Curious about our Progress Tracking feature? Totally lost on how to use it? Don’t worry, that’s what we write these articles for!
Progress Tracking is a great feature that allows you to track materials, and track time to those materials when you want to track work accomplished. Whether you’re needing to track bags of concrete mixed and poured, square feet of tile laid, or chlorine tablets soaking in pools, progress tracking will help!
How to Use Progress Tracking (Web)
Step One: What You Need to Turn On
Make sure you have the Progress Tracking feature turned on. This is one of our additional premium features. If you don’t have it turned on yet, please use THIS LINK to schedule time with one of our product specialists.
Additionally, you need to make sure that you have cost codes turned on in your busybusy account, since the cost codes are what we use to track that progress. To turn cost codes on:
Log on to busybusy on a computer and go to Settings
Click on Time Keeping
Make sure that Cost Code Tracking is turned on
You can also make it required here, if you would like
One other thing to note is that you’ll need to make sure you turn the Manage Progress permission on for all the positions you want to be able to view and edit progress entries. The Admin position has this by default, but any other positions will need it turned on. If you have questions about how to adjust permissions, we have a great article HERE.
Step Two: Create Your Material Cost Codes
The cost codes are where the data comes from for progress tracking, so they are critical. To create your material cost codes:
Click Cost Codes in your left side menu
Click Manage, then Create
Put your material as the name of the cost code, and add the description and unit of measure. You can also add the group.
For example:
Name: ReadyMix
Description: 50 lb bag
Group: Materials
Unit of Measure: bag
Make sure that you’re accurate in your description. If you use both 50 lb. bags and 25 lb. bags of ReadyMix, make sure their cost codes are easily distinguishable. You may even want to clarify which size of bag in the name of the cost code. |
You can have employees clock in to the material cost codes if you would like - this is a great way to see which employees are excelling and which may need some training to help them be more efficient at using the materials. If you’re only interested in tracking the materials used, don’t have your employees clock time to the material cost codes. Organizing your cost codes into groups based on their use is a great way to help sort and simplify things. |
Step Three: Update Your Budgets
If you have budgets set for your projects, you can now go in and add the material cost codes to those budgets. This is a fantastic way to keep track of your materials and make sure you’re using and spending what you had planned for! If you need to set up a whole new budget, THIS ARTICLE will walk you through how to do that. If you’re just needing to add a material cost code to an existing budget:
Select Budgets in your left side menu
Click the project budget you’re wanting to add the material cost code to, then click the Edit Budget button
Click the + to add your material cost code(s)
Input the Quantity and Progress Value
IMPORTANT NOTE: the progress value is meant to be the TOTAL of the dollar amount you’re budgeting. So if you are budgeting for 20 ReadyMix bags at $50/bag, you’ll need to put at least $1,000 in the Progress Value column.
The progress value can be used to either track how much you spent on your total materials, or it can be used for invoice purposes to show how much you'll be charging your customers for that material. You can combine cost of material + employee rate to track your expenses. Or you can combine cost of material + employee rate + your overhead rate to show on an invoice to a client, for what they will need to pay to get all that material installed. |
Step Four: Add Progress
Now that you’ve turned on Progress Tracking and have added your material cost codes, it’s time to put them to use.
In your left side menu select Progress from the Reports section
Click the + button at the top right
Select your project and material cost code, input the quantity of material used, check the date is accurate, and add any notes you need
Hit Submit
How to Use Progress Tracking (Android & iOS)
Go to Supervisor Tools
Tap More at the bottom of your screen (three stacked dots on the far right)
Tap Progress Tracking
Click the blue + button
On Android it’s in the bottom right corner, on iOS it’s the top right
Select the project and material cost code you’re adding progress for
You can use the drop down menu at the top to filter among your cost code groups
Input the quantity used
Make sure you have the correct date selected, and add any additional notes needed
Click SAVE
And you’re done!
You can now add progress for your material cost codes, and view that progress against the budgets you’ve set up! Budgets are available on both the web and in the mobile app.
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