Set Up Job Defaults

Related topics

Learn more about job defaults

Perform other job costing tasks

To set up job defaults

Click the Jobs navigation aid on the Customers & Sales Navigation Center and select Set Up Job Defaults.

General Tab

Do you typically assign jobs to the line items on your customer or vendor transactions? On the General tab for Job Defaults, you can choose to be warned if you save a transaction that has line items that have not been assigned to a job. You can choose to see this warning for Customer transactions, Vendor transactions, or both.

Quotes, Sales Orders, Proposals (Sage 50 Premium Accounting and higher), Sales Invoices, Receipts, and Customer Credit Memos

Purchase Orders, Purchases, Payments, and Vendor Credit Memos

You cannot assign jobs to stock or assembly items on Vendor transactions.

When you purchase an item that goes into inventory, you are increasing your assets, not increasing your expenses. So, to apply a job to a purchase-related transaction would be inappropriate. When you eventually sell your inventory, Sage 50 will make an entry that decreases (credits) inventory and increases (debits) Cost of Goods Sold (which is a type of expense account). This expense can be associated with a job if you assign a Job ID to the item at the time of the sale. The amount of the expense will be based upon the costing method chosen for that item (LIFO, FIFO, or Average).

Statuses Tab

Use this tab to view and edit your job statuses. Sage 50 provides you with statuses that you can use to manage your jobs. However, you can change these and add your own to suit your needs. You can determine the status names, icons, and order that they appear for selection in drop-lists.

Job statuses are assigned to jobs in Maintain Jobs. You can view information about your jobs, including statuses, on the Job Management tab in the Jobs navigation area. You can also view the statuses of your jobs on the Job List View and Job List report. (Sage 50 Quantum Accounting)

Set up job statuses

Use job statuses to manage your jobs.

Billing & Retainage Tab (Sage 50 Quantum Accounting)

Select the Billing & Retainage tab to specify the Receivable and Payable Retainage accounts and the default Billing Method for Progress Billing. The retainage accounts should be set up in General Ledger and each should be set up with either the Accounts Receivable or Accounts Payable Retainage Account Type. These accounts will be used when Retainage is calculated on Purchases, Sales Invoices, Credit Memos, or Vendor Credit Memos. Tell me more about Account Types.

Note: If you are using Cash for your accounting method, only the Billing Method field is available. Retainage is available only in Accrual method companies.

Retainage fields will not appear unless you have created a general ledger account with Account Type of either Payables or Receivables Retainage first.

  • Billing Method: Select the default billing method for Progress Billing. You can change this setting at the job level. You have four options here: No Progress Billing, Percent of Proposal, Percent of Contract, or Percent Completion. How is each billing method billed during a Progress Billing routine?
  • Retainage Percent: Enter the default retainage percent for your jobs. This value will be entered on the Retainage % field on the Maintain Jobs window for all new jobs.
  • Receivable Retainage Account: Enter or select the appropriate default account for Accounts Receivable Retainage.
  • Payable Retainage Account: Enter or select the appropriate default account for Accounts Payable Retainage.

Warning! Only accounts that have an Account Type of either Receivable or Payable Retainage will appear in the drop-down lists. If there are no accounts in your chart of accounts that have these account types, the list box will be empty.

Tell me more about setting up Sage 50 to handle retainage.

Labor Burden Tab

Select the Labor Burden tab to enter a default Labor Burden Percentage and default labor burden accounts. You can change the labor burden percentage at the job level and the labor burden accounts should be set up so that your labor burden ends up in the appropriate section of your income statement. Tell me more about labor burden and the general ledger.

  • Labor Burden Percent: Enter a flat percent for labor burden. This information will be used to fill the Labor Burden Percent field in each new job record. You can change the percentage at the job level if you want.
  • Labor Burden Cost of Sales Account: Enter the account to be debited when labor burden is calculated during payroll entry.
  • Applied Labor Burden Account: Enter the account to be credited when labor burden is calculated during payroll entry.Tell me more about these labor burden accounts and how Sage 50 handles amounts applied to them.

Custom Fields Tab

Select the Custom Fields tab in the Job Defaults window to set up custom field names for your job records. Custom fields offer you a way to keep track of specific information about your jobs. Each business is unique. While we already provide fields to record the most common business data, you probably require other information from time to time. Custom fields let you set up and store that data.

You use the custom fields to set up fields that aren't available in the Maintain Jobs window. For example, you may want to record the site location, second contact person, and so on.

Select the Enabled check box to enter or change the field label. If you decide not to use a field, simply clear the Enabled check box. The data will remain, but it will not be accessible. If you decide you want to use the field label again, select the Enabled check box, and the program will make the data available.

There are three steps to setting up and recording custom fields:

  1. Set up and enable custom field names in Job Defaults.
  2. Enter custom field data for each job record in Maintain Jobs.
  3. View and print the data in Job reports.

Examples:

Custom Fields let you use your imagination. What do I really need to know about my jobs? Below are examples of job custom fields you could set up.

Field Name

Data Entered

Location

enter a sales territory, a county, or a specific borough or part of your city

Contact #

enter a phone number to use to contact someone about the job

Alternate
Contact

who to ask for when your primary contact isn't available

How to set up and use custom fields

If you want only to track the total cost incurred or total profit gain from a job, you can use a job ID and not specify phases (stages) or cost codes (categories of expense).

Set up a job

Set up job cost codes (Sage 50 Premium Accounting and higher)

Set up job phases (Sage 50 Premium Accounting and higher)