Non profit w/multiple projects & grantors who fund proj. sometimes multiple grantors fund big proj. what is best way to track with classes, projects, locations turned on?

Good day, ctalynema.

I'm here to share some information about class tracking and projects in QuickBooks Online.

Projects feature helps you track your income, expenses, and profitability by project. You can also use classes to track your transactions by departments, product lines, or any other meaningful segments in your business. That said, both feature has it's own functionalities for specific tracking and reporting needs.

If you'd like to track funds by class , you'll need to turn on class tracking first. I'll show you how to do it.

Here's how:

1. Go to Gear ⚙ icon, then Account and Settings.
2. Click on Advanced, then pick the Categories section to edit.
3. Check Track classes.
4. Check Warn me when a transaction isn't assigned a class. This is optional, but it's good to turn on, so when you look at reports, you know everything got classified.
5. Under Assign classes, select One to entire transaction or One to each row in transaction.*
6. Hit Save, then Done.

I've added these article to learn more about the class tracking feature: Get started with class tracking in QuickBooks Online

Also, project feature already includes tracking of your labor costs. See this link to learn more: Track hourly labor costs and profitability by project in QuickBooks Online.

Feel free to leave a comment below by clicking the Reply button if you have concerns or other questions about managing projects. Have a wonderful week!

Thank you, I used both projects and classes before and I know I am over thinking this.  So that I can get out of my head... I have a project - Dam Removal, I would create a class called Dam Removal and I have two grantors that cover the expense of the Dam Removal and have reporting requirements I can use a Project for each grantor that would give me the reports for the grantor and a then the Class tracking report that will give me the total Dam Removal reporting.  Again, I think I am just in my head because I inherited a manual tracking system. 

Time tracking - I have quickbooks time and we have never used it so I have to set that up but need to get my projects and classes set first I believe.  Is there a process of set this up before that kind of a option available? 

Thank you!

Colleen

Thank you for getting back to us, ctalynema.

You can enter Dam Removal as a project and add each grantor as a class. That way, you can assign a class to the transactions. For example, if you rent an equipment funded by Grantor A, you can tag Grantor A in the transaction. However, the Project feature doesn't have a report that shows the associated transactions to classes. For this reason, I recommend finding a third-party app for reporting purposes.

The only reports you can use is the class reports.

1. Click the Gear icon.
2. Choose All lists.
3. Click Classes.
4. Click Run report on a specific class.

On the other hand, I encourage you to submit feedback to our product development team. That way, they can add a report option that can be used on projects with classes.

1. Click the Gear icon.
2. Choose Feedback.
3. Enter your suggestion and click Next.

Feel free to go back tot his thread if you have other questions in mind.

If I set up the Class "Complete Dam Removal" and set up a project under each grantor and class all transactions for either project to Complete Dam removal I can run a statement of activity by class and it gives me both projects on my report and I can run a statement of activity by donor that will give me the report for each donor/grantors project.  I just sent up a test case and it worked.  Is there something that I am missing with your suggestion above?  

It's great to see you back in this forum, ctalynema. Let me provide further details regarding the reports you want to run.

I appreciate your efforts in running two separate reports as your workaround. You're on the right track of running the statement of activity by class and the statement of activity by donor. However, the option to customize the report to see both class and project on each of them is not available.

You might want to export and merge your two reports in excel, then add columns for the additional information you need. Please refer to this article: Export your reports to Excel from QuickBooks Online.

Check out these articles to learn how to personalize your reports and memorize them to allow you to save it with its current customization settings: 

• Customize reports in QuickBooks Online.
• Memorize reports in QuickBooks Online.

Please keep me posted if you have further questions about running reports or managing projects in QuickBooks Online. I'm always looking forward to helping you in the future. Have a nice day ahead, ctalynema.

@ctalynema 

you've probably sorted yourself out by now. I'm just rethinking my whol set up too and trying how to best use projects and classes for our NGO with similar issues.  I've been using classes for each discrete grant project to date and this has worked fine. Just wondering how to better track bigger projects that might have multi-donors. and then more questions arise. 

Does your  Dam removal project have specific line items for each donor? Either way, You might use Classes and Subclasses I think, where each donor is for a subclass? You can make a report for  just the main class, or separate it into the subclasses?

I still haven't worked out the usefulness of projects to me. I was just digging into the new tag feature, and similarly can't work out how it can be useful. Some small activities we have i'd like to track that aren't in a specific account (or in multiple accounts) and also not charged to one specific donor.. but i can't tag a specific line in an expense so it therefore doesn't pull out exactly what i need (like a Petty Cash tranaction that charges out to many different activities).

Not really helping you any - more wondering how you figured it out in the end  

Thanks!

Sharyn

if we have one b

Welcome back to the QuickBooks Community, rovieng. I'll share extra information on how Projects, Classes, and Tags work in QuickBooks. I'll also ensure you can organize your entries using the feature mentioned smoothly.

As stated above, using Projects in QuickBooks Online tracks your project’s profitability. You can add project income, expenses, and labor costs, and run project-specific reports from a single dashboard. While Classes helps you track your entries by departments, product lines, or any other meaningful segments in your business. Then, Tags are customizable labels that allow you to track entries in any way you want. This allows you to track and report on all travel expenses for your client.

You may refer to each article below for further details on how Project, Class, and Tags work in QuickBooks and how it helps you manage your data.

• Create and manage projects in QuickBooks Online.
• Get started with class tracking in QuickBooks Online.
• Tag transactions in QuickBooks Online.

Lastly, I'm adding this article to view different guidelines to help you effectively manage your business using QBO: Help guide for QuickBooks Online.

Don't hesitate to add comments if you have any other questions about managing your entries using the features mentioned above. I'm always around to help, rovieng. Have a great day!