Cost Codes in Your Estimate

Cost codes on the takeoff screen

Once cost codes are enabled and associated with your products, they appear automatically as you build your estimate. There is very little change to the standard workflow — cost codes sit alongside your existing data without disrupting the way you take off.

Viewing cost code columns

When you open a project and begin your takeoff, the cost code information is available in the exam grid.

1. 1

   Scroll the exam grid to the right to reveal the Cost Code column. If you have enabled the labour cost code option, a Cost Code Labour column will also be visible.

How cost codes are populated

As you add products to your estimate, the cost code column is filled automatically based on the associations you have set up:

• If the product's component type or manufacturer has a cost code assigned, it will appear immediately.
• If no cost code is assigned, the column will be blank. You can set one manually using the product selection drop-down or the Change Cost Code by Range right-click option (see Associating Cost Codes by Product for details).

Items without cost codes

If a product does not have a cost code assigned at any level, the cost code field will be empty when you select it. You will see the drop-down on the product selection screen, allowing you to choose a code before pressing Confirm.

Impact on PDF takeoff

Cost codes have no effect on the PDF takeoff side of the software. The drawing tools, measurements, and annotations all work exactly as they do without cost codes enabled. The cost code information only appears in the exam grid and the summary table.

Cost codes on the summary table

When you finish your takeoff and press Continue to move to the summary table, the behaviour depends on whether you have enabled markup by cost code.

Without markup by cost code

If markup by cost code is not enabled, the summary table works as normal. Cost codes are still recorded against each item for reporting purposes, but you mark up materials as a single total.

With markup by cost code

When markup by cost code is turned on, the summary table changes in the following ways:

• The Materials line on the main summary tab becomes read-only — you cannot enter a markup directly against it.
• A new Cost Code Breakdown tab appears at the top of the summary table.

Using the Cost Code Breakdown tab

1. 1

   Click the Cost Code Breakdown tab to see your materials split by cost code.

2. 2

   Each row shows a cost code with its description, the material cost, and the on-cost percentage. If you set default on-cost percentages when creating your cost codes, they will already be populated.

3. 3

   Adjust the On-Cost % for any cost code as needed. You can also click the total selling cell at the end of a row and type a specific selling price — Ensign will calculate the percentage for you.

4. 4

   When you return to the main summary tab, the Materials line will reflect the combined marked-up total across all cost codes.

Site labour

Site labour markup is not affected by the cost code breakdown. You continue to mark up labour on the main summary tab using the selling rate or on-cost percentage as you normally would.

Cost codes and quotations

Cost codes are for internal use only. They do not appear on any quotations, tender summaries, or quantified schedules of rates that you generate from the software. Your client-facing documents remain unchanged.