customers of the potential problem. Remember, QA does not mean zero defects, but it does mean problems are not repeated, so you can offer your customers a quality product backed by excellent service, which is as good as money in the bank.

The enquiry and reporting procedures will also give you early warning of a job that is "going off the rails", rather than having to find out after the job is finished. You can quickly compare actual costs and times with budgets, or match job revenue with expense, analyse how much time is spent doing what.

Stamina maintains all your job related records electronically, allowing you to generate specialised reports and certificates based on details of repairs or tests you have done for your customers. A number of standard reports are supplied with the system, and it is possible to tailor these to reflect the individual style of report required by your organisation, or your customer.

Information retrieval is quick and easy, allowing anyone in the workshop to gain access to accurate, up-to-the-minute information (which can of course also be included in reports). Workshop managers can answer customer queries immediately over the phone, with finger tip access to all relevant records and information, including details of previous queries, responses, jobs etc.

In a manufacturing environment work orders in progress, completed or unstarted can be reported, while a service organisation can determine the status of all open jobs for a given customer.

In any environment, Stamina Job Costing will give you an accurate, up to date picture of exactly where you are, right now, at the touch of a button, letting you get down to your job of managing your business.

Click for Job Costing System Flow Chart