Tracking real costs and your profit debrief
Quoting a job tells you what it should cost. Job costing tells you what it actually cost. As a job runs you log the real work and the real spend, and Surfacely compares the two — so you find out where the money went while you can still do something about it.
Logging work days and material purchases
On a project, open the Job costing section. There you log:
- Work days — the hours worked and how many people were on site that day. Surfacely tallies the real labour hours against the job.
- Material purchases — what you actually spent on paint and materials, in $.
Log them as you go — it's quick, and the running total is only as good as what you put in.
Over-budget alerts before it's too late
If the hours your crew logs, or what you spend on materials, starts running ahead of what you quoted, Surfacely warns you early rather than at the post-mortem. You'll get an alert as the job passes roughly 75%, 90%, and 110% of what you quoted — delivered as an in-app notification, a push, and an email — so a job that's drifting can't slip by unnoticed.
Accepted variations widen the budget, so adding agreed extra work doesn't trip a false alarm. If those points don't suit how you work, change them under Pricing & rates → Advanced pricing → Over-budget alerts.
Your profit debrief on completion
When you mark a job complete, Surfacely shows a profit summary comparing estimated against actual:
- Overall variance — did the job make what you expected
- Per-category breakdown — labour and each material category, so you can see exactly where the gap is
- A plain-English summary — a short read on how the job went
The plain-English summary is generated for you, and the debrief still works in full even if that part isn't available — the numbers are always there. From the debrief you can jump straight to the variance trend report to see whether this job was a one-off or a pattern.
Why it matters: a painter who logs actuals on every job stops guessing. Over a few jobs you'll see whether your labour rate, your prep levels, or your material allowances are the thing quietly costing you — and you can fix it before the next quote.