How to Log and Track Service Costs?
Every repair costs money — a replacement part here, a few hours of labor there, a haul to an external workshop. The Costs tab on a service job lets you log each expense as it happens, grouped by category, so you get a clean running total for the job. That total feeds your maintenance reporting, follows the job into its History record, and can later be turned into a customer invoice if the repair is chargeable.
Why Track Service Costs?
- Know your true repair spend. See exactly what a breakdown or preventive service cost — not just an estimate.
- Categorized breakdown. Parts, Labor, External Service, and Transport are tracked separately so you can spot where the money goes.
- Feeds reporting and billing. The job’s total rolls up into the Total Cost KPI on the main page and can be billed to a customer in one step.
Logging costs requires the maintenance.write permission. Users with read-only access can view the Costs tab but cannot add or remove expenses.
When Can You Log Costs?
The Costs tab only appears once a job has been started. A job still in Scheduled status shows only the Details tab — start the job first (from the list’s Start action, or see How to Complete Maintenance?) and the Costs tab becomes available.
Expenses can only be added or removed while the job is In Progress. Once the job is completed, the cost list locks — you’ll see a Locked — expenses cannot be edited notice, and existing costs become read-only.
Log your costs before you mark the job complete. If you realize an expense is missing after completion, you cannot edit it from the drawer.
Step 1: Open the Costs Tab
- Go to Service & Repair at
/maintenance. - Click the job’s Job Card number in the list to open the job detail drawer.
- Select the Costs tab.
If no expenses have been recorded yet, you’ll see an empty state with an Add First Expense button.
Step 2: Add an Expense
Click Add First Expense (or the Add button once costs exist) to open the inline expense form, then fill in:
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Category | The type of cost — Parts, Labor, External Service, Transport, or Other. |
| Amount | The cost value, in your organization’s currency. |
| Description | Optional note, e.g. “Oil filter replacement”. |
| Capital improvement | Optional checkbox — tick only if this expense adds to the asset’s book value. |
Click Save to record the expense. It appears immediately in the list with its category tag, description, and amount. Repeat to add as many expenses as the job needs.
Capital improvement. Most repairs are regular running expenses — leave this unticked. Tick it only when the work genuinely increases the asset’s value (a major upgrade rather than a fix); doing so adds the amount to the asset’s book value and triggers a depreciation recalculation.
The Cost Categories
| Category | Typical use |
|---|---|
| Parts | Components and consumables purchased for the repair. |
| Labor | Time charged by your own technicians. |
| External Service | Work sent out to a third-party workshop or specialist. |
| Transport | Moving the asset to and from the service location. |
| Other | Anything that doesn’t fit the categories above. |
Step 3: Review the Cost Summary
Below the expense list, Rentablez shows a running summary:
- A per-category breakdown appears once the job has costs in two or more categories (or includes store parts), so you can see how much went to Parts vs. Labor and so on.
- A bold Total Cost line always shows the combined total for the job.
This total is what appears in the Total Cost KPI card on the main Service & Repair page and in the job’s History record.
Removing an Expense
While the job is In Progress, each expense row shows a small trash icon. Click it to remove that expense — the total updates instantly. Once the job is completed, the trash icon disappears and the list is locked.
Store Parts Pulled From Inventory
If parts were issued to this job from your Store inventory, they appear in the summary as a Store Parts (Net) line, with each item listed underneath. Returned parts show as a negative amount, so the net figure reflects only what was actually consumed.
Store parts are issued to a maintenance job from the Store module, not from the Costs tab. This section is read-only here — it reflects those inventory movements automatically and folds their net cost into the job’s Total Cost.
Billing These Costs to a Customer
If the repair is chargeable — for example, damage caused by a renter — you can turn the logged costs into a customer invoice directly from the Costs tab. See How to Bill Maintenance Costs to a Customer? for the full walkthrough.