How do I keep track of expenses for a large project from a single vendor?

Hello @awmcclain, hope you had a great weekend!

QuickBooks Online does have a Projects feature, but it isn't set up to support your HOA project in the way you describe. Typically the project is assigned to one customer and then you can enter in expenses, invoices, purchase orders, etc., towards that customer. It sounds like the best way for you to use QuickBooks is to create a bill for that vendor every time they send you an invoice.

1. Log into your account and click on +New, then select Bill under Vendors. 
2. Fill in the fields with the vendor, amount, description, etc.
3. Lastly, choose Save or Save and Schedule Payment. 

To keep track of all of the bills, you could run one of these vendor reports: "Purchases by vendor" or "Transaction by vendor". Here's a great article on running reports in QuickBooks: Run reports in QuickBooks Online.  From there, you'd manually calculate how much each homeowner owes to that project. 

If you did want to take a look at the Projects Feature, I'll attach a useful article about Projects to explain how it works. You may find you can get creative. :)

Also please feel free to reply to this post with any other questions you have. We are all happy to help!

 

Thank you for the response!

One of the things I'm trying to do is keep track of _future_ expenses. e.g. we know the project will cost say $45K. Given that, I can invoice our owners that amount. As the project progresses, I'd like to apply the bills to that estimated total so we can see if we're over/under and then reassess if necessary.

The question is -- how to collect and apply the incoming bills to that total? Is that just assigning all the line items to a specific account?

Thanks for coming back, awmcclain.

We can collect and apply the incoming bills to that total by creating a billable expense transaction. This is an expense you incur on your customer’s behalf when you perform work for them. Then, you can record and track billable expenses so your customer can reimburse them when they receive their invoice. Let's turn on the billable expense tracking feature first on your account. Let me show you how: 

1. Go to the Gear icon on the top menu.
2. Select Account and Settings.
3. Go to the Expenses tab.
4. From the Bills and expenses section, tick Edit.
5. Turn on the Show Items table on expense and purchase forms, Track expenses and items by customer and Make expenses and items billable options. 
6. Hit Save.
7. Press Done. 

To create a billable expense and add it to an invoice, see Enter billable expenses article. You can also enter bills to record an incoming one. Feel free to visit our Expenses and vendors page for more insights about managing your vendor transactions. 

I'd like to know how you get on after trying the steps, as I want to ensure this is resolved for you. Just reply to this post and I'll get back to you. Take care always.