Work Order Cost Totals: What Each Amount Includes
A work order carries several separate cost amounts, and a report, dashboard or Ron360 table can add them together in more than one way. A total labeled Total on the work order and a total labeled Total Maintenance Cost in a report are not the same figure, and both can be correct. This article defines each amount, states exactly what the work order Total includes, and explains which amounts are deliberately left out of a total.
Where each amount comes from
Every cost amount on a work order is the sum of the postings of one posting type on that work order. Nothing is estimated or apportioned: if you post an in-house part, the amount lands in the parts amount, and if you post outside labor it lands in the outside labor amount. Reversed postings are excluded, so reversing a posting removes it from these amounts.
Amount | What it contains |
|---|---|
Parts | In-house parts postings, priced from your part file. |
Parts - Outside | Parts supplied by an outside vendor. |
Parts - Warranty | Warranty parts postings. These are their own posting type and are not inside the Parts amount. |
Labor | In-house labor postings, in dollars. |
Labor - Outside | Labor performed by an outside vendor. |
Labor - Warranty | Warranty labor postings, separate from the Labor amount. |
Tires | Tire postings. Outside tire postings are reported separately in some views and combined with tires in others, so check the label before comparing two screens. |
Tires - Warranty | Warranty tire postings. |
Misc | Miscellaneous charges posted to the work order. |
Shop Supplies | The work order overhead amount, calculated from your overhead percentages. See Shop Supplies and Overhead Charges. |
Damage | Every posting made to a line coded as damage, whatever type that posting was. See the warning below. |
What the work order Total includes
On the upgraded Work Order screen, the Total shown at the right of the cost strip is the sum of all of the following:
Parts, Parts - Outside and Parts - Warranty.
Labor, Labor - Outside and Labor - Warranty.
Tires, outside tires and Tires - Warranty.
Misc.
Shop Supplies (overhead) and any tax posted to the work order.
Two things are worth noting about that figure. It includes warranty amounts, and it includes overhead and tax, so it is larger than a maintenance cost figure from a report. The Damage amount is displayed beside it but is not added into it.
On the original Work Order screen, the Cost tab lists Parts, Parts - Outside, Parts - Warranty, Labor, Labor - Outside, Labor - Warranty, Tires, Damage and Misc, and its Total adds the parts, labor, tire and Misc amounts, including the warranty amounts. Unlike the upgraded screen, that Total does not include Shop Supplies or tax, and its Tires amount already contains warranty tire postings. The same work order can therefore show a slightly different Total on the two screens, and the difference is the overhead and tax.
Damage is never part of a total. The Damage amount is not a cost category of its own. It adds up every posting made to a line coded as damage, and those same dollars are already counted in the parts, labor, tire or Misc amount for their own posting type. Adding Damage to any total double counts it. Read Damage as "how much of this work order was damage work", not as an extra cost.
Total Maintenance Cost in reports and dashboards
When a report, a dashboard tile or a Ron360 table shows Total Maintenance Cost, that figure is the maintenance work itself: in-house labor, parts and tires, outside labor, parts and tires, and Misc. It does not include warranty amounts, overhead or tax, and it never includes fuel, depreciation, insurance, lease, licensing or other vehicle costs, which are not work order postings at all.
Figure | Warranty | Overhead and tax | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|
Work order Total (upgraded screen) | Included | Included | Not included |
Work order Total (original Cost tab) | Included | Not included | Not included |
Total Maintenance Cost in a report or Ron360 table | Not included | Not included | Not included |
If a report or a Ron360 answer gives you a total without saying what is in it, ask for the breakdown. Any total on this table can be reproduced from the individual amounts above, and a total you cannot reproduce from them is worth reporting.
Labor hours are hours, not dollars
A work order also carries labor hours: the estimated or scheduled hours from its lines and the actual hours recorded against them. These are hours, shown as a decimal number, and they are entirely separate from the labor dollars. Hours must never be added into a cost column, and a column of hours placed next to currency columns is still hours.
How long a work order was open
The upgraded Work Order screen shows Days Open. It is the number of calendar days from the date the work order was started to the date it was completed, or to today if the work order is still open. It is calculated when the screen is displayed and is not stored on the work order.
Because it is not a stored field, a report or an exported grid shows the work order dates rather than a stored elapsed time. To see how long work orders stayed open across a group of work orders, put the started and completed dates side by side and use an average elapsed time at the group level, or ask Ron360 for a Days Open column on a list of work orders.
When two totals do not agree
Before treating a difference as an error, confirm the two figures are meant to contain the same things:
Does one figure include warranty and the other not?
Does one figure include Shop Supplies and tax?
Has Damage been added into one of them?
Are both figures over the same work orders, the same facility and the same dates? A report bounded by the date a work order closed and one bounded by the date postings were made will not cover the same work.
Were any postings reversed after one of the figures was produced?
Two standard reports on the same work orders also present overhead and warranty differently by design. That comparison is covered in Why the Customer Accounting Report and the Work Order Print Report show different totals.
If the amounts still do not agree, collect the work order number, the facility, the date range, and both figures, and contact support@rtafleet.com.