Project Costing¶

Analyze costs across your projects and understand exactly how CrewStat arrives at every number on the Budget Utilization card.

What Counts Toward Project Cost¶

Project cost has two components:

Expenses — direct costs recorded via the expense module (materials, purchases, reimbursements, etc.)
Labor cost — calculated from attendance records using each worker's cost category rate

How they combine depends on a per-project setting (see Including labor in the budget below).

How Expenses Flow Into Project Cost¶

Every project has an Actual Cost figure that updates automatically as expenses move through their approval flow:

Expense status	Effect on Actual Cost
Draft / Pending	Not counted
Approved	Added
Paid	Counted
Rejected	Removed (if previously counted)

You don't need to update this manually — approve or pay an expense, and the project's Actual Cost reflects it immediately.

How Labor Cost Is Calculated¶

Labor cost is derived from attendance records, using the worker's assigned cost category.

Daily Cost¶

Attendance status	Daily cost
Present (full day)	`daily_rate`
Half Day	`daily_rate × 0.5`
Absent / Leave	`0`

Overtime (optional)¶

If overtime is enabled in Settings → HR Setup, overtime hours on an attendance record add to the daily cost:

Overtime cost = (overtime hours ÷ 8) × daily_rate × overtime_multiplier

The overtime multiplier is set on each cost category (typical value: 1.5 for time-and-a-half).

A Simple Example¶

A Mason with a daily rate of 1,200 works 20 full days and 2 half days in a month, with 4 overtime hours at a 1.5× multiplier:

Full days:     20 × 1,200            = 24,000
Half days:      2 × 1,200 × 0.5      =  1,200
Overtime:      (4 ÷ 8) × 1,200 × 1.5 =    900
─────────────────────────────────────────────
Labor cost                             26,100

Where Rates Come From¶

Cost categories are configured in Settings → Masters → Cost Categories. Typical setup:

Labour categories

Category	Daily Rate
Helper	800
Skilled Worker	1,000
Mason	1,200
Site Supervisor	1,500

Employee categories

Category	Daily Rate
Technician	1,500
Junior Engineer	1,800
Senior Engineer	2,500

Each employee / labourer is assigned a cost category in their profile, and the rate that applies is the one effective on the date of the attendance record — so historical costs stay accurate even after you change a category's rate.

Including Labor in the Budget¶

Every project has a switch that controls whether labor cost counts toward budget utilization:

Setting	Total Cost
Include Labour in Budget: Off	Expenses only
Include Labour in Budget: On	Expenses + Labor cost

Turning It On¶

Open the project and click Edit
Enable Cost Monitoring
Enable Include Labour in Budget
Save

You can also set a Cost Monitoring Threshold (default 20%) that drives budget alerts when spending outpaces progress.

Budget Utilization¶

Once total cost is known:

Utilization % = (Total Cost ÷ Estimated Budget) × 100
Remaining     = Estimated Budget − Total Cost

The Budget Utilization card on the project detail page shows:

Utilization percentage with a progress bar
Total spent (expenses + labor, if enabled)
Breakdown — Expenses vs Labor (shown only if Include Labour in Budget is on)
Remaining budget

A separate Labor Costs card shows a detailed breakdown:

Employee costs
Labour costs
Overtime cost (if any)
Total labor cost

Worked Project Examples¶

Project A — Villa Construction

Item	Value
Estimated Budget	2,000,000
Expenses	0
Labor Cost	144,085
Include Labour in Budget	On

Total Cost    = 0 + 144,085       = 144,085
Utilization   = 144,085 / 2,000,000 × 100 = 7.2%
Remaining     = 2,000,000 − 144,085 = 1,855,915

Project B — Office Fit-out

Item	Value
Estimated Budget	500,000
Expenses	0
Labor Cost	133,808
Include Labour in Budget	On

Total Cost    = 0 + 133,808       = 133,808
Utilization   = 133,808 / 500,000 × 100 = 26.8%
Remaining     = 500,000 − 133,808 = 366,192

Report Contents¶

The Project Costing report gathers all of the above across your projects and lets you:

Compare estimated budget vs actual spend side by side
Drill into each project's expenses and labor-cost split
Spot projects that are over budget or at risk (spending outpacing progress)
Filter by date range, project status, or zone / site

For deeper labor-only analysis, see the Labor Cost report. For expense-only analysis, see Budget vs Actual.