---
title: "How To Use The \"Cost Breakdown\" Analytics"
description: "How To Use The \"Cost Breakdown\" Analytics"
---
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# How To Use The "Cost Breakdown" Analytics
The "Cost Breakdown" page splits your estimate's direct costs by whatever dimension you want to look at — cost category, cost code, one of your tag groups, or one of your budget views — and draws it four different ways. It is the quickest way to answer "where is the money going" without exporting anything.
To use the "Cost Breakdown" analytics follow these steps.
Navigate to the desired estimate, select the "Analytics" tab, and choose "Cost Breakdown" from the list on the left. It opens grouped by "Cost Category Code" as a bar chart, largest first.
Press the dropdown near the upper left corner to change what the costs are grouped by. The list has three sections.
"Group by" — the built-in dimensions: "Cost Category Code", "Cost Category Name" and "Cost Code". "Cost Category Group" and "Cost Field Group" join them when your estimate uses those groupings.
"Tags" — one entry per tag group on the estimate, so you can see cost split by "Budget Source", "Union / Prevailing Wage" or whichever groups you have built.
"Cost Layouts" — one entry per budget view, so you can read the estimate in the owner's format or a lender's.
Use the four buttons near the upper right corner to change how it is drawn. All four show the same numbers.
"Bar" — a ranked list with a bar behind each row and the value on the right. Best for reading exact figures.
"Donut" — share of the total, with the total in the middle and each slice's value and percentage below.
"Treemap" — area by cost, best for seeing at a glance which few items dominate.
"Pareto" — bars in descending order with a cumulative percentage line, so you can see how few categories make up most of the cost.
When you group by a budget view a "Depth Level" slider appears. Level 1 shows the top of that view's structure; drag it right to break each level into the one beneath.
Press "Export" to take the breakdown away with you. "Export to CSV" downloads the numbers behind the chart, and "Export to Report" builds an estimate report from it.
Please note that your choices are held in the page address, so a breakdown can be copied out of the address bar and sent to a colleague — they open on the same grouping, the same chart and the same depth.
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