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Jobpac glossary: Project costing and Financial terms
A reference guide to common terms used in Jobpac, especially for project costing, financial control, payroll and superannuation.
Use this glossary as a reference when reading other Jobpac articles or working in the system. Understanding these terms will make it easier to work with job costing, forecasting, financial reporting and payroll across your projects.
Project and structure terms
| Job number | The unique identifier for a project in Jobpac. Up to six characters long, often four or five digits to keep it easy to use in purchase orders and subcontracts. |
| Cost code | A code that represents a specific part of the work breakdown structure, such as a phase, activity or trade. Identifies what work is being done. |
| Cost type | A short code describing the type of cost, such as labour, materials, subcontract or plant. Identifies the nature of the resource or expense. |
| Cost centre | The combination of a cost code and a cost type. The primary level at which Jobpac tracks budgets, commitments, costs and forecasts. |
| Budget transfer | The movement of budget from one cost centre to another within the same project. Used to reallocate funds without changing the overall project budget. |
| Uncommitted budget | The portion of the current budget that has not yet been committed to a purchase order or subcontract. Represents available budget at a cost centre level. |
Budget and contract terms
| Original budget | The budget agreed at the start of the project for each cost centre, before any changes or variations. |
| Budget changes | Adjustments to the original budget made after the project begins, from transfers between cost centres or contract variations. |
| Current budget | The latest approved budget for a cost centre. Original budget plus or minus all budget changes. |
| Contract sum | Sometimes called contract revenue. The agreed value of the head contract for the project, chargeable to the client. |
| Contract margin | The difference between the contract sum and the current budget. Represents the expected profit at the time the budget is set. |
| Allow costs updates | A flag or status that indicates when a project is ready to accept costs. Until enabled, users cannot post transactions to that job. |
| Finalise budget | The action that locks in the original budget and contract margin. After finalisation, all budget changes are controlled and audited. |
| Budget adjustments | Movements of budget between cost centres or changes arising from head contract variations. |
Variation and valuation terms
| Variation | A change to the original contracted scope of works. Variations usually affect both the project budget and the contract revenue. |
| Internal variation | A subcontract variation that affects costs but does not have an associated head contract revenue change. |
| External variation | A client-initiated variation that usually affects both revenue and costs. |
| Contract valuation | Used in business forecasting to describe the financial status of a project at a point in time, often at month end. Brings together cost, revenue and margin information. |
| SOR | Schedule of rates. Used for projects or subcontracts where work is billed or paid based on agreed rates for items or activities. |
| SPA | Subcontract payment authority. A term used for the preparation of a subcontract payment. |
Cost status terms
| Committed cost | The value committed to suppliers or subcontractors but not necessarily invoiced yet. Comes from purchase orders and subcontract agreements. |
| Committed budget | The portion of the budget allocated to a specific purchase order or subcontract. Often defaults to the committed cost but can be adjusted. |
| Actual cost | The value of costs approved and posted to the company ledgers, including supplier and subcontractor invoices, payroll costs, journals and internal charges. |
| Incurred cost | The value of goods or services received on the project but not yet reflected as actual cost. Includes delivered materials with no invoice and unposted subcontract payments. |
| Accrued cost | The estimated value of goods or services received but not yet recorded as incurred or actual costs. Usually entered manually for reporting. |
| Cost of work in progress (CWIP) | The total of actual, incurred and accrued costs. Represents the cost of all work done to date on a project, whether invoiced or not. |
| Paid cost | The value of approved creditor and subcontractor invoices that have been paid, plus payroll and other costs considered paid when processed. |
Forecasting and margin terms
| Forecast cost to complete (FCC) | The estimated cost required to finish the remaining work on the project. |
| Forecast final cost (FFC) | The total expected cost of the project at completion, including costs already incurred and the forecast cost to complete. |
| Forecast line item | An individual entry in the Project Manager Worksheet (PMW) representing a specific cost element or activity within a cost centre that contributes to the forecast cost to complete. |
| Percent complete | An indication of how much of the project work has been completed to date, used in BFM to assess progress and validate forecast cost to complete values. |
| Gain or loss | The difference between the forecast final cost and the current budget. A gain means under budget; a loss means over budget. |
| Current contract margin | The margin based on the current contract sum and current budget, including approved and transferred variations. |
| Current forecast margin | The margin based on forecast final revenue and forecast final cost. Reflects both contractual changes and performance against budget. |
Purchasing and cost flow terms
| Purchase order (PO) | A formal order raised in Jobpac to commit costs to a supplier. Creates a committed cost against the project and cost centre. |
| Delivery docket | A record of goods received against a purchase order. Posting a delivery docket creates an incurred cost on the project until the matching supplier invoice is processed. |
Revenue and claims terms
| Progress claim | A claim submitted to the client for work completed to date under the head contract. In Jobpac, progress claims are managed through the Head Contract Progress Claims module. |
| Retention | A percentage of each progress claim or subcontract payment held back as security until project completion or defects liability obligations are met. Both head contract retention (debtor) and subcontract retention (creditor) are tracked in Jobpac. |
Business Forecasting (BFM) terms
| BFM | Business Forecasting Module. The Jobpac module used to manage project valuations, cost accruals, revenue recognition and margin reporting. |
| BFM journal | A journal generated by the BFM module to post project accruals and work in progress values to the General Ledger P&L. |
| PMW (Project Manager Worksheet) | A tool within BFM where project managers enter forecast cost to complete values at the cost centre level. |
| Financially Complete | A project status in Jobpac indicating that all financial processing for the project is complete. Once set, costs can no longer be posted to the job unless it is returned to Active. |
| BFM Project Type X | A project type setting that excludes the project from BFM reporting. Projects incorrectly assigned as Type X will not appear in BFM reconciliation reports. |
Payroll terms
| Transaction code | A code assigned to each type of payroll payment or deduction, such as normal time, overtime or leave. Transaction codes control how payroll amounts are grouped, reported and mapped to STP gross value categories. |
| STP (Single Touch Payroll) | An ATO reporting requirement where payroll information is submitted to the ATO each time payroll is processed. Jobpac uses STP Phase 2 (STP2). |
| STP2 Gross Values | The year-to-date employee gross payment values reported to the ATO through Single Touch Payroll Phase 2. |
| Income statement | The end-of-year payment summary information available to employees through myGov via ATO online. Replaces the paper PAYG Payment Summary for STP-reporting employers. |
| Tax ready | The status shown on an employee's income statement in myGov once the employer has submitted the final STP declaration for the financial year. |
| PAYG | Pay As You Go. The system under which employers withhold tax from employee wages and remit it to the ATO. |
| Accumulated Pay Detail | A Jobpac payroll report that shows year-to-date payroll transaction totals by transaction code. Used to reconcile payroll against the General Ledger and STP2 gross values. |
| Payment Summary Audit Report | A report produced when PAYG Payment Summaries are printed. Used to reconcile employee payment summary values against the Accumulated Pay Detail report. |
Payday Super and superannuation terms
| Payday Super | The legislative requirement (effective 1 July 2026) for employers to pay superannuation contributions within 7 days of each payday, rather than quarterly. |
| SSID (Software Service ID) | A unique identifier issued by a payroll software provider that must be registered with the ATO via Access Manager to enable STP submissions and Payday Super processing. |
| Qualifying Earnings (QE) | The earnings base used to calculate superannuation guarantee contributions. Defined under the Superannuation Guarantee legislation. |
| Member Verification (MVR) | A process used to verify employee superannuation fund membership details before processing contributions, to reduce payment failures. |
| Clearing house | A service that receives a single super payment from an employer and distributes contributions to individual employee super funds. Jobpac supports QuickSuper as its clearing house. |
| QuickSuper file | The contribution file format generated by Jobpac for submission to the QuickSuper clearing house. |
| Super Guarantee (SG) rate | The minimum superannuation contribution rate employers must pay on behalf of eligible employees. The current rate is 12%. |
Core system terms
| Posting | The act of confirming and committing a transaction in Jobpac so it is recorded in the relevant ledgers. Once posted, a transaction affects financial balances and reports. |
| Reconciliation | The process of comparing balances between two or more reports or ledgers to confirm they agree. In Jobpac, reconciliation is performed across payroll, project costs, the General Ledger and subledgers such as AP and AR to identify and resolve discrepancies. |
| WorkID | A code representing a company or entity within the Jobpac environment. Multiple WorkIDs can operate within the same system. |
| Head contract | The primary contract between the business and the client for a project. |
| Subcontract | An agreement with a subcontractor to perform part of the work under the head contract. |
| Schedule of rates project | A project where billing or payment is based on pre-agreed rates for tasks or items rather than a fixed lump sum. |
Refer back to this glossary whenever you encounter a term in screens, reports or other guides that you want to clarify.
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