Estimate vs. actual
Estimate vs. actual compares what you bid for each part of a job to what it actually cost, revealing where your estimating was off.
Tracked by cost code, it's how you learn which line items you consistently under- or over-estimate, so your next bid is sharper. It's the feedback loop that turns every finished job into a more accurate next estimate.
Related terms
- Job costing — Job costing is tracking the actual costs of a specific job — materials, labor, subs, and other expenses — against what you estimated, so you know the real profit on that job.
- Cost codes — Cost codes are standardized buckets (e.g. materials, labor, subs, equipment — often by phase) used to categorize every job cost so you can compare actuals to the estimate.
- Profit fade — Profit fade is when a job's expected profit shrinks as it progresses — usually from cost overruns, unbilled changes, or optimistic estimates.