Current Costs Methods

The Current Costs box shows your actual labor cost for an estimate. There are two different calculation methods, depending on whether the job is fixed-price or Time & Materials.

Method One: Fixed-Price Job

(Time & Materials is not enabled)

This method calculates current costs using each employee’s actual base wage and the hours they worked.

Example

• Larry earns $45.00/hr
• Moe earns $25.00/hr

Day one hours:

• Larry worked 6 hours
• Moe worked 8 hours
• Total: 14 hours

The estimate is set at $50.00/hr per employee, which results in a company profit multiplier of 0.428571.

You might expect the current cost to be:

14 hours × $50.00 = $700.00
  

However, the actual current cost shown is:

$671.43
  

Why?

• Larry: 6 × $45.00 = $270.00
• Moe: 8 × $25.00 = $200.00
• Direct Labor: $470.00

Company profit:

$470.00 × 0.428571 = $201.43
  

Total current cost:

$470.00 + $201.43 = $671.43
  

This method always reflects the true labor cost based on actual wages and hours worked.

Method Two: Time & Materials Job

(Hourly Wage enabled and Time & Materials checked)

In this method, the program ignores individual base wages and instead uses the Hourly Wage × Total Hours.

Example

Using the same scenario:

• Total hours worked: 14
• Hourly wage billed: $50.00/hr

14 × $50.00 = $700.00
  

This is the amount billed to the customer.

The program still calculates actual labor internally:

• Direct labor: $470.00
• Base profit: $201.43
• Difference: $28.57

That difference is added back into profit so that:

$470.00 (labor) + $230.00 (profit) = $700.00
  

This ensures the current cost always aligns with what the customer is actually being charged.

Hopefully this clears up the difference between the two methods. Yes — it can be confusing at first.