Cost Codes

Required Permission

Company Setup - You must have the Company Setup permission to access this setting.

Cost codes organize your business operations and enable accurate job costing across estimates, schedules, and reporting.

What Are Cost Codes?

Cost codes (also called categories) serve multiple purposes:

• Organization - Group work by trade or type
• Job Costing - Track costs against budget
• Default Markup - Set markup rates per code
• Reporting - Analyze profitability by category
• Accounting - Map to QuickBooks accounts
• Scheduling - Organize calendar by trade

Accessing Cost Codes

1. Go to Settings
2. Click Cost Codes (or Categories)
3. View and manage your cost code structure

Cost Code Fields

Field	Description
Number	Numeric code for sorting and identification
Name	Descriptive name
Parent	Parent code (for hierarchies)
Type	Production, Design, or Non-billable
Markup	Default markup percentage
Sort Order	Display order in lists

Cost Code Types

Type	Description	Use For
Production	Standard construction work	Most codes
Design	Design services	Design fees, consulting
Non-billable	Internal costs not billed	Warranty, overhead

Code type affects:

• Which estimate types can use the code
• How costs are reported
• Whether items appear on customer documents

Allowing Cost Codes for Time Entry

If your company restricts which cost codes can be selected when logging time (the ID-filtered time cost code setting), you can manage the allowed list yourself from this page.

When this setting is active, each Production and Design cost code shows an Allowed for Production Time Entries or Allowed for Design Time Entries toggle:

• Turn the toggle on to make the code selectable on time entries for that type of work.
• Turn it off to hide the code from the time-entry cost-code list.

Production and Design keep separate allowed lists — turning a production code on or off does not affect the design list, and vice versa. Changes take effect immediately.

If your company does not use ID-filtered time cost codes, this toggle does not appear and all cost codes remain available for time entry as before.

Default Markup

Set a default markup percentage per code:

• New assemblies inherit the code's markup
• Can be overridden at assembly or estimate level
• Useful for trade-specific margins

Example:

• Cabinets: 40% markup
• Plumbing: 25% markup
• Labor: 50% markup

Where Cost Codes Are Used

Estimating

• Organize assemblies by cost code
• Filter when building estimates
• Set default markup rates
• Track estimated costs by code

Scheduling

• Assign cost codes to calendar events
• Filter schedule by trade
• Track time against codes

Reporting

Job cost reports break down by code:

• Estimated vs actual by code
• Profitability by category
• Code trends over time

Job Costing

Track actual costs against estimates:

• Labor hours by code
• Material costs by code
• Variance analysis

QuickBooks Integration

Map cost codes to QuickBooks accounts:

1. Open the cost code
2. Set QuickBooks Account
3. Save

When syncing to QuickBooks:

• Income posts to mapped revenue account
• Costs post to mapped expense account

See QuickBooks Integration for setup.

Getting Started

• Managing Cost Codes - Create, edit, and organize codes
• Code Structure & Templates - Numbering schemes and examples

Related

• Cost Codes in Estimates - How cost codes work in estimating
• Managing Assemblies - Assign codes to assemblies
• Financial Reports - Job cost reporting