Job Costing
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Is Job Costing Worth the Bother?

Absolutely.

First, it's not a bother. At least, that's what those using it say. In fact, most companies are very pleased with job costing for two reasons. The first reason is that they have actual costs versus budgeted costs at their fingertips whenever they want it. It is this kind of knowledge that gives them the power to control job costs.

The second reason is important too. Many companies moving from general accounting to job costing software find their time to be very productive, so much so that they were able to reduce their staff, saving money. One company reported to A-Systems that they went from 60 hours per week doing accounting to less than 40. In fact, the accountant had so much time on her hands, she started doing the job costing for her brother on the side.

Another company had 11 people in their accounting department while using a very expensive accounting program. When they moved to JobView, and did real job costing, they immediately dropped from 11 to 8 people. As they got used to the program, they dropped to 5 people. They reported that they no longer needed as many people to do data entry, generate reports, and generally keep their job costing current. What pleased them the most was that they stopped using spreadsheets to do their job costing. They saved enough money that the software paid for itself every few weeks! Using job costing was not a "bother" to them.