On the DASHBOARD, enter the estimate information for each project when you have signed the contract.
For each month, update the “Percent Complete” entries on the Dashboard. This will allow you to make Estimated-to-Actual comparisons for Direct Costs, Overhead, and Profit expectations.
Start tracking projects at any time during the year. You do not have to start in January, but you may wish to go to the beginning of each project and input the information.
For each month, enter the total direct costs for that month in the “Total Job Costs this month:” cell. The information is found on your income statement.
Enter the total General and Administrative costs for the month in the “Total Overhead Costs this month:” cell.
Enter the actual direct costs for each active project for each month. If the aggregate total for projects does not equal the Total Job Costs for the month, you will see the warning “Job Costs do not match!!”. Adjust the project job costs until the warning disappears.
The calculator may show negative numbers for completed projects in the “OH Costs to be Allocated This Month” column. The calculator is constantly adjusting the actual relationship between Cost of Goods Sold and General and Administrative Expenses for all jobs in all periods.
You can make the Overhead Allocation adjustments monthly by entering the negative and positive numbers to the General Journal in your accounting platform. This will provide a real time analysis of Overhead Allocation.
You may choose to wait until the end of the year to make the Overhead Allocations. In that case, enter the numbers in the “Total OH Allocations for Year” column in the December tab to your General Journal.
The file can be saved at any time, and then reloaded to continue entering or to update the information. See the file management link at the bottom of the DASHBOARD for instructions.