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SaulA
Level 3

Job Profitability Report still not right

It has been two years since I first raised the problem of the job profitability report not showing costs accurately. Still having this issue, QuickBooks Customer Service has proven useless on this topic, and I'm hoping someone in the community has a solution.

 

To summarize:

  1. I create a fixed price invoice that is sent to a customer for some amount; say, $50,000.
  2. I create a second invoice that has no price, just inventory and non-inventory items used on the job. I tag each line item with the relevant customer/job. (This does NOT get sent to the customer since they are billed fixed price and don't know/see/care what gets used.) For example, one line item is 36 pieces of steel at a cost of $593.23 each,

 

So far, so good. I look at the P&L report, various inventory reports, etc. All show the correct costs being allocated for all inventory items. In this example, 36 widgets x $593.23 = $21,356.28 inventory cost of goods sold.

 

Then, I run the job profit report. It shows just $6318.76 in cost. Yet, when I click on that line it brings up the invoice from which it is taking the numbers, and that invoice is correct at $21k.

 

I have verified the data file. I have rebuilt the data file. I have deleted and recreated the invoice. I have put the inventory items on the original invoice (instead of a separate invoice) as a test -- I could never send that invoice -- and the job profit report remains incorrect.

 

This wasn't a huge problem, as we are a small company and I can run it just fine from the P&L view. However, we now have salespeople who are to be paid based on job profitability. This report MUST be correct or I will mispay people, either costing them money, or in the case of this example, costing the company money.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

12 Comments 12
ChristieAnn
QuickBooks Team

Job Profitability Report still not right

Welcome back to the QuickBooks Community, SaulA. I appreciate you for sharing detailed information about your concern and for what you've done to fix the issue. With this, Let me help you in getting the Job Profitability Report to appropriately reflect the costs correctly.

 

QuickBooks Desktop allows you to customize any report that you generate. With this, you'll have to make sure that you run the Profit and Loss and Job Profitability reports on the same date range. This is to ensure that you can easily differentiate those statements and that the complete data for a given date range would show.

 

Here's how:

 

  1. Open the P&L or Job Profitability report.
  2. Click the Customize Report button.
  3. Choose the Dates drop-down arrow and select the appropriate date.
  4. Click OK.

 

You can click this article to see further details on how you can filter various reports so you can view the data that accurately: Customize reports in QuickBooks Desktop.

 

Lastly, you may refer to this article on how you can memorize different reports in QuickBooks so the same settings of the customized report are available for future use: Create, access and modify memorized reports.

 

Don't hesitate to update me on how things go by clicking the Reply button below. I'm still here if you need anything else about running reports, SaulA. Have a good one.

SaulA
Level 3

Job Profitability Report still not right

Is there any update on when this issue will be fixed?

 

As usual, the "QuickBooks Team" answer was no answer at all. In fact, the answer reflects a complete lack of understanding of the original question.

 

So, I'll try to boil it down to this: why does Job Profitability not show the same job costs as any part of the system that actually maintains the cost information? And when will this be fixed?

Carneil_C
QuickBooks Team

Job Profitability Report still not right

This isn't the experience we want you to have, @SaulA.

 

Since the issue persists on your end while running the Job Profitability report in QuickBooks Desktop, I recommend contacting our QuickBooks Desktop Support Team. They'll be able to have a screen share session with you to investigate this matter further and give possible fixes. Here's how:

 

  1. Go to the Help menu, then select QuickBooks Desktop Help.
  2. Select Contact Us.
  3. Please give a brief description of your issue, then select Let's talk, and then choose a way to connect.

 

In addition, you can find out more about managing reports in QBDT through the following articles:

 

 

Feel free to get back to me here if you have further questions about managing your reports in QBDT. I'm very eager to help. Take care!

SaulA
Level 3

Job Profitability Report still not right

"I recommend contacting our QuickBooks Desktop Support Team."

 

Yet another completely unhelpful answer from the QB team. Do you think that I haven't done this - more than once - in the three years we have struggled with this messed up, half-working piece of software? I've wasted hours on the phone and screen share with people who can't do more than show me where to click to run a report. 

 

No one has resolved a single software issue I have raised in three years.

 

If there was another small business package that handled manufacturing from inventory correctly we would have switched away from QuickBooks already.

HeatherH87
Level 1

Job Profitability Report still not right

We are also a manufacturing company and I have been trying to move away from QB since I started here. It is not meant for inventory or misc items or sundry service charges that come up in the manufacturing world. I hate qb... 

Bob250
Level 1

Job Profitability Report still not right

I have the same issue.  QuickBooks has been no help in this matter.  The profitability reports do not show the inventory expended in COGS.  The strange thing is if I do a P&L on just a specific job, the COGS material expended is there.  When I run the profitability reports the COGS material is not there.  Why can't QuickBooks see that this is on their end and not one us, the customer.  Crazy.

Bob250
Level 1

Job Profitability Report still not right

I just figured out the problem (at least it worked for me).  After you run a profitability report, check the customize report -- filters.  Mine was auto set as all income/expense accounts.  If you change it to All Accounts, it shows exactly what I wanted.

spma03
Level 1

Job Profitability Report still not right

I too was having the same issue, looking here for answers. I have my customers in the customer center on Hierarchical view. Selecting Re-sort List did nothing. I changed it to Flat view. Then Re-sorted the list. Then switched back to Hierarchical View which it then stated, "You are about to switch to Hierarchical View. If you do a search, results will only be displayed in Flat View. If you then switch back to Hierarchical View, the list will be reset. Resetting returns you to the original list. Would you like to continue?". Once I did that, All my customers and added jobs under them were in alphabetical order and numerical order as you would expect to see. Hope this helps. 

SaulA
Level 3

Job Profitability Report still not right

While I appreciate the attempt, that does not address any issue having to do with REPORTS.

SaulA
Level 3

Job Profitability Report still not right

Thank you for the feedback, Bob. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to affect the things that aren't showing in reports -- mainly expense and other costs -- that are clearly in the registers, and are showing on other reports. Just won't show on the Job Profitability report. 

Esyplatinum
Level 1

Job Profitability Report still not right

Thank you for the post, SaulA. Saves me time trying to figure out why the Report is returning different totals than what is shown on the projects tab.

JohnTxGlobal
Level 1

Job Profitability Report still not right

I'm having this issue right now as well. On the vendor invoice where the customer is tagged on the bottom right, I switched it from the job number to just the customer and it now shows on the report. Just not how I wanted. 

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