Cost Visibility & Job Costing

You know your monthly P&L. You don’t know your cost per job by tech, by type, by branch. That gap is where margin goes to hide.

A Spaid engineer pulls your FSM data, calculates true fully-loaded cost per job without a spreadsheet, and builds a weekly cost visibility layer that maps directly to EBITDA impact — not just activity metrics.

What the P&L Doesn’t Show

What you can’t see in your P&L.

Monthly P&L shows you the result. It doesn’t show you which job types are subsidizing which, which techs are destroying margin on specific call categories, or which branches are operating at fundamentally different cost structures. That information is in your FSM — unlooked at.

Hidden Job-Type Subsidies

Your highest-volume job type might also be your lowest-margin one. A tune-up that looks like revenue is actually funding the real margin work. Without cost-per-job visibility by type, you can’t price, staff, or dispatch based on actual economics.

12–18 pt GM spread across job types in the same market

Tech Cost Variance

Two techs, same job type, same parts cost. One completes in 90 minutes, one in 2.5 hours. Without labor cost per job by tech, you can’t see this pattern — and you can’t fix it.

30–60% labor cost variance on identical job types

Branch Cost Blindness

Multi-location operators often discover that two branches with identical revenue have 8–12 pt GM differentials — driven by parts cost differences, dispatch inefficiency, or labor utilization patterns. None of it shows up until the annual review.

8–12 pt GM differential branch to branch
Why Existing Solutions Fail

Monthly reports vs. weekly cost intelligence.

A cost report tells you what happened. Cost intelligence tells you what’s happening right now — and flags it before it compounds.

What you've tried before

Monthly P&L by branch

Shows results, not causes. By the time a cost problem shows up in the P&L, you’ve had 3–4 weeks of margin erosion.

FSM job costing

Most FSMs have job cost fields that are either not populated, not connected to labor cost, or not rolled up into actionable reporting.

Accountant quarterly review

High-level cost ratios. No job-type breakdown, no tech-level cost data, no branch comparison at the operational level.

Spreadsheet tracking

Manual, inconsistent, incomplete. The person maintaining it leaves and the data trail ends.

VS
What forward-deployed looks like

FSM API connector calculates true cost per job

Pulls labor hours, parts cost, and invoice data — calculates fully-loaded cost per job by tech, job type, and branch without a spreadsheet. Done in the first 30 days.

Drift detection tracks cost per job weekly

Not monthly. Weekly variance by tech, job type, and branch — flagged before it hits the monthly close with a 3–4 week window to act.

Margin guardrails surface cost context in real time

Within existing FSM workflow, techs and dispatchers see margin impact before decisions are made — not after invoices are sent.

PE-ready reporting maps cost to EBITDA impact

Weekly cost-per-job scorecard formatted for board/PE visibility — not activity metrics, EBITDA impact.

Engineer + Software

How the engineer and software build cost visibility.

True cost per job in 30 days. Weekly variance monitoring. PE-ready reporting.

FSM API Connector

True cost per job in 30 days

Pulls labor hours, parts cost, drive time, and invoice data from ServiceTitan, HCP, FieldEdge, or Jobber. Calculates fully-loaded cost per job across all techs, job types, and branches. No spreadsheet, no manual export, no data analyst required. First output delivered in the audit phase.

Drift Detection Engine

Weekly cost variance, not monthly surprises

Monitors cost per job weekly by tech, job type, and branch. Flags when a job type’s cost structure changes — labor variance spike, parts cost creep, dispatch inefficiency pattern. Gives a 3–4 week window to address root cause before it shows up in the monthly close.

Margin Guardrails

Cost context before the quote goes out

Real-time pricing guidance surfaced within existing FSM workflow. Flags quotes that deviate from established margin ranges for the job type before they’re sent. Techs and dispatchers see the cost context — price jobs right without a manager approval chain.

PE-Ready Reporting

EBITDA impact, not activity metrics

Weekly operational scorecard at field and back-of-house level — maps cost per job, margin by tech and branch, and trend lines directly to EBITDA impact. Formatted for PE and board visibility, not internal operational review.

Measured Outcomes

What operators measure after 90 days.

Field
30
Days
Time to Full Cost Map
Fully-loaded cost per job by tech, type, and branch — delivered in the first audit phase.
Field
3–5
Pts GM
Margin Per Job Improvement
Margin guardrails and dispatch intelligence reduce below-threshold quotes.
Field
8–12
Pt Spread
Branch Cost Gap Identified
Average cost differential found between highest and lowest performing branches in the audit.
Field
Weekly
Cadence
Cost Visibility Reporting
Cost per job scorecard replacing monthly P&L as the primary operational signal.
Related Problems

Operators gaining cost visibility also address:

The Measured Pilot Guarantee

If we don't identify $200K, you pay nothing.

Our Full-Operation Audit (Days 1–30) maps every revenue leak — field and back of house. If we don't identify at least $200,000 in recoverable annual revenue, we refund Phase 1 in full. You keep all audit deliverables.

After kickoff, we ask for about 30 minutes a week of your ops leader's time.

Zero risk. Full-operation visibility. Founding customer pricing: 40% below standard rates.
Start Here

45 minutes. Your data.
No commitment.

We'll start with a recent export or sample call data from your FSM and call system, show you the biggest leaks, and scope the engagement. Full access happens only if you proceed to the audit.

Accepting 2–3 founding operators · $20M–$100M revenue · 40–120 techs · On a modern FSM