Hi there,
It sounds like you're looking for a way to stay organized and track the moving parts of the jobs you do for your customers. QuickBooks Online Plus comes equipped with a feature called Projects that allows you to do just that. You can add project income and expenses, tag transactions to projects, and run project-specific reports so that it's easier to manage your work and see progress.
The first step is turn on the Projects feature in your Account and Settings. Here's how to do that:
- Navigate to the Settings Gear, then choose Account and Settings.
- Select the Advanced tab and look for the Projects section.
- Hit the Edit pencil to make changes.
- Choose the checkbox for Organize all job-related activity in one place.
- Click Save and close your settings.
If you're not able to find these options in your account and settings, it may be that you're using QuickBooks Online EasyStart or Essentials. In order to take advantage of the Projects tool you'll need to Upgrade your QuickBooks Online subscription to QuickBooks Online Plus. Once upgraded, you'll have no trouble following the steps outlined above to turn on Projects.
Once turned on, you'll have the ability to create a project. Simply navigate to the new Projects menu located on the left, the select New Project. You'll be able to give it a name, assign it to a customer, and add notes or details. Now you can Track income, costs, and profitability by project by adding income and expenses. When your project is opened, you'll be able to hit the Add to project button to create a new transaction such as Invoice, Receive Payment, Expense, Estimate, Purchase Order, Bill, or Time. When you create new transactions from the + New button you'll have the ability to add it to a project by selecting the Project from the Customer/Project drop-down menu.
Tracking hours or time associated with a project is really easy too - if you're using QuickBooks Online Payroll you can use your most recent payroll to calculate hourly time costs. You can also use the + New button to create a Weekly Timesheet that can be assigned to a specific project. If you're not using our Payroll offering, it's not a problem, you'll still be able to calculate your hourly time costs by selecting Hourly cost rate from the Projects menu, as well as adding project timesheets. I suggest checking out the article that I linked in the previous paragraph - it goes over all of this and more.
I also want to share a few additional articles that you should review before diving into our Projects feature. These will give you a good sense of how the feature works and how you'll use it for your business.
Don't hesitate to reach out if you have any follow-up questions or if there's anything else I can do to help with your QuickBooks Online journey. It's what I'm here for!
