444: Job Costing - Your Construction Company's Competitive Advantage

<h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style= "color: #0000ff;"><strong>This Podcast Is Episode Number 444, And It's About Job Costing - Your Construction Company's Competitive Advantage</strong></span></h1> <div>Every contractor has a Job Costing Library; some keep it in their head, some keep it on paper with names like completed jobs, bids, estimates. Other contractors keep it in their QuickBooks For Contractors' software records. Still, other contractors rely on places like RS Means for comprehensive databases of construction costs. These are similar to the "Flat Rate Books" used by car repair shops for decades.</div> <div> </div> <div>A tiny fraction of contractors understand the actual value of a customized cost library and invest the time, energy, and resources to build and maintain one. Having done several, I can tell you it is a painful, arduous task. I will tell you a story to make it crystal clear.</div> <div> </div> <div> <p style="text-align: center;"><span style= "color: #0600ff;"><strong>The Treasure Box That Saved Four Contractor's Lives!</strong></span></p> <p><span data-preserver-spaces="true">In the mid-1800s, an archeologist left New York City on a journey into the heart of the African jungle in search of a lost civilization. He intended to find and bring back treasures that would make him a wealthy man.</span></p> <p><span data-preserver-spaces="true">He recruited four physically fit and very intelligent contractors, one each from </span><a href= "https://www.fasteasyaccounting.com/four-types-of-contractors/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span data-preserver-spaces= "true">The Four Types Of Contractors</span></a><span data-preserver-spaces="true">, to assist him with the promise they would be paid a substantial reward when they returned the treasure box to his office in New York City.</span></p> <p><span data-preserver-spaces="true">All went well for the first two weeks, and as luck would have it, they stumbled upon the lost civilization resting undisturbed under a soft blanket of floral and