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Who uses this: An Admin turns on invoice cost basis in Company Settings and sets whether Managers and Service Agents or Managers only can see unit costs on records. Availability: All regions.
Invoice cost basis records what each line item on an estimate or invoice actually cost you, so FieldPulse can show the profit and margin on the work. Your item list can store a unit cost that the person building the record never sees, which means you can track profitability internally without putting your buy prices in front of the whole team.

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Overview

Once invoice cost basis is on, every estimate and invoice gains a Cost Basis tab showing what each line item cost, what it earned, and the margin for the job overall. The cost comes from the unit cost on the line item, so a line item entered without a cost produces no cost basis. Two settings do the work, and both live on the same screen in Company Settings:
  • Enable Invoice Cost Basis turns the tracking on and adds the Cost Basis tab to estimates and invoices.
  • Invoice Cost Visibility decides who sees unit costs on those records — Managers and Service Agents, or Managers only.
The Cost Basis tab is also where automatically calculated commission appears on a record. See Setting Up Invoice-Level Commission.

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Video walkthrough

Video walkthrough: cost basis and invoice profitability

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Before you begin

  • Sign in as an Admin. Only Admin users can open Company Settings. See User Roles and Permissions Details.
  • Enter unit costs on your line items. If a line item has no cost, FieldPulse cannot generate a cost basis for it. See Setting Up Item List & Inventory.
  • Decide who should see unit costs — Managers and Service Agents, or Managers only.

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Step-by-step setup

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1. Turn on invoice cost basis

  1. Go to Company Settings in the left-side menu and select Estimates & Invoices.
  2. Select Advanced in the sub header.
  3. On the Advanced Invoice Settings page, set Enable Invoice Cost Basis to Yes.
Advanced Invoice Settings in Company Settings, with the Estimates & Invoices tab and the Advanced sub-tab highlighted and the Enable Invoice Cost Basis toggle set to Yes

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2. Set who can see unit costs

  1. In the Invoice Cost Visibility dropdown, choose Managers and Service Agents or Managers only.
  2. Select Save.
The Invoice Cost Visibility dropdown highlighted on the Advanced Invoice Settings page, set to Managers, below the Enable Invoice Cost Basis toggle The Advanced Invoice Settings page also holds Enable Automatic Markup and Enable Commission Calculations. Those settings have their own pages — see How to Use Markups & Margins and Setting Up Invoice-Level Commission.

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Viewing cost basis on a record

  1. Open an existing invoice, or create a new invoice and enter your line items with their unit costs and the other relevant information.
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Save.
  3. On the invoice record, select Cost Basis in the top menu.
Invoice Record page with the Cost Basis tab highlighted in the top menu alongside Info, Comments, Payments, Files, Forms, Orders, and Dynamic Proposals The tab opens a Cost & Profit Analysis view. Each line item lists its Unit Cost, Unit Price, Quantity, Cost, Price, and Profit Margin, and a Total row adds up cost, price, and profit margin for the job with the margin percentage. Automatically calculated Sales Commission appears below the totals, next to a Product and Service Breakdown that separates service cost and price from product cost and price. From this view you can also:
  • Select Add New Expense to record a cost that isn’t a line item on the invoice.
  • Select Export to download the breakdown.
Cost & Profit Analysis view on the Cost Basis tab showing unit cost, unit price, quantity, cost, price, and profit margin per line item, a Total row, the Add New Expense and Export buttons, and the Sales Commission and Product and Service Breakdown panels
Discounts do not appear on the Cost Basis tab and are not factored into the cost basis calculation — the total invoice amount shown on the tab is the pre-discount total. If you use automatic deposit invoices, the deposit line item on the final invoice is excluded from the cost basis calculation and does not appear on the Cost Basis tab or in the export.

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Settings reference

Your setup is working when you open an invoice with unit costs entered, select Cost Basis, and see the cost, profit, and margin for each line item and for the job overall — while the roles you excluded never see the unit costs.