Getting started with Job

Crew time is costed from your own rates when it is approved, so this comes first. Open People and safety › Directory, then its Employees tab.

1. Add your trades.

   Under Trades, type each kind of worker in New trade, such as Operator, Crew member or Pipe layer, and select Add trade. Labor resources in Bid's Codebook show up here too, so a company that bids in Aggrado may find them already there.

2. Add your employees.

   Under Employees, select Add an employee. One page takes the whole record: details and trade, contact and address, pay with a billing rate, paid time off, license, emergency contact, crews and tags. Their own hourly wage is what their hours cost when set; otherwise their trade's on the rate table is used. The burden on it is the company's standard (see Labor burden), the same for everyone. A union scale table always wins. Their billing rate prices their T&M hours instead of the rate sheet.

   For anyone who will use the phone app, enter their Email, choose Invite to the app under The app, and pick their roles. Add them and send the invitation saves the record and sends the invitation last; accepting it links their sign-in to the employee. Quick add enters a crew a name at a time, and File › Import › People… brings in a spreadsheet.

3. Keep everything on their card.

   Open an employee from the Employees tab to see their card: their app roles (select Edit roles), certificates and when each runs out, paid time off (select Add a line for time taken or an adjustment), and Discipline and notes. Select Add an entry for a write-up, a verbal warning, an unexcused absence, a late arrival or a commendation. The employee sees their own record on My file and signs that they received a write-up or a warning. Edit employee opens the whole record.

4. Enter a labor rate table.

   Under Labor rate tables, select Add a rate table, name it, then select Set rates and enter each trade's Base $/h and Burden % or Burden $/h, with the Overtime × and Double × multipliers. Until a table has a rate for a trade, time in that trade cannot be approved. The company's first table becomes its default rate table. Once the company adopts a standard labor burden under Settings › Labor burden, it replaces the tables' burden, except on a union scale.

5. Set the overtime rules.

   Open Settings › How your crews work. Under Overtime and approval, set Overtime after (hours a week) and the daily limits, The workweek starts on, the Default rate table and how many Approvals before time is costed. Select Save rules.

Jobs › All jobs lists every job at your company, from award to closeout.

1. A won bid arrives on its own.

   A bid handed off to Job from Bid lands on All jobs with its budget, cost codes, pay items and schedule already in place. The award also brings the contacts, the site's map pin and the estimator, who joins the job's team when they are an active member of your company. An award that came as a file comes in with File › Import › Award file… on the menu bar.

2. Or add the job by hand.

   On All jobs, choose New job ▾ › Project (or File › New job…). Enter the Job name; the Job number is filled in with the next number, and each number can be used once. Add the Customer and Location, and select Create job. The new job opens. The same button makes a Quick job from a template; see the quick jobs guide.

3. Work down Set up this job.

   While a job is Not started, its Summary shows Set up this job: Name the team, Add the contacts, Set the start date, Call in the 811 tickets, Add the permits, Give the customer access and Send the T&M rates. Each step is checked off once it's done, or has a button to the view that does it. The card goes once everything is done or the job starts; Hide puts it away on this computer.

4. Name the team.

   In the Team card on the Summary, select Edit and choose the Project manager and the Superintendent, who is asked for the job's two-week look-ahead each week. Check anyone else under Team. The foreman shows on their own once they send the first time card.

5. Set its status and place.

   On Details, select Edit details. Set Status to Active when work starts: the WIP report and the home page count active jobs. Add the Starts and Finishes dates, and under Where it is on the map drop the pin (or type the Latitude and Longitude) for the time clock's geofence and the daily report's weather. The job's contract terms (retainage, payment days, pay when paid) are kept on Details too.

Opening a job gives you its sections: Summary, Details, Financial, Documents, Time, Files and photos, Contacts, Schedule, Equipment and Customer access. The views named below sit inside them: Budget, Job cost and Forecast under Financial's Budget and cost; Pay applications, Invoices, Change orders and T&M tickets under Money in; Purchase orders and subcontracts under Money out; Time cards, Cost by day and Certified payroll under Time; Plans and Survey quantities under Files and photos; Deliveries under Documents; and Look-ahead and Dispatch under Schedule.

A cost code groups the activities the crew reports against. On the Budget view, Original is what was awarded and never changes; Current adds every revision.

1. Add the cost codes.

   Select Use the company's codes to pick from your company's list, or Add a cost code and enter the Code, Description and what it is Measured in, such as CY, LF or SY. A code measured by quantity is the only kind that can show percent complete and unit cost later.

2. On a job added by hand, enter the budget.

   Select Enter the budget, choose a Cost code and Category, and enter the Amount, Hours and Quantity. Select Record the revision; the form stays open for the next code or category. With no award behind it, Original stays at $0 and Current is the budget.

3. Keep the cost codes tidy as the job runs.

   Open a code to see the activities it groups. You can move activities to another code, use Edit code to change it, or Merge into another code… to roll one code up into another. Clearing Active: shown to foremen when they code time keeps a code off the phone without deleting it.

4. Record changes as revisions.

   Select Revise the budget, choose the Cost code and Category, enter the Amount and Hours, and give a Reason. To move budget between codes, choose a Transfer to (optional) code. Every revision is listed under Budget revisions.

These four views are what the foreman sees on the phone, and the last three work without signal.

1. Contacts.

   Select Add a contact for the customer's rep, the inspector and whoever the crew calls for deliveries. Each contact carries a Note for the crew, such as ordering a compaction test a day ahead.

2. Plans.

   Select Add a plan set and upload the set as one PDF, with its Revision and the date Issued. Name the sheets so the crew can find them. When a new set arrives, check This set replaces the current one so the crew stops seeing the old set. If the job came from Bid, select Bring them onto the crew's phones.

3. Schedule.

   A job from Bid brings its schedule, with each line's working days and what it waits on. The Schedule asks When does the work start? once; Start on this day and set the baseline moves every line there. On a job added by hand, select Add a line for each piece of Work, with its Start, Finish and Cost code. The crew sees this week's work and what is next. Each week the project manager brings it up to date with Weekly update, or every job at once on Jobs › Schedule › Monday update.

4. Deliveries.

   Select Add a delivery with What's coming, the date Expected, the Supplier and a Time window. The crew confirms the site is ready and records what actually came off the truck.

1. Send the crews out.

   On Jobs › Schedule › Dispatch, select New dispatch. Choose the Job, Who's going, What's going with them, and the cost codes for What they're working on. Select Save. When the day is ready, select Send to the foreman, or Send all 3 when there are several. The dispatch reaches the foreman's phone, and his time card starts from it, so nobody is choosing cost codes at 5:30 in the morning.

2. Set up standing crews.

   Under Standing crews, select New standing crew for the people who usually go out together. A dispatch can then be filled from one with Fill from it.

3. Move people and machines about the board.

   On a computer, Not placed lists everyone and every machine with no job and no column that day. Drag a person or a machine onto a job's card, from one job to another, or back to Not placed; drag a standing crew onto a job and its people and machines all go. Drop on a job under Jobs with nobody on them to start its day. While you hold something over a job or a column, it says what the drop would do: who would be in two places, a machine that would need floating, or what it settles. Undo takes back the last move. Without a mouse, select a name and use Move to… instead. On a phone, use New dispatch and Edit.

4. Put everyone else somewhere: shop, yard, training, off, down.

   Beside the jobs are the day's other columns: Shop, Yard, Training, Down for a machine being repaired, and Off, which takes a day off, Sick or Vacation. Drag a person or a machine into one; if they were on a job that day they come off it. Drag them from a column onto a job and the column is cleared, because a job the same day wins. People go in any column but Down; machines go in Down, Shop or Yard. Somebody marked off, sick, on vacation or at training who is sent anyway is allowed, and Worth a second look says so, as it does for a machine marked down. Undo puts the column back too. On a phone, open Who's where and use Mark as… beside a name. The crew's phones show it: a hand in the shop sees Shop today, and a foreman sees who of his crew is off and which of his machines are down.

5. Review the time cards that come back.

   On People and safety › Time, the Time cards tab lists cards from the field under Waiting for approval. Open one to check the hours, the Quantities installed and the Machines, then select Approve. Send back returns it to the foreman with your comment. Approving posts the hours to each job's cost at standard rates.

6. Send the hours to payroll, and true up to what it paid.

   Approved hours go to payroll one way: a pay run a period from Money › Send to payroll, with its file. After payroll runs, open the pay run and Bring back what payroll paid (the register, for the burden variance), or open the What payroll really cost tab, paste the job, cost code and amount from the payroll report, select Preview, then Save to burden variance. The difference between standard rates and what was paid goes on the company's burden variance (see Labor burden); the jobs stay at the standard burden.

1. Read the job's cost.

   On Job cost, one table holds every code, with column sets: Budget, Cost, Forecast, Committed and All. Cost shows what was spent, what was installed, % installed, Earned budget, Over/under (earned), Units/hr and Unit cost; the others end at Cost at completion and Over/under. Labor is always at the company's standard burden; what payroll actually paid is the company's variance, not the job's. Cards still waiting for approval are named above the table, because they are not in the figures yet.

2. Look at the days behind a number.

   Cost by day lists every approved time card: the day, the foreman, the cost code, hours, quantity installed and what it cost. It is where a bad unit cost turns into a particular Tuesday.

3. Forecast where the job lands.

   On Forecast, each code is priced at the crew's rate until you change it: At the crew's rate, At the budget's unit cost or Typed in. When it's settled, select Accept the October forecast (named for the month): it is finalized and becomes the target the job is run to instead of the budget. At month end, Money › Reports › Month end lists every job with an Accept button and opens each forecast beside the list.

4. Be told without looking.

   On Settings › Alert rules, select New alert rule. A rule worth having first: tell the project manager when a cost code goes more than a few thousand dollars over.

Where work is bought in, cost to date is only half the picture: a code can look 60% spent and be 95% committed.

1. Write the subcontracts and purchase orders.

   On Purchase orders and subcontracts, select New PO or subcontract. Under What it is, choose Subcontract or Purchase order, say who it is With and what it is For, set the Retainage percentage, and list the cost codes under Against which cost codes. Select Save draft, then Issue. It counts against the job from the moment it is issued.

2. Record what the sub bills.

   Select Enter a bill on the commitment. The bill opens with the vendor, the job and the commitment filled in, and it is checked against what was agreed and approved like any other bill before it reaches job cost.

3. Connect your accounting system.

   On Settings › QuickBooks and accounting, select Connect QuickBooks Online and sign in at Intuit, or trade files with another system under Other accounting systems (files). Under Match cost codes, their items are matched against your cost codes; anything short of certain waits for you. Hours go out; bills, cost and payments come back.

4. Code the bills nobody placed.

   A bill that arrives without a cost code carries no cost until somebody says where it goes. They wait under Bills waiting for a cost code on the Purchase orders and subcontracts view, each with a proposed code and how sure Aggrado is. Check the ones you agree with and select Code these.

1. Write it when it's asked for.

   On Change orders, select New change order. Enter What the customer asked for, The customer's number for it and What happened, then each line's cost code, cost and hours, and what it sells for.

2. Price it from the bid.

   Under Price it from the bid, choose the bid activity the change is more of. Choose More of it and enter the quantity (negative for less), or choose Crew days and enter the days, then select Add the lines. The lines are priced at the job's bid unit costs. More of the work sells under the pay item it was bid under, at its contract price. No Bid seat is needed.

   Enter a Markup on work no pay item sells to sell crew days and other lines without a pay item. Executing writes them as one lump-sum pay item, at cost plus the markup. The customer sees only the lump sum.

3. Price a revised grading plan from its surface.

   Save the change order, select Edit, and under Price it from a revised surface upload the revised design surface as LandXML. If the file holds several surfaces, choose the revised design, then select Compare with the bid. Aggrado runs the bid's own cut/fill against it, with the same existing ground, boundary, fill factor and swell, and shows each earthwork activity's quantity in the bid and revised. Select Add the lines to price the change at the bid's unit costs. The bid itself isn't changed. This works for a job awarded from a bid in Aggrado whose earthwork took its quantities from a cut/fill.

4. Send it and record the answer.

   Select Send to the customer, and later Mark approved or Mark turned down. The customer can also approve it, with a signature, on their customer access link; see Bill the customer below. A T&M ticket the customer signs goes onto a change order at its signed total.

5. Put it in the budget.

   Select Execute (adds it to the budget and contract). That is the only step that moves the budget: it writes a revision on each cost code and enlarges the pay items it sells under.

1. Check the pay items.

   On the job's Pay applications view, under Money in, the Schedule of values comes with the award, or is built with Add a pay item for a job billed by unit price. Link a cost code lets an item's quantity come from what the crew has installed. Retainage and payment terms come from the contract terms on Details.

2. Open the month's application.

   Select Start the October application (named for the month). Each line shows what was billed to date and what is being billed This period. You can enter your own quantity over the field's where the customer's surveyor measured it differently.

3. Send it and record the payment.

   Add Our invoice no. (optional) and select Send to the customer…. The email dialog opens with the application attached: Send emails it to the customer and general contractor contacts, and Mark sent without emailing is for sending it yourself. Either way every line is frozen as sent, and, where the company has switched it on, it goes to QuickBooks. When the money arrives, select Record the payment and enter the amount, the date and the check number. A short payment leaves the application part paid, showing what is still owed. Money › Pay applications lists every billing job's application for the month.

4. Give the customer a link.

   Under Customer access, check what the job shows under What they see, such as pay applications, change orders and daily reports, and select Save. Then select Add a person, say Who is it for and Email it to, choose Access (Full access or Read only), add a Passcode of six characters or more if you like, and select Add them (or Add them and email the link). Send the passcode separately. The link shows no cost, no hours and no crew names, and it can be turned off at any time.

Once a job is running, the rest of Job follows the same pattern.

• Jobs › Daily reports opens with To approve, every job's sent reports together (Approve checked), and Missing, the days with a time card but no report sent. Below are the company's Tags and the Delay claim evidence report built from delay hours, tagged cost and signed T&M. Hours are tagged on a time card line, on the website and on the phone.
• Jobs › Schedule holds the week's order: Monday update for every job's schedule, the Planning board, the two-week Look-ahead and Dispatch. See The Monday update.
• Jobs › T&M tickets: work the customer asked for outside the contract, priced at the job's T&M rates, signed on site or sent for signature by a link, and then invoiced or put on a change order.
• People and safety: Toolbox talks and hazards, Inspections and checklists, Corrective actions, Incidents and the OSHA 300 log.
• Equipment: machines, work orders, problems, service, inspections, fuel and rentals, with Print machine tags for the QR tags.
• Money › Reports › Month end: the WIP schedule (every job on one page: contract, cost, percent complete, earned, and whether it is overbilled or underbilled), the backlog, and a bonding pack to print. Accept each job's forecast, then Close the month so the next schedule can say what moved. See Month end.
• Certified payroll, on each job under Time: a week of approved time cards laid out the way WH-347 asks for it, checked against the wage decision before it can be signed.
• Survey quantities, on each job under Files and photos: a LandXML survey or drone flight measured against the ground as it was, posted as one adjustment to what the crew reported.

Estimating terms used across the products are defined in the estimating glossary.