30 BULLETIN 660, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



DAILY REPORT OF COSTS. 



When the records of the amount of labor, the service of equipment, 

 and the expenditures of materials have been completed the data for 

 arriving at unit costs are at hand. For convenience in bringing 

 together these three elements of cost, a form has been drawn up 

 called the "Daily report of costs." This is not for field use and is 

 8h inches wide and 13^ inches long. The unit costs are arrived at 

 by setting down against the code number all labor equipment and 

 material charges in detail. These are added together and the sum is 

 divided by the units of work completed as estimated by the foreman. 

 The units completed are checked against the engineer's monthly esti- 

 mate and should not show a very great discrepancy, say not over 5 

 per cent at the outside. 



Sample labor and equipment and materials forms for work of con- 

 structing a field stone base course of a road and the daily report of 

 costs form filled out from these are shown on pages 33, 34 and 35. 



These three forms compose the entire set needed to record the field 

 operations and compute unit costs of such operations. 



IMMEDIATE USE OF COST DATA. 



When the daily reports of costs reach the official responsible for 

 the work he can readily prepare a graph (fig. 6) showing both the 

 estimated unit cost and the actual daily unit cost in convenient form. 

 Any wide divergence between the estimated and actual costs is 

 apparent at once and can be investigated. The horizontal axis of 

 the graph in this case is divided to show the days of the month. 

 The vertical axis is divided to show the unit cost of the work. Some 

 such chart will show effect of conditions upon the work. 



FINAL DISPOSITION OF COST DATA. 



It has been pointed out that the objects of a cost-keeping system 

 are two. First, to show the efficiency of performance and facilitate 

 the reduction of costs, and, second, to supply data which may be 

 used for the intelligent estimating of future improvements and to 

 furnish materials for published reports. 



Highway work obviously is a public improvement paid for entirely 

 from funds derived from the public revenue. Ultimately, then, the 

 taxpayer pays for all of this improvement and is entitled to a full 

 and detailed account of how this money was expended. Again, 

 public records of this kind are all that remain to be used for the 

 comparing of the efficiency of one administration with that of another. 

 It would appear, therefore, to be a step in the direction of good 

 judgment for all those in charge of public improvements to adopt 



