---
title: "Adding Cost Codes to a Project in Ontraccr"
url: "https://help.ontraccr.com/en/article/adding-cost-codes-to-a-project-in-ontraccr"
language: "en"
last_updated: "2025-08-22T18:08:23.177Z"
---

# Adding Cost Codes to a Project in Ontraccr

## 🧾 **Adding Cost Codes to a Project in Ontraccr**

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### **📘 Overview**

Once cost codes are set up in your Global list or Templates, the next step is to **assign them to specific projects**. Ontraccr offers multiple ways to do this — whether you're building from scratch, reusing templates, or editing an existing job.

Cost codes must be added to a project before they can be used for budgeting, time tracking, invoice allocation, or progress monitoring, unless you have “Enable Global Cost codes for Projects” enabled in settings.

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### **🛠️ Where You Add Cost Codes**

Cost codes are added to projects in **Step 3** of the project setup flow:

-   During **project creation**, this is the **third step**
-   You can also **edit an existing project** and navigate to Step 3

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### **🧭 Step-by-Step: Adding Cost Codes to a Project**

### **Step 1: Go to the Projects Page**

-   Click **Projects** from the sidebar
-   Create a new project or click **Edit** on an existing one

### **Step 2: Navigate to Step 3 (Cost Codes)**

-   You’ll see a toggle: **Cost Codes Required**
-   Enable this toggle to begin adding cost codes

### **Step 3: Choose How to Add Codes**

You have 3 options:

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### **➕ Option 1: Add New Code (Project-Specific)**

-   Use this if the cost code is unique to this job
-   Click **Add New Code**
-   Fill out the cost code slider (same fields as Global Cost Codes)
-   Save → the code is created and linked to this project only

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### **🌐 Option 2: Add from Global Cost Codes**

-   Click **Add Global Code**
-   Select any codes from your company-wide list
-   Submit → selected codes will now appear on the project

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### **📂 Option 3: Apply a Costing Template**

-   If no cost codes have been added yet, the **Apply Costing Template** button will be visible
-   Choose a pre-saved template (e.g., “Residential” or “Commercial”)
-   All cost codes from that template will be added automatically

📌 If you've already added codes manually, this button is **disabled**. You’ll need to remove all current codes to re-enable it.

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### **🧱 Categorization Layout**

After adding codes, you’ll see them organized into four sections:

-   **Labor**
-   **Material**
-   **Overhead**
-   **Equipment**

This is based on the category selected during code creation.

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### 🧠 **Tips**

-   **New + Global** can be combined. For example, add most codes from the global list, then supplement with a few project-specific entries
-   Use **templates** to standardize setup across similar jobs
-   You can **edit or remove codes** after adding them