Job cost, asked in plain English
Ask Claude or ChatGPT about job cost in Sage 100 Contractor
Job cost questions rarely fit one report. “Is this job in trouble?” means budget against actual plus what is still committed to subs and suppliers, and often the change orders the owner has not approved yet. Connected to Sage 100 Contractor through Twinn, Claude or ChatGPT can run each of those reports on live data, put the answers together, and tell you which reports it used.
For Sage 100 Contractor (formerly Sage Master Builder), not Sage 100 ERP. New to the options? Start with AI for Sage 100 Contractor.
The questions, and the report behind each
Each question below either runs a Twinn report or is answered by adding up job cost records. Follow the report link to see how it calculates its figures. Northbank Distribution Center is a job at Ridgeline Mechanical & Plumbing, the company on the public demo, so you can ask these there as written.
Which jobs are over budget
- “Which jobs are over budget right now?”
- “Which cost codes are over budget on this job?”
- “How much labor have we spent against the labor budget?”
These run Budget vs Actual by Cost Code: budget against actual cost and hours per job, phase and cost code. Ask for cost types as columns when the question is about labor or material on its own.
Cost to date and the largest jobs
- “What is the cost to date on the Northbank Distribution Center job?”
- “What was our largest job by cost this year and last year?”
- “Which jobs had the most cost posted this year?”
The assistant can answer the first by adding up the job’s cost records, and the others with Job Cost Totals, which splits cost by type for a range of posting periods and sorts the largest jobs first.
What is still coming
- “How much is committed but not yet billed on each active job?”
- “Which subcontracts have the most left to bill?”
These run Committed Costs: open subcontracts and purchase orders per job and cost code, what has been invoiced against them, and what remains.
Change orders the owner has not approved
- “Which change orders have been pending for more than 30 days?”
This runs Pending Change Orders, with the amount requested, the estimated cost and the budget change that posts on approval.
Which jobs made money
- “Which jobs completed this year had the lowest gross margin?”
- “What is our gross margin by job type?”
These run Job Profitability: revenue billed, cost by type, gross profit and margin per job.
The detail behind a number
- “Show every cost posted to the concrete cost code on this job this year.”
When a cost code looks wrong, this runs the Job Cost Journal for each job cost record behind the total.
Where a job will finish
Cost to date tells you what has been spent. It does not tell you what is already promised to subcontractors and suppliers. Ask for both, for example “What is the cost to date and the remaining committed cost on the Northbank Distribution Center job?”, and the assistant can add the job’s cost to date to what remains on Committed Costs. Ask it to show both figures and where each came from. Compare the total with the budget and you have a first view of where the job lands, before any pending change orders are approved.
What the numbers mean, so you can check the answer
An assistant reports what the report returns. These definitions come from the reports themselves, and they are where a misread question usually shows.
- Over or under budget
- Variance is budget less actual, so a negative variance is over budget. % Used is actual divided by budget. Cost codes with cost and no budget appear, and so do budget lines with no cost yet.
- As of a date
- Actual cost can be cut off at a date you give. Without one, it is everything posted.
- Committed
- On a subcontract, committed is the original amount plus approved changes; changes not yet approved are added only if you ask for them. On a purchase order it is what was ordered, less canceled items, before sales tax. Remaining never goes below zero.
- Pending change orders
- Pending means Open, Review or Disputed. Days outstanding count from the date it was submitted, or from the order date if it was never submitted.
- Margin
- Job Profitability is billed-basis profit: revenue billed less cost posted. For profit earned by percent complete, use Over/Under Billings instead.
In your own assistant
If your project managers and controller already work in Claude or ChatGPT, an administrator creates a read-only connection for each of them in the Twinn dashboard and ticks what it may read. Leave Payroll and Personal details off unless that person already sees them in Sage. Setup takes about five minutes and is described on the Sage 100 Contractor MCP server page.
Or in Ask Twinn
If they do not, Ask Twinn answers the same questions inside the Twinn web app, as the person asking, within that person’s own report permissions. Its page shows a full answer to “Which jobs are over budget right now?”, with the report, criteria and time it names.
Either way the assistant only reads. It cannot post a cost, change a budget or approve a change order.
Questions about job cost and AI
Does the assistant see our job cost live?
Yes. Each question reads Sage 100 Contractor through the Twinn service on your network at the time you ask. There is no nightly copy behind it.
Can it forecast cost at completion?
It can add cost to date and the remaining commitments from Committed Costs and compare them with the budget. It does not hold an estimate of work not yet bought out; that judgment stays with the project manager.
What does it cost?
Connecting Claude or ChatGPT is included in every Twinn plan, from the Reports plan at $3,000 a year. Ask Twinn is $1,500 a year on top of any plan. Both are in the free 30-day trial.
Put your next job meeting’s questions to it
Ask them of the public demo in Claude or ChatGPT today. Or send us the jobs you worry about most, and we will set up a demo company of your own.