ForemanFOREMAN

Cost codes

Manage the cost-code list that organizes your project costing, choose parent codes, and import them by CSV.

Cost codes are the backbone of your project costing — the numbered categories (0100 Site Work, 0200 Concrete, and so on) that every budget line, vendor bill, and time entry rolls up into. Set them once for your whole company and they're available on every project.

Open your cost codes

  1. From the sidebar, click Cost Database.
  2. Open the Cost Codes tab. The Cost Types tab sits right next to it.

Don’t see this?

The Cost Codes and Cost Types tabs only appear if your role can view cost codes. Editing them needs the matching write access — ask your organization owner if the buttons below are missing.

Add a cost code

  1. On the Cost Codes tab, click Add Cost Code.
  2. Enter a Number (or leave it blank to auto-assign the next one) and a Name (required).
  3. Optionally pick a Parent.
  4. Click Create.

Note

Give a parent code children and it becomes a trade folder: budget lines and cost items can only be filed against leaf codes, so a folder stops appearing in the Cost Code cell. Its children are what you file against.

Note

Cost codes are edited inline — double-click a cell to change its Number, Name, or Parent. The Parent cell lets you choose an existing parent or clear the relationship.

The table is a flat list sorted by number, with no expand/collapse controls or indentation. Search filters the rows by number or name.

Set up cost types

Cost types (Material, Labor, Subcontractor, Equipment Rental…) carry defaults that flow onto budget lines.

  1. Open the Cost Types tab and click Add Cost Type.
  2. Enter a Name and a Default margin % — a reference figure for the trade, not a margin Foreman applies on its own. Budget lines fall back to the budget's default margin, which comes from Organization → Settings.
  3. Toggle Time-trackable (visible to crew on clock-in) and Taxable (sales tax on customer invoices) as needed.
  4. Click Create.

Import cost codes from a CSV

  1. On the Cost Codes tab, click Import and choose a CSV.
  2. Use the columns Number, Name, Parent Number, and Parent Name. Parent rows import first, then child rows are matched to their parent by number or name.
  3. Use Export any time to download your current cost codes as a CSV.

Note

Need to clean up? Click a row's number in the left-hand # column to select it — Shift-click for a range, ⌘/Ctrl-click to add one at a time — and an Archive N selected button appears in the toolbar to retire them.