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Why should I enable the Direct Costs tool on my project?

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Answer

To help you decide if you should enable the Direct Cost tool on your Procore project, it is recommended that you review the topics below.

What is the Direct Costs tool?

In Procore, the term direct cost is used to refer to a cost on a construction project that is NOT associated with a purchase order or subcontract. Using the Direct Costs tool, you can create these items:

  • Invoices. Create a direct cost for a paper invoice from a non-contracted vendor for items such as printer ink, computer paper, or postage. 
  • Expenses. Create a direct cost expense for computer equipment, telephones, or internal equipment rentals. 
  • Payroll. Create a direct cost for monthly payroll costs classified by cost code, so that payroll amounts reflect each month on the budget. 

Once you change the status of a direct cost from Draft to either Pending, Revise and Resubmit, or Approved, the project's Budget tool automatically displays the amount of the direct cost in the 'Direct Costs' column on its corresponding budget line item. For 'Approved' direct costs, Procore also automatically adds any direct cost line items with a matching budget code onto the appropriate owner invoice's Schedule of Values (SOV). See Create Owner Invoices.

What do I need to be aware of when enabling the tool?

If you decide that you want to enable the Direct Costs tool on a project, please be aware of the following:

  • For best results, it is recommended that you enable the tool at the beginning of a construction project. 
    • If you enable the tool on a project where one or more line items have been added to the Budget tool, an automatic script identifies the budget line items on which values have been entered in the 'Direct Costs' column. The script then automatically creates a new direct cost. You might need to update those direct costs. To learn how, see Create a Direct Cost.
  • For companies using an ERP Integration that supports job cost transaction syncing:
    • To import job cost transactions to a Procore budget to reflect values in the 'Direct Cost' column of your budget line items, you must enable the Direct Costs tool on the Procore project's that you want to sync. See Enable the Direct Costs Tool.
 Caution
To avoid losing your direct costs data, it is strongly recommended that you DO NOT disable the tool after it has been enabled and used on a Procore project. Doing so will result in the unrecoverable loss of your direct costs data.  
How do I enable the Direct Costs tool?

To learn how to enable this tool on a project, see Enable the Direct Costs Tool.

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