Quote Versus Actual Hours in EDGEBIC: Closing the Learning Loop

After a quote becomes an order and the job runs, EDGEBIC compares the hours you quoted to the hours actually burned, turning every quote into a data point for the next one. In EDGEBIC by User Solutions, conversion carries the quote's estimated hours and cost onto the manufacturing order, and as real hours accumulate against that order, the quote grid lines quoted against actual. A not-yet-run job shows a placeholder dash rather than a misleading zero. This closed loop is what separates a quoting process that guesses the same way forever from one that gets more accurate with every completed job.

The loop only closes if the estimate carries

The comparison depends on one thing happening at conversion: the estimate has to travel to the order. When you convert an accepted quote, EDGEBIC creates a manufacturing order carrying the estimated hours, the labor and material split, the cost, the markup, and the price. Nothing is retyped.

That carried estimate is what makes quote-versus-actual analysis possible at all. Because the order stores exactly what the quote predicted, EDGEBIC can later set those predictions beside the hours and cost the job actually consumed. If the numbers had been retyped into a separate work order, the link would be lost and there would be nothing trustworthy to compare. The lineage also survives through the order's deterministic job number and the stored quote reference, so every finished job traces back to the quote that promised it. The full conversion mechanics are in how a quote becomes an order.

Actual hours accumulate from the shop floor

Quoted hours are fixed at conversion. Actual hours are not; they accumulate as the job runs and operators log time against the order on the shop floor. The quote grid's actual-hours figure is a live reflection of that accumulation against the linked order.

This is why the comparison is a running one, not a single snapshot. Early in a job, actuals are partial. By completion, they represent the full labor the job consumed. Reading the comparison at the right moment matters: a mid-run actual below the quote does not mean you over-quoted, it means the job is not finished.

The dash that is not a zero

A subtle but important detail: before any actuals are entered, the actual-hours figure reads as a placeholder dash, not 0.0. The distinction is deliberate and it prevents a real error.

A job that has not started has genuinely logged no hours. But displaying 0.0 would look like the work was completed in no time, which would make the variance read as a wild over-quote. The dash says plainly "no actuals yet," so a planner never confuses a not-yet-run job with a job that took zero hours. Once shop floor actuals begin flowing, the dash is replaced by the running total, and the comparison becomes meaningful. If a completed job still shows a dash, that is a signal that time was never captured for it, a shop floor data gap to close rather than a quoting result.

Reading variance to fix the next quote

The value of the comparison is in the pattern across many jobs, not any single row. Look at a set of finished jobs of the same kind, and the variance tells you where your quoting is off.

• Actuals consistently above quoted means the estimate is optimistic. Either the routing's per-unit times are low, so you raise them, or the work-center rate understates the true cost, so you correct it.
• Actuals consistently below quoted means the estimate is padded, and you may be pricing yourself out of work you could win.
• Wide scatter means the process itself is inconsistent, which is a shop floor problem the quote cannot fix, only reveal.

The fix follows the data rather than a hunch. A product that reliably burns 15 percent more hours than quoted is telling you to adjust the routing, the rate, or the price before the next quote goes out. The correction flows straight into future simulations, because they price from the same routing and rates you just fixed. That pays off fastest on repeat business, where a product that already has a routing and rates re-simulates against today's live load in seconds.

The override keeps the reason visible

One reason the variance report stays useful over time is that the manual cost override preserves the calculated labor and material split. When you price a rush job with an override for tooling wear or freight, the underlying calculated hours and cost are still stored on the record.

That means the variance report can separate two very different causes of a gap: "we underestimated the work" versus "we deliberately priced around a known extra." Those call for different fixes. The first says fix the routing or rate; the second says the estimate was fine and the extra was intentional. A hand-bumped price would erase that distinction; the override keeps it. See reading the estimated margin and profit for how the override sits in the cost math.

The takeaway

Quote-versus-actual hours turn quoting into a learning system. Conversion carries the estimate onto the order, actuals accumulate against that order as the job runs, and the grid lines the two up, with a placeholder dash standing in for actuals not yet entered so a not-yet-run job is never read as a zero. The pattern across finished jobs points straight at what to fix in the routing, the rate, or the price, and the retained cost split keeps the reason for any gap visible. Feed the corrections back in, and every quote sharpens the next one. Walk the full workflow in the EDGEBIC quoting guide, see how the estimate carries in how a quote becomes an order, and see the platform in full on the EDGEBIC overview.