Run an Expense and Materials Cost Report
Knowing how much a job cost to complete — not just how much you charged — is the difference between a profitable trade business and one that's busy but breaking even. Trade2Base lets you log material costs and labour against every job, then run expense reports to see your real margins across a day, week, month, or year.
Expense tracking and cost reports are available on Pro and Scale plans. Upgrade at Settings → Billing & Plan to unlock these features.
Tracking material costs against jobs
You can log costs on any job while it is in progress or after completion. There are two ways to do this:
Open any job and scroll to the "Costs" section. Click "Add cost". Enter a description (e.g. "Boiler flue kit"), the supplier, quantity, and unit price. Trade2Base calculates the line total and adds it to the job cost summary.
In the Costs section, click "Upload receipt". Take a photo of the receipt or upload a PDF. Trade2Base reads the total using OCR and pre-fills the cost entry for you to review and confirm.
Toggle to the Labour tab in the Costs section. Enter the engineer name, hours worked, and hourly rate. Trade2Base calculates the labour cost separately from materials so you can see both in reports.
Viewing profit margin per job
Once costs are logged, Trade2Base calculates the gross margin for each job automatically.
At the top of every job page, the summary bar shows: Invoice value, Total costs, Gross profit, and Margin %. These update in real time as you add or edit cost entries. Green means a healthy margin; amber means you're below your target; red means the job is currently loss-making.
Go to Settings → Reports → Margin target to set your minimum acceptable gross margin percentage. Trade2Base uses this to colour-code job margins and flag underperforming jobs in the expense report.
Trade2Base calculates gross margin (revenue minus direct materials and labour). It does not deduct overhead costs like van leasing or insurance — those are better tracked in your accounting software as fixed overheads.
Running an expense report
Click "Reports" in the sidebar, then select the "Expenses" tab.
Choose a date range using the calendar picker. You can select a custom range, or use quick presets: This month, Last month, This quarter, Last quarter, This tax year.
Optionally filter by assigned engineer to see expenses for a specific team member, or by job type (e.g. boiler installations only) to analyse costs within a particular service.
The report shows total revenue, total costs broken down by materials and labour, gross profit, and overall margin for the period. A table below shows each job in the period with its individual margin.
Click "Export CSV" to download the full expense report as a spreadsheet. The CSV includes every cost line item, supplier, date, and associated job reference.
Integrating with Xero and QuickBooks
If you use Xero or QuickBooks for your accounts, Trade2Base can push expense data directly rather than requiring a CSV import.
When you connect Xero (see the Connect Xero guide), Trade2Base syncs each job's cost entries to Xero as purchase invoices or spend transactions under a mapping you configure. Materials costs go to a “Cost of goods” account; labour goes to a “Subcontractor” or “Labour” account depending on your chart of accounts.
The QuickBooks integration works similarly. Costs sync as expenses in QuickBooks with the job reference populated in the memo field so your accountant can reconcile them easily. Connect QuickBooks at Settings → Integrations → QuickBooks.
Cost data syncs to Xero and QuickBooks once a day overnight, or you can trigger a manual sync at any time from Settings → Integrations by clicking Sync now.
Getting the most from expense reports
The most accurate margin data comes from logging costs on the day you buy materials. The engineer app lets engineers log costs from their phone while they're at the merchant, so the data is captured before receipts go missing.
Enable the weekly margin summary in Settings → Notifications. Every Monday morning you'll get an email showing last week's revenue, costs, and gross margin without needing to log in to run a report.
Sort the expense report by margin percentage ascending to see your least profitable jobs first. Look for patterns — are certain job types consistently thin? Could you adjust your pricing, negotiate better material rates, or stop taking certain types of work?
Still need help? Contact support
Upgrade to Pro and start tracking costs per job to see where your real profit comes from.
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