Preconstruction and soft costs
Track the money spent before and around the trades - plans, permits, insurance, loan interest - in the same budget.
Not every dollar on a job is a trade. Before anyone swings a hammer you are paying for plans and design, permit fees, a survey, builders risk insurance, legal and recording, loan origination and interest, and you are carrying a contingency. Those are soft costs, and they belong on the same budget as the trades - otherwise your job total is not the real job total.
Every budget line is either a Hard cost (the physical construction - framing, concrete, plumbing) or a Soft cost. Existing lines are all hard costs, so nothing changed on jobs you already have.
- 1Open the project and go to the Budget tab.
- 2Click "Add preconstruction costs" to drop in the standard soft-cost list (plans, permit fees, builders risk, taxes, loan origination, loan interest, survey, legal, broker fees, engineering, testing, contingency). Uncheck anything that does not apply.
- 3They come in blank - fill in the amounts as your numbers firm up.
- 4To add one by hand, click Add Line and set Cost type to "Soft cost". The category list switches to the soft-cost categories (or use "+ Use my own category" to type your own).
- 5To move an existing line, edit it and change its Cost type.
The Budget tab then shows three numbers up top: hard costs, soft costs (with what share of the budget they are), and the all-in project cost. The line-item table splits into a Construction section and a Preconstruction & soft costs section, each with its own subtotal, so the trade totals stay clean while the job total stays honest.
On a project still in Planning, soft costs are listed first - at that stage they are the work. Once the job goes Active, construction leads.
Soft costs behave like any other line everywhere else: they carry into a client proposal with your markup, they are saved and reapplied with budget templates, and they count toward the budget-vs-actual tracking.