Labour costs can be accounted for in several different ways in RAVE's FMS - but first, you need to decide how you are going to add a quote for your labour - you can either:


  1. Add Labour as a single quote with one line item and total*

  2. Add Labour as a single quote with multiple line items broken out for each estimate category

  3. Add Labour as multiple quotes for each category, breaking down the line items for each builder 

    *While you do have the option of adding all of your team’s hours together and putting the labour as one line item - this is a more difficult way to account for Labour - as you will have different builders on different rates, and you will need to work out the total cost price and % markup manually.  This is way too complex for most - options 2 or 3 are the easiest way for the majority of our clients using RAVE's FMS.



TIP - Add your Builders as Product Inventory Item(s):

We recommend adding each of your building staff, or builder type (apprentice, builder, foreman, project manager etc.) as a product inventory item.  Making sure to put in their hourly rate, and choosing NO TAX.  Selecting these in the steps below to easily create your labour quotes and bills.  Labour is one of the most important categories to back cost as this is often where leakage/overspending can occur.  This Add your Builders as Product Inventory Item(s) FAQ shows you how to do it.



How to Create a Labour Bill from a Quote you've already Loaded


You will usually want to create a Labour Bill from a Quote you've already loaded into the system, to do this you will:

  1. Go to the relevant project's Quotes sub-tab, and find your labour quote
  2. Click on the 3 dot action drop-down - to the right of the line entry


  3. And click the 'Copy to Bill' option

    This will take you to the 'Add a Bill' screen, with many of the 'Add a Bill' fields pre-populated from the 'Copy to Bill' action.  

  4. We now add our labour lines by clicking on the 'Add a Line Item' button
  5. Then adding the labour codes (the labour codes are the product inventory codes you've already loaded), and the hours to bill, clicking 'Save' and repeating for each labour line required
  6. Once all labour lines have been added, we can delete the original line item that showed the total of labour quoted for this job 

    NOTE: If the labour you're adding is 'wages'  make sure the ‘AMOUNTS ARE’ box says - No Tax

  7. Then click the 'Approve' button to confirm.

    TIP - Xero Payroll + Weekly Pay Cycles:  
    If you are using Xero Payroll and doing weekly pay cycles, you can create a payment using the bill pushed to Xero from RAVE.  If you are not using Xero Payroll, you can delete the bill from Xero so that the bill stays in RAVE's back costing only.

    TIP - Create a Template for Repeat Labour Bills:  
    If this is a regular bill you will create again and again, you also have the option to save as a bill template via the 'Save as Template' button.  Next time, when you go to run the same labour bill, you can load from your saved template, and adjust the hours as required.  



How to Create a Labour Bill for Builders who ARE/ARE NOT GST Registered

To Create a Labour Bill for Builders who ARE, or ARE NOT GST Registered i.e. They send you a Bill for their Labour - you would add the bill as you would enter any supplier bill - including/excluding GST in the Tax Rate field depending on whether they are/or are not GST Registered i.e. are they charging you GST/do they have a GST number listed on their Bill?  

For the various workflows and steps on how to Create Bills, please refer to this How to receive in Bills via the ‘Bills In’ sub-tab FAQ