How does Material Tracking work and when should I use it?

Purpose

Material tracking is an alternative to time-based progress tracking. Instead of "we're 60% through the time budget," it's "we've installed 60% of the materials."

When To Use This

Use this when:

Your work is materials-driven (flooring, drywall, paint, fence)
Hours don't track progress well (e.g. install crews work in bursts)
You want crews held accountable to physical output, not desk-time

How It Works

When material tracking is enabled on a job:

The job has a tracked material list (e.g. 100 sheets of drywall, 50 gallons of paint)
As materials get installed, progress updates
Bonus calculation uses installed % rather than hours-based progress

Setting It Up

In Settings → ProPays → Budget Setup, enable material tracking and select which materials count as tracked.

For each tracked material:

Unit (sheets, gallons, sq ft)
Total quantity to install
Per-unit value (used for budget if you're using rate budget)

Where Materials Update

Materials get marked installed in two places:

Your integration (most common — the source of truth)
Manually in Protiv (if your integration doesn't track this)

Best For

Flooring (track sq ft installed)
Painting (track gallons used)
Drywall (track sheets hung)
Fence (track linear ft installed)
Tile (track sq ft set)

Not Great For

Service / repair work
Multi-trade jobs without clear material units
Time-based service contracts

Common Mistakes & How To Fix Them

"Materials aren't updating" Check that your integration syncs material quantities. Some integrations don't.
"My budget calculation looks weird" Material tracking is independent of budget type. They can both be on the ProPay. Verify which is driving the calculation.

How is a ProPay calculated? (Rate budget type)
How do materials and production tracking work with Aspire and Protiv?
What is the difference between a job and a milestone in Protiv?