With customizable fields for source, purchase status, and vendor; you will be able to track where material used on jobs is coming from, what material is being purchased by field employees, and what material may need to be replenished to optimize inventory levels, increase efficiency, and monitor costs.
With this feature, you can stay on top of material needs, and reduce unnecessary supply runs or delays in projects with a fraction of the setup and configuration required for most inventory and purchasing management systems.
Getting Started
Navigate to your account settings page and under Jobs, click on Material detail tracking.
From here, enable the fields you'd like to use. Once enabled, you'll see default values that you can remove or update. You can also add your own values that you'd like to use for tracking and reporting.
Source: Track where is material coming from (specific inventory locations i.e. trucks, shop).
Purchase status: Track which materials need to be purchased for which job, and what has been purchased by employees, etc.
Vendor: Track where materials should be purchased from or where they were purchased from (if you have preferred vendors or want to keep track of purchases)
Tracking Material Details on Jobs
Once you've enabled the fields above, you'll be able to update these fields on any material line item or job input from the job page on the web or mobile apps.
Web
If you're not tracking job inputs yet learn more here.
Mobile
Reporting on Material Usage
Material used across jobs and employees can be reported on to keep track of purchasing activity and replenishment needs.
By enabling these fields and tracking this level of detail, you'll be able to filter and sort by source, purchase status, and/or vendor within this existing report.
Material usage reporting in Housecall Pro allows you to report on material line items and inputs across jobs and employees, giving you better insights into material needed for upcoming jobs, and material used on completed jobs. Equipped with this information, you can more accurately track material costs, and stay on top of purchasing and replenishing material.
Accessing Material Usage Reporting
Navigate to the reports tab by selecting the 'Reporting' tab at the top of your navigation bar. From the jobs reporting section, click on the 'Material on jobs' report under the Material usage card.
This report will show any material line items or job inputs that have been added to jobs in the time frame selected. Material added from your Price book will be displayed by the name saved in the Price book, and material added outside the Price book will be grouped into a Non-price book items row.
Note that some material line items from previous jobs that were added before August 2022 may be categorized as non-price book items. Moving forward, any material line item added from the price book should be categorized correctly.
By default, the report will show data for completed jobs within the last 30 days. See below for how to change the report parameters.
Changing report output/filtering your data
Click on the two date settings buttons on the top of the chart to change the data being shown. This functionality is the same on every report.
Date range = show me material added to jobs that fall during a date range that I specify
Action date = show me material added to jobs that were either created, scheduled, or completed during the date range that I set
Apply filters
Apply filters by clicking on the blue 'MANAGE FILTERS' button located on the bottom left of the report graph. There are available filters for the jobs material was added to, as well as a filter for Material item name which will allow you to filter by any material in your Price book.
You can access additional filters for Source, Purchase status, and Vendor fields to track where material is coming from along with purchase details. These fields must be enabled from the Job Details settings page and updated on material line items or inputs. Learn more here.
Adjust the metrics
Customize the metrics in the data table by using the blue 'EDIT COLUMNS' button located at the bottom left of the report graph. Once in the edit columns menu, you can select or unselect metrics to see in the table.
View more details
Clicking the Total row in the report will open a page where all material in the report can be viewed by the jobs they were added to as well as the employees who worked on those jobs.
You can also click each individual row to view more details about specific material items or Non-pricebook items.
Both the summary and drill-down reports can be exported as a CSV file by selecting the blue 'EXPORT' button at the top right, above the graph. You are also able to save custom versions of this report with different date selections and filters by selecting the blue 'SAVE' button at the top right, above the graph. Saving a report will save it under Custom reports which you can access from the lefthand navigation menu.
Understanding Material Metrics
Total Quantity: total number of a material line item that was used on jobs
Job count: total number of jobs the material line item was used on
Not seeing any data? Be sure to start building out materials in your pricebook so your employees can add these materials to jobs as line items. Material line items will need to be added to jobs in order for them to show up on this report.
Seeing material under non-pricebook items when it was added from the pricebook? Some material line items from previous jobs that were added before August 2022 may be categorized as non-pricebook items. Moving forward, any material line item added from the pricebook should be categorized correctly.
Don't want customers to see material line items on invoices? Adjust your invoice settings to hide material line item details on invoices or start using job inputs.