Free Construction Management Software: Job Costing on Open Source

Contractors usually know which jobs are busy. What they often don't know until it's too late is which jobs are losing money. Job costing is the reason to put a construction business on an ERP, and you can do it on free software.

What Odoo Community covers

Odoo Community has no dedicated construction module, but its standard apps fit construction well:

• Project for jobs, phases and tasks
• Purchase for materials and subcontractor orders
• Inventory for yards and sites, with transfers between them
• Timesheets for crew hours
• Invoicing for progress and final invoices
• Maintenance for plant and equipment

Job costing with analytic accounts

This is the important part. Give each job an analytic account, then tag to it:

• Purchase orders and vendor bills
• Timesheet hours, costed by employee
• Stock issued to site
• Customer invoices

You then get cost, revenue and margin by job, while the job is still running.

Progress billing

Odoo handles simple progress billing with down-payment invoices on a sales order: invoice a percentage or fixed amount at each milestone, and deduct it from the final invoice.

What needs custom work

These are common in construction and not standard in Odoo Community:

• Bills of quantities (BOQ) with rates
• Retention held back on invoices
• Subcontractor certificates and payment applications
• Variations tracked against the original contract

Some firms manage these in spreadsheets alongside Odoo. Others add a custom module.

What it costs

The software is free. Budget for hosting, any custom construction features, and training site and office staff.

Free setup from ERP Builders

We set up Odoo Community projects, job costing, purchasing and invoicing for free. Hosting isn't included, and custom construction features are quoted separately. See free open-source construction ERP, or the construction ERP page.