Tracking Cash Fringe Expenses by Job

I'm here to ensure you're able to track your cash fringe expenses by job in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT) Enterprise, @Lilalykat. This way, you can calculate your total job cost and keep your account up to date.

You can automatically track your expenses by job for payroll expenses in QBDT Enterprise. To do this, you'll have to fist make sure your company preferences are set up for this feature. Here's how:

1. Go to the Edit menu, then select Preferences.
2. Choose the Accounting menu.
3. Go to the Company Preferences tab.
4. Make sure there's a checkmark in the Use class tracking box, then click the OK button.
5. Go to the Edit menu again, then select Preferences.
6. Choose the Payroll and Employees menu.
7. Go to the Company Preferences tab.
8. Put a checkmark in the Job Costing, Class and Item tracking for paycheck expenses box. Then, select whether to track by Entire Paycheck or Earnings Item.

After that, the checkbox called Track Expenses by Job will appear when creating or editing payroll items. Once selected, QBDT prorates the items on the employee's paychecks. Please note that doing so won't add a Customer: Job column to the payroll items listed under Other Payroll Items. Instead, the one you've created will be divided based on the division of earnings on the paycheck through reports.

In case you haven't selected the Track Expenses by Job checkbox in your cash fringe payroll item, here's how:

1. Go to the Lists menu.
2. Select Payroll Item List.
3. Right-click the Payroll Item, then select Edit Payroll Item.
4. Select the Track Expenses by Job checkbox.
5. Select Next until you can select Finish.

I've attached a screenshot below that shows the fourth step.

To learn more about fringe payroll items, I'm adding two sets of articles below. The first one provides detailed information about adding the said benefit in your employee's pay. The second article explains how fringe benefits affect payroll forms.

• What is a fringe benefit?

• Fringe benefits and tax forms

I'm also adding this IRS article for further details about fringe benefits: Employer's Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits. It contains reminders, rules, and how it should be reported to the agency.

Please let me know if you have other concerns. I'm just around to help. Take care always.

Thank you! That is a start... I was really looking to track those cash fringes by the job (vs spread across the jobs on the paycheck) since some jobs require Prevailing Wage and fringe benefits and others don't. For example, if they are working part of the week in the "Shop" with base pay and part of the week on a Prevailing Wage job, I wouldn't want the Shop expenses to show cash fringe benefits applied to it since it wasn't really incurred from the Shop work. 

Thanks for getting back to us, @Lilalykat.

You can only track the wage as job cost in QuickBooks. The payroll items aren't included in this case.

You'll have to manually select the job when you create a paycheck for your employees.

On the other hand, to see the jobs you tracked for payroll, you can run the job costing reports excluding the Job Cost by Job and Vendor and Job Cost by Vendor and Job Summary/Detail reports.

Also, you can generate the Profit and Loss by Job report to view all paychecks related to the jobs. Here's how:

1. Click the Reports menu.
2. Scroll down to Job, Time, and Mileage.
3. Select Profit and Loss by Job.
4. Set the report period.

If you want to customize your reports, you can visit this article: Customize company and financial reports.

For more information, you may check on the articles provided by my colleague Rea_M for additional information about fringe payroll items.

I'm always here if you have any additional concerns in QBO. I would like to help you further as much as I can. Stay safe and be well.

The best way to do this is to create individual payroll items for each job.  If you create "Prevailing Wage Rate Job 123" and "Cash Fringe Job 123" then you can create reports for each payroll item by job and by employee.  This is the easiest way to handle prevailing wage fringes and training reports.  The only problem is that paycheck stubs do get quite long by the end of the year.

The easiest way to do this is to create a new payroll item for each job.  Create "Prevailing Wage Rate Job 123" as a compensation with the correct rates for that job.  Then set up "Training Fringe Job 123", "Cash Fringe Job 123" as Company Contributions based on a quantity.  When you set up the paycheck for the week, in the quantity for the cash fringe and training fringe use the hours for that job.  When you create your certified payroll report you can check those items as fringes so they show up on your reports.