Job costing is the practice of tracking what you actually spend on each job and comparing it to what you estimated. It sounds simple, but finding software that does it well for a roofing company is harder than it should be. Most job costing tools are built for construction in general, not roofing specifically — and most roofing CRMs prioritize sales and production over cost tracking. Here's an honest look at the options.
What Job Costing Software Needs to Do
Before evaluating tools, be clear about what you actually need:
- Estimated vs. actual comparison: For each job, compare what you quoted for materials, labor, and other costs vs. what you actually spent
- Cost attribution to jobs: Every bill, invoice, and payment must be linkable to a specific job record — not just dumped into a general expense category
- Real-time margin visibility: See current margin on a job as costs are recorded, not just at month-end
- Labor cost tracking: Sub payments and W2 labor hours tracked per job, not just in total
- Actual margin reporting: Aggregate reports showing actual vs. estimated margin across jobs, by time period, job type, or rep
Option 1: Dedicated Construction Job Costing Software
BuilderTrend
BuilderTrend is a full construction management platform with solid job costing features — budget tracking, purchase order management, and estimated vs. actual cost comparison. It's built for residential construction and works reasonably well for roofing companies that want comprehensive cost tracking.
The gap: BuilderTrend is designed for new home construction and remodeling, not roofing-specific workflows. There are no roofing-specific estimate features, no insurance claim tracking, and no canvassing or pipeline management. For a roofing company, it would typically be a job costing tool running in parallel with a separate CRM — meaning two systems, duplicate data entry, and integration overhead.
CoConstruct (now Buildertrend)
CoConstruct merged with BuilderTrend and the platforms have been integrating. Similar strengths and gaps to BuilderTrend — strong construction job costing, not roofing-specific.
Sage 100 Contractor / Sage 300 CRE
The enterprise-grade options used by mid-size to large construction companies. Very powerful job costing with full accounting integration, WIP tracking, and margin reporting. Also very expensive and complex to implement — overkill for most roofing companies under $20M. If you're at scale and need construction-grade accounting with job costing, Sage is worth evaluating.
Option 2: QuickBooks with Job Tracking
QuickBooks (Online or Desktop) supports job-level cost tracking through the "Job" or "Customer:Job" structure (Desktop) or "Projects" in QBO Plus and Advanced. You can assign every expense and revenue item to a specific job and run profit and loss by job.
This works well for basic job costing if your team is disciplined about coding transactions to jobs. The limitation: it's not roofing-specific, there's no integration with your estimates or pipeline, and coding everything in QuickBooks adds work to an already-busy bookkeeper. It's a valid middle-ground option for companies between $1M-$5M that already use QuickBooks and don't want another software subscription.
Option 3: Roofing CRM With Built-In Job Costing
The ideal scenario: a roofing CRM that handles the full workflow from lead to invoice and also tracks actual costs per job — no separate software, no duplicate entry.
AccuLynx
AccuLynx has job costing functionality that tracks material orders, supplier invoices, and subcontractor costs against job budgets. It's not as detailed as dedicated construction accounting software, but it's adequate for companies that need visibility into job-level margins without the complexity of a full accounting platform.
Leap
Leap's strength is the in-home sales workflow — digital presentations, financing integration, e-signatures. Its cost tracking is lighter than AccuLynx. For companies that prioritize sales conversion over job costing depth, Leap may be the right choice even if cost reporting requires supplemental tools.
JobNimbus
JobNimbus has project management features and can track job costs, but it's more of a task and production management tool than a job costing platform. Cost tracking is possible but requires manual effort and doesn't match the depth of AccuLynx or dedicated tools.
Ketterly
Ketterly includes real-time job costing built into the lead and job workflow — material costs, sub payments, and labor are tracked against each job, with WIP (work-in-progress) reporting that shows current margin on all active jobs. The reporting covers estimated vs. actual costs without requiring a separate accounting tool for mid-job visibility.
Option 4: Spreadsheets
For companies under $1M-$2M in annual revenue, a well-maintained Google Sheet can serve as a working job costing system. It requires discipline (every cost logged promptly, every job compared after close-out) but has no software cost and can be customized exactly to your needs.
The limitations become obvious around $2M+: too many jobs to track manually, too many data sources to reconcile, and reporting requires manual aggregation rather than automatic summaries. If your PM is spending 2+ hours per week maintaining the job costing spreadsheet, it's time to move to software.
How to Choose
The right tool depends on where your biggest gap is:
- You need job costing AND a roofing CRM: Evaluate roofing CRMs that include both — AccuLynx or Ketterly. Avoid maintaining two separate systems unless the integration is seamless.
- You already have a CRM you like but need better cost tracking: Explore whether QuickBooks with Projects can cover the gap, or whether the CRM has features you're not using.
- You're at $10M+ and need enterprise-grade accounting: Sage or similar construction accounting platforms are worth the investment at this scale.
- You're under $2M: A structured Google Sheet may be the right call while you focus on growing the business — add software when the spreadsheet overhead is costing you more than the software would.
The most important thing isn't which software you use — it's whether you actually track estimated vs. actual costs on every job. A $20/month tool used consistently beats a $500/month platform where nobody enters the data.
Further Reading
- Roofing Job Costing: Know Your Profit Before the Job Is Done — The fundamentals of job costing before you pick a tool
- Post-Job Profitability Analysis — What to do with job costing data once you have it
- Ketterly for Residential Roofing Companies — How Ketterly handles job costing alongside estimates, invoicing, and production
- Ketterly Job Costing — Real-time cost vs. revenue tracking on every active job, built into your roofing CRM