Can I track equipment rental per job?

Yes. The rental invoice is a cost on the job with its own code; a rental that spans two jobs is split when confirmed. At year end the code shows what renting cost against owning.

Ready-mix and aggregate come on delivery tickets, not receipts. Does Obra read those?

Yes. Photograph the ticket or forward the supplier's emailed invoice; Obra reads the amount, date and vendor into a draft on the job for a person to confirm.

How do I record weather delay costs?

As the real costs they produce: extended rentals, standby labor, rescheduling fees, each confirmed to the job. Obra doesn't track days; it tracks what the days cost.

Does Obra estimate by the yard or the square foot?

No. Estimate as you do now; Obra records what the job was sold for, what it cost by the ton and the hour, what was collected, and where the margin landed.

Obra for Concrete and hardscape contractors

Job costing for concrete and hardscape contractors: yards, tons, hours and the pour that decides the margin

Expense tracking for concrete and hardscape contractors: ready-mix by the yard, base by the ton, equipment rentals per job, and weather delays as costs you can see.

Start free See the sample budget

Concrete and hardscape jobs are bought in units nobody else uses: yards of ready-mix, tons of base, pallets of pavers, days of a skid steer. The estimate turns those into a price. The job then turns weather, soil and an inspector into costs the estimate never saw, and the receipts for all of it arrive as delivery tickets on a dashboard.

Obra records each job's tickets as they arrive, by photo or forwarded invoice, and confirms them to the job and code. Rentals are costs per job, split when they span two. The wall that needed engineering goes into the forecast and becomes a change order the day the city says so. The page shows the job's expected margin before the last paver is set.

Tickets are receipts

The ready-mix ticket, the aggregate weigh slip, the rental agreement: each is a photo from the crew's phone to Obra's WhatsApp number, read into a draft with the amount and vendor, confirmed by a reviewer. Nobody in the field needs a login. The receipt tracking guide is the five-second habit that makes it work.

The rental line tells the truth

A skid steer at $450 a day is cheap until the rain week makes it $1,800. Recording rentals per job, with their own code, does two things: it shows the job's real cost while the rental is still running, and at year end it shows whether owning would have been cheaper. The overhead calculator handles the owning side.

Engineering, footings, and the change order

A retaining wall crosses the height where the city wants a stamped drawing. The afternoon that happens: quote the engineering and the bigger footing, add them to the forecast's remaining to spend, write the change order, get it signed, then dig. The committed costs guide explains why the forecast counts the quote before the invoice, and the change order guide gets the paper out the same day.

What Obra isn't for a concrete contractor

Not an estimator, not a scheduler, not a fleet tracker. Obra is the money on each job, from the tickets and hours the crew sends, in English and Spanish, exported cleanly to the accountant.

Sample budget

Paver patio, steps and retaining wall, Westlake Remodel

Line item	Budget
Excavation and haul-off	$2,600
Base rock and sand (tons)	$1,900
Pavers and wall block (material)	$7,800
Ready-mix concrete, footings and steps	$1,400
Drainage, edging, geotextile, adhesive	$1,100
Equipment rental: skid steer, compactor, saw	$1,500
Crew labor	$6,100
Direct cost budget	$22,400
Contract value	$31,800
Gross margin budgeted	$9,400

Illustrative figures in US dollars for a fictional project; use them to see the shape of the budget, not to price a job.

The cost codes this trade actually uses

01 Excavation and grading
02 Base and aggregate
03 Pavers, block, stone
04 Ready-mix and rebar
05 Drainage and edging
06 Equipment rental and fuel
07 Crew labor
08 Disposal and haul-off
09 Permits and utility locates

The change orders that eat the margin

The wall that needed engineering: A retaining wall crosses the height where the city wants a stamped drawing and a bigger footing. Engineering, rebar and an extra pour are a change order the day the inspector says so, or they're yours.
Soil that wasn't soil: Clay, an old slab, a buried stump. Extra excavation, extra base, extra haul-off and a rental extended by two days. Each is a receipt on the job and a line on a change order, or each is absorbed.
The rain week: Equipment on rent, crew on standby, concrete rescheduled with a fee. Weather isn't billable, but recording its cost on the job is how you learn what to put in the next bid.

Questions people ask

Can I track equipment rental per job?: Yes. The rental invoice is a cost on the job with its own code; a rental that spans two jobs is split when confirmed. At year end the code shows what renting cost against owning.
Ready-mix and aggregate come on delivery tickets, not receipts. Does Obra read those?: Yes. Photograph the ticket or forward the supplier's emailed invoice; Obra reads the amount, date and vendor into a draft on the job for a person to confirm.
How do I record weather delay costs?: As the real costs they produce: extended rentals, standby labor, rescheduling fees, each confirmed to the job. Obra doesn't track days; it tracks what the days cost.
Does Obra estimate by the yard or the square foot?: No. Estimate as you do now; Obra records what the job was sold for, what it cost by the ton and the hour, what was collected, and where the margin landed.

Free download

Not ready for an app? Start with our free Excel template.

A ready-made spreadsheet to track costs and income per project — with categories and the totals already set up.