You quoted the bathroom at two grand. The shower was £249, the valves were £84, and the lad was there two days. So did you make anything on it?
Mucka keeps what a job cost you on the job itself, so the answer is on the same screen as the work rather than in your head or a spreadsheet.
Type it in
Open the job and tap Cost, next to Photo and Note.
Where from and When go in once at the top and cover the whole trip. Then put in each thing you bought, and tap Add more for another line — the shop and the date carry down, so a dozen items is one lot of typing, not a dozen.
Tap Save when you're done and the lot goes on the job together. The running total sits next to Add more as you go.
Put in what it was, how many, and what you paid for each one. Where you got it and what date are optional — fill them in if you want them, leave them if you don't.
Tap Add cost and it appears on the job under Materials, with the running total at the top.
Tap any line to change it or delete it. Whatever you don't touch stays as it was — so putting a price right later won't disturb the shop, the date or what you called it.
VAT — one tick, not a box on every line
At the top of the form there's These prices include VAT, and it starts ticked.
That's because the receipt in your hand comes in two shapes, and the number next to the item isn't the same one:
| Screwfix, Toolstation, B&Q | City Plumbing, Plumbase, Graham | |---|---| | Mira shower 249.00 | Mira shower 207.50 | | Total 333.00 | Goods 242.50 | | of which VAT 55.50 | VAT @ 20% 48.50 | | | Total 291.00 |
Same shower, and neither receipt is wrong. Retail counters print each line with the VAT already in it; trade accounts print each line without and add the VAT at the bottom.
So: copy the number next to the item, and leave the tick alone if it's a till roll from the counter. If you're working off a trade invoice, untick it — one tap, once for the whole trip, and Mucka does the rest.
Underneath the running total it shows you what it's about to save, so you can see it's right before you tap Save:
£333.00 £277.50 + £55.50 VAT
If the VAT on the receipt isn't 20%
There's a VAT on the receipt box next to the tick. Leave it blank and Mucka works the VAT out at 20%, which is right on nearly every merchant docket.
If it isn't — a zero-rated item in with the rest, or something at 5% — copy the VAT figure off the bottom of the paper into that box and Mucka uses that instead of guessing. One number, once, and it's the one that's actually true.
Unticked with the box left blank means there was no VAT on this one at all, and Mucka records that as a fact rather than as "don't know" — so it won't keep telling you the total isn't exact.
Let your price list fill it in
If the item is already on your price list with a cost price against it, start typing the name and it'll come up. Tap it and Mucka fills in the wording and what it costs you.
That's your cost price, not what you charge the customer. If a line comes up saying no cost set, that item on your price list has a sale price but no buy price — add one in Settings → Money → Price list and it'll be there next time.
The figure is copied onto the job at the moment you add it. If your merchant puts copper up next month, this job still shows what you actually paid.
Just tell Mucka
Quickest way when you've done a big shop, and it works wherever you talk to Mucka: in the app, over WhatsApp, or on the phone with both hands full.
"I've just been to Toolstation, got a shower for two-four-nine and a pair of valves for eighty-four, that's for the Hendersons."
The whole trip goes on in one go. You don't have to say them one at a time, and you don't have to remember what a thing is called.
Two things worth knowing. Mucka won't guess which job it was for, so if it isn't obvious it'll ask. And the figure it records is what you paid — if you don't mention the VAT it says so on the job rather than working it out for you.
Changing one afterwards
You can fix a cost the same way you put it on, without going near a screen:
"What have I put on the Shillings job?"
"Add the VAT to that one, nine forty-two."
"That shower was two-four-nine, not four-two-nine."
"Take that last one off."
Mucka reads back what's on the job first, then changes only the bit you named. If you tell it the VAT, tell it the figure before VAT as well — £56.49 all in with £9.42 of VAT is £47.07 and £9.42, not £56.49 and £9.42.
Wages are a different thing: "put 8 hours down for Hayden" goes on the timesheet, not here.
Photograph the receipt
Open the job, tap Cost, and either snap the receipt or upload one.
Mucka reads it line by line and fills the form in for you — every item, its price, the shop and the date. Check it against the paper in your hand, fix anything it's misread, and tap Save.
You don't need an accounting app for this. It works on its own.
Two things it won't do. It won't save anything on its own — you always see the lines first. And if it can't read the items off a faded till roll it won't make them up: you get one line for the whole shop at the printed total, which you can split up yourself if you want to.
If the lines it reads don't add up to the total printed on the receipt, it says so above them. That usually means a page got missed or a discount didn't get read, and you're the only one who can see the paper.
Once saved, those lines are marked From a receipt, and the photo stays attached to them. So when you're looking back at a job months later and wondering where a figure came from, the paper is still there.
If you use Xero
Sending a receipt through chat or WhatsApp still posts it to Xero the way it always has, and that card now also asks which job was this for? It suggests the jobs you were on that day. Pick one and approve, and the receipt goes into Xero and onto the job in one tap.
Not for a job is the first option and it's what the card starts on, so fuel, van tax and a pallet of stock carry on exactly as they did.
What the labour came to
If you log hours against jobs, Labour sits just under Materials with what the wages came to and who was on it.
Hours nobody has approved yet are listed separately and deliberately left out of the total, because until you approve them there's no rate agreed.
Did you make anything on it?
Above both of those, What this job cost you gives you the three figures that matter:
| | | |---|---| | Earned | What you've invoiced. If you haven't invoiced yet it uses the accepted quote and says so, because a promise isn't money. | | Cost | Materials and wages added together. | | Left | The difference, and the percentage. |
Three things it won't do, on purpose:
- No percentage if you haven't costed the job. A job you've invoiced and never put a cost against isn't a hundred percent margin, it's a job you haven't costed, and telling you otherwise would be flattering you.
- No percentage if you're not logging hours. It shows what the materials came to and says wages not included on the figure, so you're not reading a profit that's missing two days of labour.
- Nothing at all until there's something to say. A job with no costs and nothing invoiced shows no card.
Open a project and you get the same three lines for the whole site, adding up every job on it. That's the one to look at on a new build, where no single job can tell you much.
Where the money went on a whole site
Under those three lines a project also shows Materials, grouped by where you bought it.
| | | | |---|---|---| | Plumbfix | 18 bought · 4 jobs | £1,240 | | City Plumbing | 21 bought · 6 jobs | £980 | | Screwfix | 8 bought · 3 jobs | £620 |
Biggest spend first, so the shop taking the most off you is the top line.
It's grouped rather than listed on purpose. On a job, the six lines under Materials are the shop you went to that morning and you read them one by one. A six-month site is four hundred of those, which nobody reads — but six merchants is a question you can answer.
The lines themselves stay on the day that bought them. Tap a day in the run to see what went on it, or to change one.
A few things worth knowing:
- Spelling doesn't matter. Screwfix, screwfix and "Screwfix " are one shop. It shows whichever way you write it most.
- Two branches stay two lines. If you've typed "City Plumbing" and "City Plumbing Bolton", they're kept apart — they might be two accounts on two prices, and merging them would give you a figure you can't check against a statement.
- Anything with no shop on it gets its own line, called No supplier recorded. It isn't dropped, because that's the spend nobody can chase back.
You can also just ask, on any channel:
"How much have I spent at Screwfix on the Ludlow site?"
"What have the materials come to on Ludlow?"
You need View job costs to see it, on the screen or by asking. Your engineers can carry on putting receipts on the days they worked without seeing what the site has spent.
Why the VAT matters at all
If you're VAT registered you claim that VAT back, so it isn't a cost to you and the job's total leaves it out. If you're not registered you can't claim it, so it is what the job cost you and the total includes it.
Same receipt, two different and both-correct answers — which is why Mucka wants to know whether the VAT was in the price you typed, rather than assuming.
If a cost has no VAT figure against it at all, Mucka says so under the total rather than guessing at twenty percent. That's mostly older costs now, from before the tick existed.
Who can see it
Your engineers can record what they paid at the merchant counter without being able to see what the job cost or earned overall. That's two separate ticks in Settings → Team → Roles — Record job costs and View job costs — so you can hand out one without the other.
Owners and managers get both to start with.
Nothing there?
The Materials panel only appears once a job has a cost on it. A job you've never put a cost against shows nothing at all, which is most jobs — use the Cost tile to put the first one on.