Project Task Tracking And Billing - need improvement - anyone else have feedback?

Juliegil1 · ‎June 11, 2021

Is anyone else out there a professional consultant who provides estimates, tracks time and bills client by TASK? If yes, would you like better Project tracking by task? If so, please write into QB and ask them to improve this feature. There are fields in both QB and QB time for TASK, but they don't do anything or go anywhere. Tasks in QB "aren't seen by anyone but the team" (I have yet to find them) and QB Time allows you to track time against a task, but when imported to QB, there is no category for Task, so that info is lost. I am asking for QB to please add a field for TASK to be imported from QB Time. I feel that cost estimates in both QB and QB Time should be allowed to be prepared and tracked by TASK and Service Item and/or person. My employees can be Service Items to represent the different billing rates - and even some clients have special billing rates. I tried creating a Service Item for each task of a job, and job specific, but the list got very long and unusable. So, I'm back to employees as Service Items to capture their billing rates, and then running an excel sheet to track time estimated for a task versus how much time was actually spent on the task. Consultants who provide professional services typically provide client estimates by TASK, which may be done by different people who have different billing rates to the client. My example is:
Task 1 - Project Kickoff/Design Review
Project Manager = 2 hours; Project Assistant = 4 hours
Task 2 - Literature Review/Mapping
Project Manager = 4 hours; Project Assistant = 4 hours; GIS Staff = 4 hours
Task 3 - Report Preparation
Project Manager = 4 hours; Project Assistant = 20 hours; GIS Staff = 2 hours
Also, I find that professionals bill by percent complete of a TASK. Time spent on projects by employees should still be TRACKED and used toward figuring a job's profitability. Currently when you deselect the billable box in the time entry, it goes away and is not counted toward profitability. I would like an option for Tack Only to be added so you can choose if the client needs to see the hours or is it a percent complete task.

What are the thoughts of the community? If you feel the same way, can you please write in and request this change?

AlexV · ‎June 11, 2021

Hello Juliegil1!

Thank you for the detailed post. I understand how this "Tasks" feature you want would help other users and consultants like you.

Intuit is always looking for ways on how to improve the system to meet all your needs. We are also open and value feedback like this. However, I suggest you directly send a request to our Product Development team.

Go to the Gear icon and select Feedback.
Enter your product suggestions in the pop-up. Then, select Next to submit it.

If you need more tips and references in using QuickBooks Online and managing a business, please visit this page: QBO Articles.

QuickBooks Community is available 24/7. Keep on posting here and we'll help you.

Juliegil1 · ‎June 11, 2021

Thank you - I have done this, twice. And I just submitted the same thing to QB Time feedback. I know I am not the only one who would use this feature - I have a colleague who just ditched QB for an expensive project accounting tracking system for this very reason - it's super frustrating and dealing with complicated, high-value contracts, you need this accounting level. I work with multiple small to mid-sized consulting firms who also do not use QB for this very problem. I was wondering if more people would send the feedback maybe QB would listen. I have used QB since the time you could only buy it on CDs! I really love QB and feel it is really close to being able to compete well against the other project and bank account accounting software out there, especially for small to mid-sized firms. I have developed a few work arounds, but it is for sure frustrating. QB is losing lots of business and money from the small/mid size consulting sector by not adding these simple features.

chaDDaddy · ‎December 15, 2021

Totally agree, the task tracking in QBT is junk. You can't filter projects with it, you can't bill that way. I've asked for improvement a few times.

BPP_Oakland · ‎December 28, 2021

I am such a consultant... My workaround is that I use products and services as my tasks - not ideal. I just use the built-in Weekly Timesheets and staff select the product or service, enter their hourly rate and time for that area. It then can be added to invoices.

I really want to be able to easily bill as a percentage complete, and track time, and be able to have a service that can easily have multiple hourly rates. But it generally works for my very diverse and complex clients... I do wish they would fix the invoices online to have the same function as on the desktop - I do not understand why that has not happened.

mbd5826 · ‎October 08, 2022

We do the same thing and have built products and services for each of our consultants and even some for specific projects. It works really well. We have looked at many of the project management software out there and haven't found any that are worth the money.

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Project Task Tracking And Billing - need improvement - anyone else have feedback?