# Administration Settings

How an Administrator sets Job Book up: Offices, the collections of line items (Labour Cost Items, Equipment and Materials and Fixed Price Items), Expense Items, and the rest of the Administration group.

Source: https://getjobbook.com/help/Administration_Settings
Last updated: 2026-09-17

## Setting up a new Job Book system

When you first get Job Book you are given a blank system, and as an Administrator it is your job to set it up.
Start by creating an office. After that come the line items your staff record work against (**Labour Cost
Items**, **Equipment and Materials** and **Fixed Price Items**) and the **Expense Items** your staff claim
against.

All of these screens live in one place. Click the **Navigate** button in the top-left corner of any page. The
groups in the flyout start collapsed, so click **Administration** to expand it.

![The Navigate button in the top-left corner, with the flyout open and the Administration group expanded](https://getjobbook.com/_astro/navigate-administration.DhL8IgF_.png)

*The Administration group holds the lists an Administrator sets up once. Apart from Clients and Jobs, none of them has a dashboard card, so this is where you open them.*

## Offices

Every job is run out of an office, so every company needs at least one, and plenty of firms never need a second.
Create more when you want work kept apart: a branch in another town, or a business unit you run from the same
building and want to track on its own. There is no limit on how many you set up.

What that separation buys you:

- The office travels with the job and shows up throughout the backlogs, the reports and the maps. Where it is a
  grid column you can group or filter by it, which is how you read one branch on its own rather than the company
  as a whole.
- The office decides which address prints on the invoice, under your company logo. See
  [Invoices](https://getjobbook.com/help/Invoices).
- Every job picks its office from a dropdown of the ones you create here, so the offices come first. See
  [Job Setup](https://getjobbook.com/help/Job_Setup).

To see the offices you already have, click **Navigate**, expand the **Administration** group, then click
**Offices**. The list opens on its **All** view, with the search box and the **Search** button above **Create** and
**Export to Excel**, and a record count on the right. Each card reads **Name:** followed by the office name; click
a card to open that office.

### Setting Up an Office

The office form is a name and an address.

![The blank Create form for an office](https://getjobbook.com/_astro/offices-create.D3V9BVE9.png)

*Most firms need one office. Add a second when you want its work reported on its own.*

1. On the **Offices** list, click **Create**. The form opens titled **Create**.
2. In **Name:**, type the name of your office. It could be "Head Office" or the name of the town the office is
   in. This name is used inside Job Book only, and customers never see it.
3. In **Address (Will be shown on Invoices):**, type the address that should print on invoices.
4. Click **Save**. **Cancel** leaves without saving.

Watch the video: [Job Book Setup #2: Creating and Managing Offices in Job Book](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjN5lXlEgO4)

## Line Items

A line item is anything you track on a job and bill for: an hour of someone's time, a day of a machine, a
lump-sum fee. Rate sheets are built out of them, a job carries its own selection, and your staff record work
against them day by day. Job Book tracks the equipment and materials used as well as the hours worked, which is
why those records are Daily Work Records rather than timesheets. See [DWR Entry](https://getjobbook.com/help/DWR_Entry).

An item you set up here is not yet on any job. It reaches a DWR only once it is on the job's own line items, either
through the rate sheet applied to the job or added by hand, so if staff report that an item is missing from the DWR
form, the place to look is the job, not this list. See [Adding line items](https://getjobbook.com/help/Job_Setup#adding-line-items).

They come in three collections:

- **Labour Cost Items**: the labour your company pays for in payroll or charges to a customer, usually counted in
  hours, though any unit will do.
- **Equipment and Materials**: what a job consumed: the equipment your crews ran and for how long, and the
  travel and hotels the work needed.
- **Fixed Price Items**: charges an Administrator puts straight on an invoice with no hours behind them, such as
  a lump sum for a survey. Staff still book their time to labour items for the work itself.

Start with the items your company uses most often. The prices you set here are defaults, and two things can
override them: a [rate sheet](https://getjobbook.com/help/Rate_Sheets) can reprice an item for one client or one contract type without
you recreating it, and a job can override it again on its own line items. See
[Job Setup](https://getjobbook.com/help/Job_Setup#adding-line-items).

Two decisions are worth settling before you type the first item:

- Name them to match your accounting system. Job Book raises the invoices, but best practice is to migrate them
  into Xero, Sage or QuickBooks, and that migration expects the two sets of line items to correspond.
- Record equipment and materials even where you do not bill them to the client. The company is paying for them
  either way, and the Line Item Report totals how much each one gets used.

A job adds a few things of its own to the items you set up here: a **Bdgt Qty** column, an **Archived** checkbox
and a **Show Archived** toggle on its line item grids, and the job's own **Taxes**, **Fees** and **Additional
Fields**. Those are all set on the job, not here: see [Job Setup](https://getjobbook.com/help/Job_Setup#adding-line-items).

Watch the video: [Job Book Setup #3: Understanding Line Items in Job Book](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH5qJONI2uo)

### Labour Cost Items

Click **Navigate**, expand the **Administration** group, then click **Labour Cost Items**. The list opens on its
**Active** view.

![The Labour Cost Items list on the Active view](https://getjobbook.com/_astro/labour-cost-items-list.Cc1ZcUra.png)

*The labour items every rate sheet and job picks from.*

- **Active** shows the items still in use. Click **All** to see the active and inactive items together.
- The grid columns are **Name**, **Accounting Code**, **Hourly Cost**, **Billing Unit**, **Billing Unit Cost** and
  **Actions**. The **Name** column sorts.
- Rows are grouped under a **Category:** heading. The small triangle beside a heading collapses that group.
- You can edit an item by clicking the pencil button in the **Actions** column, on the far right.
- **Export to Excel** downloads the list as a spreadsheet.

To create one, click **Create**.

![The blank Create form for a labour cost item](https://getjobbook.com/_astro/labour-cost-item-create.DTkBNvi8.png)

*The form for the labour your company sells by the hour or by the day.*

- **Name:** the name of your labour cost item. Next to the name of the field is a red star, which denotes a
  required field. If you try to save a form and a required field is empty, Job Book highlights the field in red
  and makes you fill it in.
- **Accounting Code:** not required, but accounting systems such as Sage 50 use these codes when importing data
  from Job Book. The number you use should match the one your accounting system uses. In Job Book we call them
  accounting codes, but you might hear them referred to as chart of accounts, or GL or General Ledger codes. If
  you are wondering where they come from, ask your accountant or bookkeeper.
- **Category:** required, and picked from a dropdown that also remembers the categories you have already
  created. It is only used for sorting the line items into human readable categories. That sorting is what you see
  on [Standard Rates](https://getjobbook.com/help/Rate_Sheets#standard-rates), the printable list of the default price on every Labour
  and Equipment and Materials item, grouped by category, so pick names your whole company will recognize.
- **Billing Unit:** required. It defaults to **HR**. The dropdown also offers **DAY**, **PER** and **UNIT**, and you
  can type a unit of your own, such as miles.
- **Billing Unit Cost:** required. The rate for one billing unit.
- **Hourly Cost:** filled in for you while the billing unit is hours, because then the two are the same. Pick a
  different billing unit and the field becomes editable, with a line of text under it: you set the day rate in
  **Billing Unit Cost** and the hourly cost here, and Job Book tells you how many hours that makes a day of work.
  An $800 day at $80 an hour is a 10 hour day; at $100 an hour it is an 8 hour day. Job Book asks for both
  because staff record hours on their Daily Work Records, and it is the hourly cost that turns a party chief's 8
  hours into 1 day of Survey Mobilization on the reports and the invoice.
- **Tax Exempt**: tick it if no tax is charged on this item.
- **Active**: ticked by default. While it is ticked the item can be picked when setting up a rate sheet or a job.
  **Delete** is on the item's display view, which opens when you click the item's name in the list (the pencil
  under **Actions** opens the edit view, which has no **Delete**). It only works if the item has never been used;
  if it has, clear this checkbox to deactivate it instead.

Click **Save**. **Cancel** leaves without saving.

Watch the video: [Job Book Setup #4: Creating Labor Line Items in Job Book](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8vQNwcAmuQ)

### Equipment and Materials

Click **Navigate**, expand the **Administration** group, then click **Equipment and Materials**. The list opens on
its **Active** view, with the same **Active** and **All** views, search box, **Create** and **Export to Excel** as
the labour list. Its grid columns are **Name**, **Accounting Code**, **Unit**, **Unit Cost** and **Actions**, and
the rows are grouped under a **Category:** heading.

To create one, click **Create**. The form is the [Labour Cost Items](#labour-cost-items) form without
**Hourly Cost**, and with **Billing Unit:** and **Billing Unit Cost:** labelled **Unit:** and **Unit Cost ($):**
instead: **Name:**, **Accounting Code:**, **Category:**, **Unit:**, **Unit Cost ($):**, **Tax Exempt** and
**Active**, each meaning what its counterpart means there.

![The blank Create form for an equipment and materials item](https://getjobbook.com/_astro/equipment-and-materials-create.kcikCZKG.png)

*Set Unit to what the crew will count on a DWR: hours for a machine, a count for materials.*

What is particular to this list:

- Name an item for the thing itself, such as "Robotic Total Station".
- A survey firm's categories might be 3rd Party Charges, Delivery, Equipment, Fees and Survey Markers.
- **Unit:** defaults to **HR**. Change it to any unit that fits the item, **DAY**, **PER** or **UNIT** from the
  list, or type one that is not on it, like Bundles.

Click **Save**. **Cancel** leaves without saving.

Watch the video: [Job Book Setup #5: Creating Equipment and Materials Line Items in Job Book](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHzgvhs9QwM)

### Fixed Price Items

Fixed price items are line items that can be added to invoices, but are not recorded as work on a DWR. They
capture costs that are not tied to work done by your employees, such as third-party charges or fixed service fees.

Click **Navigate**, expand the **Administration** group, then click **Fixed Price Items**. The list carries
the same **Active** and **All** views, search box, **Create** and **Export to Excel** as the other two line
item lists, and the same grid columns as Equipment and Materials: **Name**, **Accounting Code**, **Unit**,
**Unit Cost** and **Actions**, grouped under a **Category:** heading. A survey firm might use categories such as
Backcharge, Subcontractors and Survey, holding items such as Boundary Survey, Compliance Fee, Topographic
Survey, Utility Locates and Third Party Charges.

To create one, click **Create**. The form is the [Equipment and Materials](#equipment-and-materials) form, field
for field.

![The blank Create form for a fixed price item](https://getjobbook.com/_astro/fixed-price-item-create.WO07JScU.png)

*The price you set here is a default you can override on the job or the invoice.*

Two tips for fixed price items:

- **Unit:** **PER** is useful when charging a fixed amount per item or service.
- **Unit Cost ($):** where the price varies from job to job, set it to $0 as a placeholder and set the real price
  on the job or the invoice.

Click **Save**. **Cancel** leaves without saving.

You pick them when setting up jobs and when invoicing. See [Invoices](https://getjobbook.com/help/Invoices).

Watch the video: [Job Book Setup #6: Creating Fixed Price Line Items in Job Book](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GXdIshIjR0)

## Expense Items

An expense item is a category of out-of-pocket spending your staff can claim back: gas, accommodation, field
materials. You need them only if your people ever pay for something themselves, so a company where everyone
carries a corporate card can skip this screen.

They differ from the other line items in the way that matters most here: an expense item carries no price. The
employee enters the amount when they file the expense, because only they know what the receipt says. See
[Expense Entry](https://getjobbook.com/help/Expense_Entry).

To see the expense items you have, click **Navigate**, expand the **Administration** group, then click **Expense
Items**. The list opens on its **All** view, with the search box and **Search** button, **Create** and **Export to
Excel** above and below the cards, and a record count. Each card reads **Name:** followed by the item name.
Typical items are Accommodations, Field Allowance, Field Materials Misc, Gas, Misc and Office Materials Misc.

![The Expense Items list](https://getjobbook.com/_astro/expense-items-list.DsgwjCyu.png)

*Every expense your staff file is claimed against one of these.*

Click **Create**. The form holds one field.

![The blank Create form for an expense item](https://getjobbook.com/_astro/expense-item-create.BZAZhFCh.png)

*Name it the way staff will look for it on the claim form.*

- **Name:** the name of the expense item, such as "Field Materials Misc".

Click **Save**. **Cancel** leaves without saving.

Once they exist your staff can file expenses against a job; see [Expense Entry](https://getjobbook.com/help/Expense_Entry).

Watch the video: [Job Book Setup #8: Creating Expense Items in Job Book](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1C75XrwOKA)

## The Other Administration Screens

The **Administration** group carries a few more lists. **Clients** and **Jobs** are day-to-day work with their own
pages, [Clients](https://getjobbook.com/help/Clients) and [Job Setup](https://getjobbook.com/help/Job_Setup). The rest are not part of the first-day setup,
but this is where they live.

### Asset Locations

Click **Navigate**, expand the **Administration** group, then click **Asset Locations**. The list has one **All**
view, the search box and **Search** button, **Create** and **Export to Excel**.

**Create** opens a form with **Name:**, **Municipal Address:**, **Province:**, **City:** and **Location:**, a
**Map Display** panel, and **Save** and **Cancel**.

### Training Courses

Click **Navigate**, expand the **Administration** group, then click **Training Courses**. The list has the same
**All** view, search box and **Search** button, **Create** and **Export to Excel**.

**Create** opens a form with **Name:** and an **Active** checkbox, then **Save** and **Cancel**.

### Vehicles

Click **Navigate**, expand the **Administration** group, then click **Vehicles**. The list is shaped the same way
again.

**Create** opens a form with **Unit Number:**, **Make:**, **Model:** and **Year:**, an **Active** checkbox, then
**Save** and **Cancel**.

## Related Guides

- Administration Settings
- [Rate Sheets](https://getjobbook.com/help/Rate_Sheets)
- [Job Setup](https://getjobbook.com/help/Job_Setup)
- [Expense Entry](https://getjobbook.com/help/Expense_Entry)
- [Invoices](https://getjobbook.com/help/Invoices)
- [Users and Employee Profiles](https://getjobbook.com/help/Users_and_Employee_Profiles)