# See the hours on a job against the labour you estimated

Source: https://help.mucka.ai/engineers/hours-against-your-estimate
Category: Engineers
Last updated: 2026-10-10

> If you charge by the hour, link a job to its estimate and Mucka adds up the hours across every day of it, at your rate, against the labour you priced — so you can warn the customer before it goes over.

You priced a bathroom at £3,550 of labour, you charge £30 an hour, and the job's running over five days. Halfway through you want to know: how much of that £3,550 have the hours already used?

That's **Charged so far**. It sits on the job, under *What this job cost you*.

## Link the job to its estimate

A big job is often a run of day-jobs in the diary, and the estimate sits on a job of its own. So each day needs to know which estimate it belongs to.

On the job, pick the estimate under **Which estimate is this job part of?** and tap **Link**. Do it on each day of the work. The estimate's own job counts without being linked.

## Tell it two things, once

- **Your hourly rate.** If your price list has a "Labour" item charged per hour, Mucka uses that, with any uplift you've set for that customer or area. If it hasn't, type your rate and tap **Add to price list** — quotes and invoices can then use it too. Charging differently on this job? **Change** sets a rate for this estimate only.
- **How much of the estimate is labour**, ex VAT. The hours are measured against this, not the materials. If the labour lines came from your price list, Mucka suggests the figure for you to check.

## What it shows

- **Time so far** — the hours logged against every job on that estimate, including any still waiting for your approval, because the warning is only any use early.
- **At your rate** — those hours at your hourly rate.
- **Labour priced** — the figure you gave it, with a bar showing how much is used and how many hours are left at that rate. It goes amber at 80% and red once it's over.

If you use Timesheets, the hours come from there. If you don't, Mucka uses each job's own start and finish times.

## A heads-up at 80%

When the hours on an estimate reach **80%** of the labour you priced, a card turns up in your actions the next morning: which estimate, how far through it you are, and a short email to the customer, ready to send. It tells them you're getting close to the time you allowed and it may come in a bit higher, and it doesn't put any figures in front of them.

Read it, change the wording if you like, and tap **Email the customer**. Nothing goes until you do. Dismiss it and that estimate won't ask again. If there's no email on file for them, the card says so and you can give them a ring instead.

There's no card once every job on the estimate is finished, or if you haven't told it the labour figure yourself.

## Worth knowing

- **It's the rate you charge, not what you pay.** What the wages cost you is in *What this job cost you* above it. The two are never mixed.
- **Days logged as days aren't counted.** A day rate is a day, not a number of hours, so Mucka says how many there are rather than guessing.
- **Only you and anyone allowed to see job costings see it.** Your engineers and subcontractors never see your charge rate.