Revenue from expenses

Engineering subconsultants are a normal project cost, but there is no single rule for who ultimately pays. An architect may charge the consultant to the client with a management fee, or absorb it inside the agreed architectural fee. The From Expenses revenue source makes that choice explicit: selected costs become revenue; unselected costs stay on the expense side only.

We'll on-charge an engineering subconsultant on Riverside Apartments' Concept Design stage.

Revenue that follows the costs it's built from

From Expenses only exists on the revenue side, and unlike most items, it isn't a number anyone types in. It derives its value from whichever expense items it's pointed at, so the moment a disbursement changes, the amount billed for it changes right along with it.

The uplift itself lives inside the item's modifier stack. Every From Expenses item arrives with a percentage modifier already named Markup, sitting there ready to edit:

revenue = expenses times one plus the markup percentage

A fifteen percent management fee on twelve thousand dollars of engineering expense bills thirteen thousand eight hundred dollars. Because Markup is an ordinary modifier, rename it Management Fee so the commercial reason is clear.

Bill the disbursements

1. 1

   In Expenses, add a twelve thousand dollar Fixed Amount cost named Engineering Subconsultant, then save it.

2. 2

   In Revenue, add From Expenses and name it Recovered Engineering.

3. 3

   Select Engineering Subconsultant. The subtotal becomes twelve thousand dollars and revenue is visibly non-zero. Clear means absorb it; selected means charge the client.

4. 4

   Rename Markup to Management Fee and set fifteen percent.

   
5. 5

   Save. Recovered Engineering bills thirteen thousand eight hundred dollars.

Why it stays accurate on its own

Because this revenue derives from the selected costs instead of copying a value once, it never falls out of date. If the engineering fee changes, the fifteen percent management fee recalculates from the new cost without anyone re-entering revenue.

Troubleshooting

• It's billing zero. From Expenses has nothing to price until expense items actually exist for it to read. Log the disbursements as costs before adding the revenue item.
• A margin got typed in where a markup belongs. The demonstrated fifteen percent Management Fee is a markup on the twelve thousand dollar cost, producing thirteen thousand eight hundred dollars of revenue. A fifteen percent margin would produce a different total, so convert a margin target before entering it as markup.
• It's billing exactly cost, no uplift at all. The Markup modifier is an ordinary modifier, which means it can be edited down to zero or deleted outright. A pass-through where an uplift was expected usually means checking the modifier stack.
• It shows up on the wrong list. From Expenses only ever appears among revenue items, never among costs, the costs themselves stay as the separate expense items it's reading from.

Where this fits next

This pairs with how the underlying cost gets recorded in the first place, covered in recording expenses, and it flows straight through to the bill, where recovered disbursements appear as their own line in create and send an invoice. For the wider picture of where revenue comes from, start at how Monument models finance.