If an employee traveled to a job site then purchased meals alone would this meal purchase be classified as COGS or expense?
Answers
If the reason they were there was for the job, then yes it should be coded to the job if your company wants to track job cost properly. However, I've seen these items go to SG&A instead of the job. If the job is HUD related or somehow capped at a government mandated margin, then code it to the job. If you don't HUD will think you're making too much profit. Meals likely won't make or break the job, but as far as best practices are concerned, code anything job related to the job, including meals.
Anon
I find sometimes people believe it can't be COGS because they have a SG&A account for "meals."
But, as Chris points out, if the expense is directly related to the providing of a service, then under your COGS accounts, create a specific Meals-Jobs account and make sure you track it there. Hopefully you budgeted for the expenses there too:)