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T&M records that support the price

By Review.LivePublished 3 min readHow we write

Three questions arrive from the general contractor's cost manager about your March T&M invoice: why the labour rate on ticket 31 is higher than on ticket 12, where the invoice for its insulation board is, and why the lift is billed for eight hours when the signed ticket shows four. The answers are all in the office. None of them is attached.

A thick stack of receipts and papers piled on a desk.
Photo: Camilo Rueda Lopez on Unsplash

A signed ticket proves hours and quantities; it does not prove a price. The price comes from payroll, rate schedules, invoices and markups, and an auditor checks each one against the ticket and the contract. Public owners spell out how they check. Wisconsin's Department of Transportation compares force-account charges with its daily records and accepts only the rates agreed in the change order; Oregon's uses the hours on the signed daily record when an invoice differs, and the certified payroll rate when a rate differs.

  1. Agree rates before the work where you can: labour, equipment and markups, in writing and tied to the contract.
  2. Price labour from payroll: actual wages plus the burdens the contract allows, not a blended rate from the estimate.
  3. Price equipment from the contract's rate source: owned equipment by its method, rented equipment by invoice, standby only if the contract provides for it.
  4. Price materials from invoices tied to the ticket by delivery tickets, and agree the share of part-used items.
  5. Apply the contract's markups to the items they cover.
  6. File the backup under the ticket number: ticket, payroll extract, invoices, rate references and photos.
  7. Reconcile before billing: hours against payroll, quantities against invoices, rates against the agreement.

Common mistakes

  • Billing a blended labour rate that no payroll record supports.
  • Charging a full rental day for part of one without the contract allowing it.
  • Sending material invoices without delivery tickets.
  • Billing small tools or supervision separately when the contract's markup already covers them.

Checklist

Backup for every priced ticket

  • The signed ticket
  • Payroll extract for each worker and day
  • Equipment rate reference or rental invoice
  • Material invoices with delivery tickets
  • Markups as the contract states
  • Hours, quantities and rates reconciled

Check your understanding

The signed ticket shows 6 hours for a carpenter; payroll shows 8 hours on the job that day. Which do you bill as extra, and why?

Show the answer
The 6 hours on the signed ticket. The other 2 belong to that day's contract work, and billing them as extra would fail an audit because the signed record says otherwise. If the ticket is wrong, correct it with the person who signed it, not on the invoice.

Sources

  1. Construction and Materials Manual, Section 246: Force Account WorkWisconsin Department of Transportation · Wisconsin, United States (a public owner's guidance to its own staff; shown as an example) · accessed
  2. Construction Manual, Chapter 12G: Extra Work Performed on a Force Account BasisOregon Department of Transportation · Oregon, United States (a public owner's procedure for its own staff; shown as an example) · accessed

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