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Know the margin
before the job's even quoted.
Projected profit before you send. Quoted-vs-actual after you do. Every cost — labour, materials, mileage, expenses — flows into the job's financial overview live.
Trusted by 1,500+ UK contractors
From two-person crews to 200-strong firms.
The problem
Profitable on paper?
Loss-making in real life?
Working it out at month-end?
Most contractors find out a job lost money in the month-end accounts. PaperDrop's Job Costing shows projected margin before you send the quote and quoted-vs-actual every day the job runs. Bad jobs flag themselves while you can still do something about them.
In plain English
What is job costing software?
Job costing software tracks the real cost of every job against the price quoted — live, line by line. Labour comes from time entries, materials from stock allocations and POs, mileage from timesheets and expenses from approved claims, all linking back to the same job record. For UK contractors this means projected profit before a quote is sent, and quoted-vs-actual variance during the work — so margin slippage is flagged while you can still ring the customer for a variation, not a month later in the month-end accounts.
What's inside
Every cost,
against every quote.
Projected profit
Costs vs rates factored before you send the quote. Adjust on the fly to hit the margin you want.
Quoted vs actual
Every line on the financial overview shows what you quoted, what you've spent, and what's left.
Labour costs
Engineer time logged on the job becomes a labour cost at that engineer's rate. Automatic.
Materials & purchases
Materials Library cost prices and PO line items both land on the job's expenditure side.
Mileage & expenses
Job mileage and approved expenses flow straight into the job's expenditure with no double-entry.
Margin alerts
Projected costs creeping over the quoted price? PaperDrop flags it before you finish the job.
How it works
Quote.
Run. Reconcile.
01
Project before you send
Build the quote from your Materials Library and labour rates. PaperDrop shows projected margin alongside the customer-facing total before you send.
02
Costs land as they happen
Engineer time, allocated stock, raised POs, approved expenses and job mileage all flow onto the job's expenditure side automatically.
03
Reconcile live
Open the job any time and see quoted vs actual, line by line. Flag profit slippage before month-end — not in it.
Hit the margin you set out to hit.
Cost prices from the Materials Library, labour rates from your settings, factored against the quote total. See projected profit alongside the customer-facing price — and adjust before you press Send.
The whole job's financial story, live.
Every job's Financial Overview shows quoted vs actual for labour, materials, mileage and expenses. Live, never end-of-month. Profit slippage flags itself while you can still do something about it.
Every cost lands on the right job.
Allocated stock from the van. POs raised against the supplier. Mileage logged on the timesheet. Approved expense receipts. PaperDrop links every cost to the job it belongs to — no double-entry, no spreadsheet reconciliation.
“Even as we scale, PaperDrop keeps our care consistent.”
TruBuild
Material costs come from the Materials Library (the cost price, not the customer-facing price). Labour costs come from each engineer's rate × hours. Subtract from the quote total to get projected profit. Updates live as you change the quote.
Engineer time logged on the job; stock allocated from the van; POs raised against suppliers; mileage logged on timesheets; approved expense claims. All linked to the job automatically.
Yes — the job's Financial Overview breaks costs into labour, materials, mileage and expenses, with quoted and actual side by side. Variance shows in red or green.
Yes — projected actual costs are compared to the quote in real time. If they're trending over the quote, the job flags it on the dashboard so you can act before completion.
Yes — when a job is revised, the Financial Overview recalculates against the new quote total, even if no costs were modified on the revised job.
Yes — role-based permissions. Engineers see no financial detail; project managers see costs; finance sees everything. Configurable per role.
Pairs well with
Better together.
Profit you projected.
Profit you make.
See your own job margins in PaperDrop — takes 30 seconds, no card, no call.