TLDR: QuickBooks for contractors provides detailed job costing reports that help track actual costs, manage job progress, and improve job profitability. 00:00 📊 Learn about the top 5 job costing reports in QuickBooks for contractors to understand the foundation of your job costing system. 01:12 📊 Job costing reports in QuickBooks for contractors provide detailed item and cost code lists, organized by phase and including labor, materials, and subcontracting details. 02:50 📊 Labor, materials, and subcontract costs can be broken down in detail in QuickBooks for contractors, with estimated costs coming from entering the estimate into QuickBooks and actual costs coming from the actual expenses. 04:19 📊 QuickBooks for contractors provides valuable insight into costs and revenue through customizable progress invoice reports and detailed cost sources. 06:10 📊 Job costing reports in QuickBooks for contractors provide valuable insight into managing job progress and bidding, such as identifying billing needs for subcontractor costs and noting overages on labor, ultimately improving job profitability. 07:10 📊 Job costing reports in QuickBooks for contractors help track actual costs and revenue, providing insight into job profitability and cash flow. 08:06 💼 Use the job progress invoices versus estimates report to track progress invoicing and filter out completed estimates to see remaining balances. 09:24 📊 Track time and customize reports in QuickBooks for job costing, including billed and unbillable time, future bids and estimates, and setting up the item list.
Thanks for your awesome info and videos! Is there any way to do a Job Est v Act "detail" report, where it also lists more than one job on the same report, but separately? I know this can be done at the summary level, using the "Job Estimates vs. Actuals Summary" report, but I am wanting to do one report that shows child jobs' DETAIL est v act, without skewing the main job's item performance. This is especially helpful when we are during a job. We run our change orders as child jobs of the main job, including allowance tracking. We can see everything the way I want, but I have to run multiple reports to see it that way. It gets very time consuming, since I am exporting reports as PDFs, and/or printing them pretty regularly. I already use grouped (by job) memorized report lists for printing/saving, but it still takes a lot more time than it would for one single report. Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!
Hi Dan - Sorry to report there is not a way to run multiple jobs on the estimates vs actual detail report. If you run the report on the parent, it will include all the children jobs, but it doesn't separate them out in any way.
OK thank you! If you come up with a workaround, please let us all know. I am sure I am not the only one looking for that. I will try to notify QB to see if they'd consider adding this functionality.
Hi penny - In contractor version of QB 2016 version --when i add a new inventory items it shows three account to be attached compulsory - 1-CGS 2- income 3-asset account (inventory asset) when i enter bills for a vendor and Even i put cumster number/name in customer column it does not hit P&L rather it goes to inventory in hand(asset account ) . for incorporating in P&l I tried few thing that worked. please advise which is good option. 1- I link asset,CGS and Income account to an item correctly and when i enter bills (it does not hit P&L) so after entering the bills i go to sales receipt (its not invoicing to customer ) and make that use sales receipt as stock issue to projects and consume inventory to projects and their effects goes to P&l and other reports. 2-I link asset,CGS and Income account to an item correctly and when i enter bills (it does not hit P&L) so after entering the bills then i go inventory adjust form and adjust inventory inventory . it hit P&L but not few other reports 3-I link to CGS Account and i link CGS to Asset account as well two times CGS and income account and when i enter the bills it goes to P&l and other reports. directly no need to adjustment because i did not linked it to asset account . what is the correct practice - and how can i use my Chart of account for Items
In order for inventory items to show up as costs, they must be sold. This article should help: www.jobcosting.com/what-you-must-know-about-quickbooks-and-inventory/
Time sheets do not create any cost in the system unless you turn that time into a financial transaction - usually that's by running payroll in quickbooks based on the time. If you are using an outside payroll service, I have a workaround for that, but it's too much to explain here.
Penny thanks alot. It would be great if u do vedio on that especially on how times sheets will hit p&l. Because i see lot vedioa on yt on explaining the obvious e.g in job column enter job amd vedor enter name of vendor. That would be great help thanks alot
I'm a contractor looking to generate estimated to actual reports by item in QBO. I understand QBO does not yet have this function. Is this true? If so, do you know if there are any work arounds?
@luvjoisey QBO does not have item based reports or Estimate vs. actual reports. You can set up your item list as Cost of Goods sold accounts in the chart of accounts and enter your estimate as a budget and then run budget vs actual reports to get budget vs actual cost. The estimated vs actual revenue is not by line item, but that's neither here nor there because QBO doesn't have progress invoicing at this time anyway, and you can enter a lump sum for the estimated revenue. Budgets are restricted to the current year, so you just may have to re enter that budget if the job spans 2 calendar (or fiscal) years. You'll get much better reporting and functionality using Desktop (which you can have hosted for cloud accessibility) or adding on a 3rd party solution to QBO like Knowify.
Hi i have question. if we enter bills and even i put job name it does not show effect in p&l . currently i going to invetory adjust form and once i adjust inventory (inventory in hand then showing new invenyory as zero) then it takes the effect to p&l. Is there any other way or its the correct way. Please advise
Hi Ishfaq - the issue is your inventory items - I avoid them if at all possible for contractors. The issue is the accounting for inventory items - when you purchase an inventory item no cost is posted - instead the value of the item is posted as an asset. This means that even if you assign a job to an inventory purchase, it won't show up as a cost of goods sold, because the transaction is not posting to cost of goods sold. It is when you SELL the inventory item that the cost is posted to the customer you are selling it to. Keep in mind, you can't just keep buying inventory items in any case - at some point you have to sell them (or do an inventory adjustment, but doing only adjustments is not a good process). This is an issue for contractors like plumbers, electricians, etc, who may carry inventory but don't actually sell individual parts to customers. I have several workarounds to handle this, depending upon the particular business and situation. I can help people with this type of thing in one on one consulting and training at: www.jobcosting.com/coaching Also, this article might help: www.jobcosting.com/what-you-must-know-about-quickbooks-and-inventory/
Penny thanks for your reply.you are right . yes when i enters bills it goes to an inventory account .but i dont know why its notgetting assign to particular jon when i enter bills .my consultant told used to go. inventory adjustment form and then i used to adjust it e.g if in a bill i enter bill with one item 12 i would go inventroy adjustment form and it will show inventory in hand 12 and i will put new qty as 0 and enter the project name and it will get allocated to that projcet . but problem with this practice is that it does not update other reports of job costing e.g job estimates vs act etc. My consultant told me go sales receipt form and design it as stock issue to project .and it work fine.
Well, the process I would use really depends upon the business and how you process different transactions. If you can - don't use inventory items - use non inventory parts or service items. Very few businesses that use job costing actually need to track inventory. If you order everything for a particular job, you do not need to track inventory. If you must track inventory and you don't normally sell the items to the customer, you'll have to create a sales receipt to sell the items to the customer at $0.
So when I enter bills I can't put in then? I'll have to enter a memo on every check? I work for a builder and he wants to make sure he tracks checks according to job
Sorry, yes, there is no way that I know of to make the customer job from the bill payment show up. You could try printing the bill payment voucher, I'm pretty sure that just has the vendor invoice number on it. If he wants to make sure it's the right job, my recommendation is that he makes sure before you enter it of course, but he can also review a job cost detail report, I present this by running the job profitability report, double click on the total costs total, add the source name column to the report and memorize it. He can then review those reports to make sure they are correct. If you have the contractor edition, you can also run the unpaid bills by job report prior to paying the bills for his review.
Penny Lane Crull is there anyway to run these reports so they print for each job and not as one big detail report. I need to put them with each job folder.
Hi Joe - I'm hard to get on the phone, but you can make a free 15-minute strategy session with me at: www.pennylaneu.acuityscheduling.com or email me at penny@jobcosting.com
TLDR: QuickBooks for contractors provides detailed job costing reports that help track actual costs, manage job progress, and improve job profitability.
00:00 📊 Learn about the top 5 job costing reports in QuickBooks for contractors to understand the foundation of your job costing system.
01:12 📊 Job costing reports in QuickBooks for contractors provide detailed item and cost code lists, organized by phase and including labor, materials, and subcontracting details.
02:50 📊 Labor, materials, and subcontract costs can be broken down in detail in QuickBooks for contractors, with estimated costs coming from entering the estimate into QuickBooks and actual costs coming from the actual expenses.
04:19 📊 QuickBooks for contractors provides valuable insight into costs and revenue through customizable progress invoice reports and detailed cost sources.
06:10 📊 Job costing reports in QuickBooks for contractors provide valuable insight into managing job progress and bidding, such as identifying billing needs for subcontractor costs and noting overages on labor, ultimately improving job profitability.
07:10 📊 Job costing reports in QuickBooks for contractors help track actual costs and revenue, providing insight into job profitability and cash flow.
08:06 💼 Use the job progress invoices versus estimates report to track progress invoicing and filter out completed estimates to see remaining balances.
09:24 📊 Track time and customize reports in QuickBooks for job costing, including billed and unbillable time, future bids and estimates, and setting up the item list.
I'm a fan. These videos are quite helpful.
Thanks for your awesome info and videos! Is there any way to do a Job Est v Act "detail" report, where it also lists more than one job on the same report, but separately? I know this can be done at the summary level, using the "Job Estimates vs. Actuals Summary" report, but I am wanting to do one report that shows child jobs' DETAIL est v act, without skewing the main job's item performance. This is especially helpful when we are during a job. We run our change orders as child jobs of the main job, including allowance tracking. We can see everything the way I want, but I have to run multiple reports to see it that way. It gets very time consuming, since I am exporting reports as PDFs, and/or printing them pretty regularly. I already use grouped (by job) memorized report lists for printing/saving, but it still takes a lot more time than it would for one single report. Any tips would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!!
Hi Dan - Sorry to report there is not a way to run multiple jobs on the estimates vs actual detail report. If you run the report on the parent, it will include all the children jobs, but it doesn't separate them out in any way.
OK thank you! If you come up with a workaround, please let us all know. I am sure I am not the only one looking for that. I will try to notify QB to see if they'd consider adding this functionality.
Hello, how do you set up the estimated revenues to fall into these specific categories originating in the item list? Thank you!
Hi Penny, I can't find your list video #2 that is mentioned at the end of this video. Thank you for these helpful videos
felrox22 I also can’t find the 2nd video. Any luck?
Hi penny -
In contractor version of QB 2016 version --when i add a new inventory items it shows three account to be attached compulsory -
1-CGS
2- income
3-asset account (inventory asset)
when i enter bills for a vendor and Even i put cumster number/name in customer column it does not hit P&L rather it goes to inventory in hand(asset account ) . for incorporating in P&l I tried few thing that worked. please advise which is good option.
1- I link asset,CGS and Income account to an item correctly and when i enter bills (it does not hit P&L) so after entering the bills i go to sales receipt (its not invoicing to customer ) and make that use sales receipt as stock issue to projects and consume inventory to projects and their effects goes to P&l and other reports.
2-I link asset,CGS and Income account to an item correctly and when i enter bills (it does not hit P&L) so after entering the bills then i go inventory adjust form and adjust inventory inventory . it hit P&L but not few other reports
3-I link to CGS Account and i link CGS to Asset account as well two times CGS and income account and when i enter the bills it goes to P&l and other reports. directly no need to adjustment because i did not linked it to asset account .
what is the correct practice - and how can i use my Chart of account for Items
In order for inventory items to show up as costs, they must be sold. This article should help: www.jobcosting.com/what-you-must-know-about-quickbooks-and-inventory/
How do I pull up an "Item Actual Cost Detail" report?
Similarly i fill the time sheets for labour and i want add to to them CGS of particular jobs/ projects how to allocate that they should also p&l
Time sheets do not create any cost in the system unless you turn that time into a financial transaction - usually that's by running payroll in quickbooks based on the time. If you are using an outside payroll service, I have a workaround for that, but it's too much to explain here.
Penny thanks alot. It would be great if u do vedio on that especially on how times sheets will hit p&l. Because i see lot vedioa on yt on explaining the obvious e.g in job column enter job amd vedor enter name of vendor. That would be great help thanks alot
Have you ever done job costing work for consulting companies engaged in federal government contracting?
+mlmiles1 I have worked with several different types of contractors involved in federal government projects.
I'm a contractor looking to generate estimated to actual reports by item in QBO. I understand QBO does not yet have this function. Is this true? If so, do you know if there are any work arounds?
@luvjoisey QBO does not have item based reports or Estimate vs. actual reports. You can set up your item list as Cost of Goods sold accounts in the chart of accounts and enter your estimate as a budget and then run budget vs actual reports to get budget vs actual cost. The estimated vs actual revenue is not by line item, but that's neither here nor there because QBO doesn't have progress invoicing at this time anyway, and you can enter a lump sum for the estimated revenue. Budgets are restricted to the current year, so you just may have to re enter that budget if the job spans 2 calendar (or fiscal) years. You'll get much better reporting and functionality using Desktop (which you can have hosted for cloud accessibility) or adding on a 3rd party solution to QBO like Knowify.
Hi i have question. if we enter bills and even i put job name it does not show effect in p&l . currently i going to invetory adjust form and once i adjust inventory (inventory in hand then showing new invenyory as zero) then it takes the effect to p&l. Is there any other way or its the correct way. Please advise
Hi Ishfaq - the issue is your inventory items - I avoid them if at all possible for contractors. The issue is the accounting for inventory items - when you purchase an inventory item no cost is posted - instead the value of the item is posted as an asset. This means that even if you assign a job to an inventory purchase, it won't show up as a cost of goods sold, because the transaction is not posting to cost of goods sold. It is when you SELL the inventory item that the cost is posted to the customer you are selling it to. Keep in mind, you can't just keep buying inventory items in any case - at some point you have to sell them (or do an inventory adjustment, but doing only adjustments is not a good process). This is an issue for contractors like plumbers, electricians, etc, who may carry inventory but don't actually sell individual parts to customers. I have several workarounds to handle this, depending upon the particular business and situation. I can help people with this type of thing in one on one consulting and training at: www.jobcosting.com/coaching Also, this article might help: www.jobcosting.com/what-you-must-know-about-quickbooks-and-inventory/
Penny thanks for your reply.you are right . yes when i enters bills it goes to an inventory account .but i dont know why its notgetting assign to particular jon when i enter bills .my consultant told used to go. inventory adjustment form and then i used to adjust it e.g if in a bill i enter bill with one item 12 i would go inventroy adjustment form and it will show inventory in hand 12 and i will put new qty as 0 and enter the project name and it will get allocated to that projcet . but problem with this practice is that it does not update other reports of job costing e.g job estimates vs act etc. My consultant told me go sales receipt form and design it as stock issue to project .and it work fine.
Similarly advise me for time sheets adjustment same scenerio
Well, the process I would use really depends upon the business and how you process different transactions. If you can - don't use inventory items - use non inventory parts or service items. Very few businesses that use job costing actually need to track inventory. If you order everything for a particular job, you do not need to track inventory. If you must track inventory and you don't normally sell the items to the customer, you'll have to create a sales receipt to sell the items to the customer at $0.
Can customer/job names print on checks?
Hi Margaret - If you put the customer job on the memo of the check, but not as a setting.
So when I enter bills I can't put in then? I'll have to enter a memo on every check? I work for a builder and he wants to make sure he tracks checks according to job
Sorry, yes, there is no way that I know of to make the customer job from the bill payment show up. You could try printing the bill payment voucher, I'm pretty sure that just has the vendor invoice number on it. If he wants to make sure it's the right job, my recommendation is that he makes sure before you enter it of course, but he can also review a job cost detail report, I present this by running the job profitability report, double click on the total costs total, add the source name column to the report and memorize it. He can then review those reports to make sure they are correct. If you have the contractor edition, you can also run the unpaid bills by job report prior to paying the bills for his review.
Penny Lane Crull is there anyway to run these reports so they print for each job and not as one big detail report. I need to put them with each job folder.
Yes, the Job profitability detail pulls up a filter automatically for the job. You can filter most any report by job.
Can we call for a question?
Hi Joe - I'm hard to get on the phone, but you can make a free 15-minute strategy session with me at: www.pennylaneu.acuityscheduling.com or email me at penny@jobcosting.com
Im more of a call person but I will try you soon.