Know your numbers
Am I actually making money?
Six questions, answered from the work you already do
Am I actually making money?
The top of the page answers in three sentences — what happened, what it means, and what to do about it. Not a wall of charts you have to interpret before you learn anything.
Am I on track for what I wanted this year?
Set a target for the month, quarter or year and it says whether you are on pace, not just what the total is. Being £4,000 behind in January is a different thing from being £4,000 behind in November.
What is already confirmed, and what is only possible?
Two columns, two colours, and nothing anywhere adds them together. Work that is booked and work that is still a quote are different kinds of money, and a forecast that merges them is how a business spends what it has not won.
Which jobs actually made money?
Profit per job, from the line items rather than the invoice total, with the hours clocked against it. It tells you how much of the work it could measure, so you never act on a margin that speaks for a third of the job.
What am I spending?
Rent, fuel, tools, insurance, subcontractors, software. The ones that go out every month are logged once and counted every month. Snap the receipt in the merchant's and attach it to the job it was bought for.
What is the VAT bill going to be?
Your own VAT quarter, the date a return covering it would be due, what you charged, what you were charged and the difference — with a list of everything still missing before those figures are complete.
What it needs from you, and what it will not do
It needs your costs to tell you about profit
Money coming in, we already have — it is the invoices you raised. What you spend has to be typed in or imported, and until some of it is, the profit figures say they are unmeasured rather than showing you a confident zero. The costs page takes a few minutes to set up and the standing ones are entered once.
A target is a number you choose
Nothing here invents one from an industry average. If you have not set a target, the page says there is nothing to measure against rather than inventing a benchmark you never agreed to.
It is not an accounting package, and it does not file anything
There is no bank reconciliation, no payroll, no asset register and no stock valuation — those are Xero, QuickBooks and Sage, which this connects to rather than replaces. Nothing is submitted to HMRC from here, and TaskMyJob is not HMRC-recognised software. Your accountant or your accounting package files, exactly as now.
Some figures cannot be worked out, and it says which
A VAT position on the flat rate scheme depends on a percentage we do not hold. A day rate nobody has set is unknown rather than zero. In every case it refuses by name and tells you what is missing, because a number nobody can check is worse than a gap somebody can see.
Closing a month, and what your accountant gets
When a month is done you can close it, and the figures are recorded as they stood when you approved them — so a late invoice changing last month’s total is disclosed rather than quietly rewriting history you have already acted on.
At year end, everything comes out as spreadsheets in one click: the sales, the payments, the costs, the CIS statements, retention, the hours and the full activity log. Free, no notice period, yours to hand to whoever you like. A sign-in for your accountant, restricted to the money and expiring after twelve months, is being built — ask if you want to know where it has got to.
Questions people ask
Do I have to do bookkeeping in TaskMyJob as well?
No, and you should not. This works from the jobs, quotes and invoices you already raise here, plus the costs you record as you go. Your accounting package stays where it is — invoices, payments, credit notes and contacts push across to Xero, QuickBooks or Sage automatically, so you are not keeping two sets of books.
How long before the figures mean anything?
Income is there from your first invoice, because it comes from work you were doing anyway. Profit needs costs, so it is worth an hour at the start putting your standing costs in — rent, van, insurance, phone, software. After that it is a photograph of a receipt when you buy something.
Can my accountant see any of this?
You can export a complete copy of everything — customers, quotes, jobs, invoices, payments, costs, CIS statements and the activity log — as spreadsheets, in one click, free and with no notice period. A sign-in for your accountant, with access that expires, is being built.
Does it work out my CIS and retention?
Yes. The CIS deduction is taken on labour only and on the net, statements are counted into HMRC tax months rather than calendar ones, and retention is held separately so an invoice short by retention is never chased as overdue. If a line has not been categorised as labour or materials, it refuses to guess at your tax and tells you which line.
What if I only want the job side?
Then use the job side. Nothing here is a separate product or a paid add-on, and nothing makes you fill it in. It is on the same plan as everything else, and 60 days free with everything switched on is how to find out whether you want it.
Will it tell me what to do, or just show me numbers?
It leads with a sentence rather than a chart, and every figure that depends on something you have not filled in links to where it goes. Where it cannot tell you something, it says so in words rather than showing a zero that looks like an answer.
Try it on your own work
60 days free with everything switched on, and no card to start. If you would rather ask something first, there is a person on the other end.
£29.99 a month for the whole business after the free 60 days.