---
title: "Enable Global Cost Code Selection in Ontraccr"
url: "https://help.ontraccr.com/en/article/enable-global-cost-code-selection-in-ontraccr"
language: "en"
last_updated: "2025-08-22T18:06:55.966Z"
---

# Enable Global Cost Code Selection in Ontraccr

## 🧾 **Enable Global Cost Code Selection in Ontraccr**

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### 📘 **Overview**

Ontraccr includes a setting called **Enable Global Cost Code Selection**, which lets field staff use any global cost code when logging time — **even if that cost code wasn’t pre-added to the project**.

This feature is ideal for **lite or high-level job costing**, where you want to track **hours per task** but haven’t created a full project budget.

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### **⚙️ Where to Find the Setting**

1.  Go to **Settings**
2.  Click **Time Tracking**
3.  Scroll to the **Clock Settings** section
4.  Toggle: **Enable Global Cost Codes for Projects**

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### **🧩 What This Setting Does**

When enabled:

-   Workers can **select from the Global Cost Codes list** while clocking into any project
-   **Project-specific codes** will still appear at the top of the selection menu
-   **Global codes appear underneath** — separated visually
-   If the user selects a Global cost code:
    -   It is **automatically added to the project** behind the scenes
    -   But **no budget or estimate is assigned to it**

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### **✅ Use Case**

Enable this when:

-   You want basic job costing insights (e.g. "where are my hours going?")
-   You haven’t created a full budget yet
-   You want to avoid manually adding codes to every project

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### **📱 Where It Works**

| Module / Feature | Supported? |
| --- | --- |
| **Mobile Clock In/Out** | ✅ Yes |
| **Form-Based Time Tracking** | ✅ Yes |
| **Web App Clock In/Out** | ⚠️ Partial / In Development\* |

-   As of the session date, support for Global Cost Code selection on web was not working consistently and may be limited to mobile.

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### **🔁 Behavior Summary**

| Scenario | What Happens |
| --- | --- |
| Worker selects global cost code | It is added to the project automatically |
| No budget exists for that code | Cost accumulates, but no variance vs. budget |
| Code is used repeatedly | Appears in Progress Page as actual cost only |

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### **📊 Reporting Impact**

-   If this setting is used without a full budget:
    -   The **Progress Page** will still show actuals
    -   **Top-level budget comparisons** will be empty or partial
    -   Use case is **hour breakdown** and **actual cost tracking**, not variance analysis

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### 🧠 **Tips**

-   Use this setting with **lite job costing** or service jobs
-   Turn it off if you want **strict cost code control**
-   Consider applying **default hourly/daily cost overrides** on global codes to ensure cost accuracy, even without budgets