Start this review once the project is live and the estimate is worth protecting

This workflow is usually owned by the business owner, estimator, operations manager or admin person who watches job margin. It begins from the project record after the job has been won, because that is where Fencify brings together the contract value, paid amount, project expenses, purchase order activity, material receipts, cost entries and the actual versus estimated cost panel.

Open the costing workflow when the job has a real chance of cost movement. That is usually before install starts, when materials are ordered, when labour begins to hit the site, or when the office is checking whether the contract value still makes sense against what the team is spending.

Before you start entering anything, make sure the project itself is ready to be measured properly:

• the project is linked to the accepted quote you are actually delivering
• the contract value reflects the current commercial position for the job
• install dates are realistic enough for supplier timing and labour timing to matter
• purchase orders and supplier records are being managed through the same project where possible
• the person entering costs understands whether they are recording labour, materials, or another cost type
• the team member doing the review has financial visibility inside Fencify

That last point matters. Financial panels are intentionally restricted for delegated users who do not have the right finance access. If someone sees limited financial detail or a restricted view, treat that as an access decision, not as missing project data.

Set the estimated baseline before actual costs start drifting

The costing workflow works best when the estimate is captured early. On the project page, the Actual vs Estimated Costs card includes a Set Baseline action. This is where you tell Fencify what the job was expected to cost before actual labour, deliveries and extra spending start to change the picture.

When you save the baseline, Fencify asks for more than one number. You can record:

• the estimated total cost for the job
• a source note such as quote estimate or manual review
• a percentage threshold for cost variance alerts
• an amount threshold for cost variance alerts
• notes that explain how the estimate was derived

Use the source and notes fields properly. They help the office understand whether the baseline came straight from the accepted quote, from a later procurement review, or from a manual estimate that was revised after site conditions became clearer.

A strong baseline is practical rather than optimistic. If you already know the site has tight access, rock, difficult removal, staged deliveries or non-standard labour demands, reflect that before the first actual costs are entered. A weak baseline makes every later variance message harder to trust.

Record costs from the correct place so the project tells a clean story

Fencify gives you more than one way to capture cost movement because not every cost belongs in the same bucket. The goal is not just to get numbers in. The goal is to make the audit trail understandable later.

The main cost inputs on the project are:

Set Baseline

Your planned cost position before actual spending is recorded.

Add Cost Entry

Used for actual labour, material or other direct job costs.

Record Material Actual

Used when material has physically been received or consumed and you want it reflected in the material ledger and cost model.

Add Project Expense

Used for project expenses such as concrete, tip fees, permits or other charges that should sit on the project's financial record.

Use Add Cost Entry when you need a direct actual cost line against the job. Fencify lets you choose Labour, Material or Other. Labour entries can be linked against a milestone or recorded against a specific task name. That is useful when you want the labour trail to match how the crew or supervisor thinks about the job, such as post set, gate alignment, sheet install or site clean-up.

Use Add Project Expense for costs that are still real project spending but do not belong in the cost-entry form. This keeps the project record practical for expenses like permit charges, waste disposal, concrete top-ups, small compliance fees or other one-off spends the office wants visible.

The discipline here is simple: choose one place that best matches the nature of the cost. If the same spend is entered as both an expense and a cost entry, the profitability picture will become less reliable.

Use material actuals for what physically happened on the job

The Record Material Actual action is built for the reality of fencing work, where material timing and delivered quantities often shape the real margin. The form lets you record a source type, supplier, inventory product, quantity, unit cost, source reference, received date and notes. The available source types are:

• PO Receipt for material received through purchasing activity
• Manual Adjustment for a correction or direct entry that did not come through a purchase order receipt
• Stock Use for material pulled from your own stock

Use this record when material has actually landed for the project or has clearly been consumed by the job. The material actual then appears in the project's Material Actuals Ledger, where the office can review source, supplier, product, received date, quantity, unit cost and total cost in one place.

This ledger becomes useful when the site reality changes. A fencing crew might receive all posts and rails but only part of the sheets. A gate kit might arrive from a different supplier than planned. A stock-use entry might be needed because leftover panels or fittings were pulled from your yard instead of being purchased again. Those details matter when you want a profitability review that reflects the actual job rather than the original assumption.

Keep the source reference and notes clear enough for later review. A short supplier receipt number, delivery docket note or site-delivery note is often enough to make sense of the entry weeks later.

Let purchase order receiving feed the costing workflow instead of re-keying everything

If your purchasing process is already running through the project, use it. Fencify's purchase order flow does more than track supplier paperwork. When a PO item is received, the project updates the ordered, received, backorder and outstanding quantities on that supplier order, and the same receiving action can feed the material receipt history and the actual cost picture for the job.

That makes receiving one of the most important job-costing moments in the project lifecycle. It is the point where supplier activity stops being planned cost and starts becoming actual cost.

A clean receiving pass usually looks like this:

1. Open the relevant project and review the supplier purchase order that is still open.
2. Check whether the delivery is full or partial before recording anything.
3. Enter the received quantity against the correct line item, along with any backorder quantity that is still outstanding.
4. Confirm the unit cost you want reflected in the receipt.
5. Save the receipt so the project's procurement and material-cost records stay aligned.

This matters on real fencing jobs because partial deliveries are common. If steel posts arrive today but gate hardware is still outstanding, the project can show that the material is only part received, while the costing model still reflects the material that has genuinely landed. That helps operations decide whether the crew can start, whether the install dates need attention, and whether the expected margin is already moving.

Read the variance signals before they become a month-end surprise

Once a baseline exists and actual costs start to build, the Actual vs Estimated Costs card becomes the main working review. It shows:

• estimated total
• actual total
• variance
• variance alert messaging when the configured threshold has been exceeded

If the project is running over the baseline beyond your configured threshold, Fencify raises a variance alert on the card. That alert can reflect the percentage threshold, the amount threshold, or both, depending on what you configured when the baseline was saved.

Do not wait until the job is nearly finished to react. A variance alert is most useful while decisions can still be made. For example:

• if labour is running high because access is slower than expected, the office may need to watch the remaining install stages more closely
• if material actuals are higher because a supplier price shifted, the team may need to review future procurement choices on similar jobs
• if repeated other-cost entries are building, the office may need to check whether the scope has quietly changed and should be captured properly elsewhere in the project workflow

Use the cost entries list and material ledger together. One shows the actual cost lines being recorded. The other shows how material receipts are accumulating. If the variance moves but the supporting entries do not explain it clearly, clean the project record before the review goes any further.

Use the Dashboard and Projects list to spot broader trouble early

The project page gives you the job-level detail. The Dashboard and Projects list help you decide which jobs need that deeper review first.

For permitted users, the Dashboard shows revenue, expenses, net profit and outstanding amounts. That is useful for checking whether cost pressure is staying isolated to one job or starting to affect the wider business. The cashflow view helps the office judge whether incoming payments are keeping pace with outgoing project spend.

The Projects list gives a faster operating view across active work. You can filter by project status and search by name, address or suburb. For users with financial visibility, each row also shows the contract value, paid amount and due amount. That makes the list a useful weekly checkpoint for questions like:

• which active jobs are carrying large balances still to be collected
• which projects may need a closer look because cash received is lagging behind site activity
• which completed jobs still deserve a margin review before they are mentally closed out
• which quoted projects should not yet be treated as live-cost jobs because the work has not really started

Used together, the Dashboard shows business-level financial pressure while the Projects list helps you choose the next project record to open. Then the project itself tells you whether the issue is labour, materials, expenses, delayed receiving, or simply outstanding client money.

Practical fencing example and the final profitability review

Imagine a sloping Colorbond replacement with one pedestrian gate and a removal component. The accepted quote looked healthy, so the office set an estimated baseline as soon as the project was created. The source note was saved against the baseline, and the variance thresholds were set to reflect the business's normal tolerance for residential jobs.

As the job moved forward, the steel order was received in two drops. The first delivery covered posts and rails, while a second delivery later completed the sheets. Each receipt updated the procurement record and contributed to the material actual picture. The supervisor also logged a labour cost entry against the install milestone after extra time was spent dealing with slope and tight access near the side boundary. A separate project expense was added for an unexpected concrete top-up.

By the middle of the install, the project's actual total had moved far enough above the estimate to trigger the variance warning. Because the entries were clean, the office could immediately see why: labour had climbed, material actuals were in, and the additional site expense was already visible. That is a useful review. It gives the business something it can learn from before the next quote is built.

Before closing your review on any live or recently completed job, run this checklist:

• the baseline reflects the estimate you actually want to measure against
• labour, material and other cost entries are being recorded in the right place
• project expenses are not being forgotten or duplicated
• material actuals reflect what has truly been received or consumed
• open purchase orders and part receipts are still being monitored
• variance alerts have been read and acted on, not ignored
• the Dashboard and Projects list are being used to decide which jobs need a margin conversation next
• delegated access is being respected so financial review stays with the right users

Once this workflow is being followed consistently, profitability review becomes much more useful. Instead of asking whether the job felt expensive, you can see where the cost movement happened and use that evidence in quoting, purchasing, labour planning and project follow-up.