Back Costing Report

If your RAVE system has the optional Financial Management System module activated and you have the correct permissions, you’ll find the Back Costing Report by selecting the project, then clicking Budget, then selecting Back Costing. If you are using the financial dashboard shortcut, you can click on any of the hyperlinks to take you to the Budget tab, then select Back Costing.

The following is the recorded version of the help article outlined below.



The Back Costing sub-tab breaks everything into four very easy-to-navigate views. Categories, Subcategories, by Supplier and at a Glance. We will now go through how the Back Costing page works in more detail.

The default view for the back costing page is by category as this is how we have grouped all of your Preliminary Budget, Quotes, Purchase Orders and Bills. To the left, you will see your current Running Profit, the Variance between Bills & Quotes, and the Variance between Bills and your Budget (if using a preliminary budget).  Then in the middle, we show your Budget total, Quotes total, Purchase Order total, Bills-In total and to the right-hand side the Client Invoice Total and Expected Gross Profit.

NOTE: Your Expected Gross Profit should be a positive number at all times. The running profit will be positive (+) or negative (–) depending on your invoicing cycle to client's vs the timing of the bills you pay.

Back Costing by Category

As you can see below there are four ways to view your Back Costing by category and subcategory. Budget, Quotes, Purchase Orders and Bills. These tabs compare your Budget to Quotes, Purchase Orders and Bills. The Budget sub-tab will be greyed out if you have not used the Preliminary Budget tab.  

If you've exceeded an allowance the figures will be displayed in red, if you're under the allowance it will be displayed as green, and if you've come in on target the figure will be displayed in black.    

NOTE: If you don’t currently use Purchase Orders you would just compare your Bills to your Quotes.

Below is a screenshot comparing Bills to your Quotes at a Category View

NOTE: The little grey arrow beside the words category will let you filter the category by alphabetical order A-Z or Z-A or in the order in which the categories have been entered in your estimate.

Back Costing by Subcategory

Back Costing by subcategory is slightly different than by category whereas your subcategory line items are the total of your Quotes, Purchase Orders or Bills entered for that subcategory. By hovering on the teal link a pop up will show with a clickable link to the document related to that Quote, Purchase Order or Bill in question. For example, below, by hovering over the total Bill amount for Designs are Us, a pop-up will show with a clickable link to the two bills entered for this subcategory.

You can search the back costing by category and subcategory name.

Clicking on the little arrows to the left of the Category header will expand the display showing any Quotes, POs, or Bills loaded - clicking on any of the teal coloured Quote, PO, or Bill links will take you to that Quote, PO or Bill's page. You can also click the Expand/Collapse button at the top of the Category list to expand or collapse all. 
 
A Simplified/Advanced toggle is available - when this toggle is turned on, Rave will display a % column to the right of each X vs Y dollar figure.  

We also have two exportable reports. Export to Excel will export your entire Category Back Costing report to a CSV file. The figures are also colour coded as above, and each Category has its own tab. This allows you to really break down your Costings and manipulate any information you need to. You can choose to export with or without Notes. 

The Export Charge Up Report to PDF shows your Quotes (costs) vs your Bills, and the remaining balance. This report is used for open-book operators who share their Budget and their Bills with clients. This report doesn't have the client percentage markup on it. This option does not have notes.

Back Costing Notes

You have the ability to add notes to the category and track conversations about over or under spends. Simply click the 3-dot ellipsis, then the category name and add a note. Then you can choose to expand all notes with the top left icon or collapse all notes pushing the same one again.

Notes can be used to track spending, make comments for the project or financial team or simply to add a reminder for next time.

The note is time stamped and has the user who added the Note. It's important to note that the notes you enter on Category is carried through to both Back Costing by Category and Back Costing by Subcategory reports. Deleting these notes will affect both reports. 

Warning on Screen

Example of Notes

Back Costing by Supplier

Back Costing by Supplier will allow you to compare your Quote, Purchase Orders and Bills by your supplier. Hovering over the teal coloured links will show all Quotes, Purchase Orders or Bills loaded against that supplier. Clicking on any of the links will take you to that document.

You also have the ability to switch between Simplified/Advanced switch views - when this switch is turned on, Rave will display a % column to the right of each X vs Y dollar figures.

NOTE: The little grey triangle beside the word supplier will let you filter the supplier by alphabetical order A-Z or Z-A

 Back Costing at a Glance

Our last Back Costing Report is a graph where you can quickly compare incoming and outgoing to easily find if there are any variances. Within the graph, you want to see all the lines reach the same point. If they don't, there is a variance.