Create a project budget

Excellent!  That is exactly what I needed to find.  Thank you so much for your help! 

Hi @BMW.

I love seeing when the Community helps each other out. 

I'm happy that @qbteachmt's response was able to get that resolved for you.

If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to reach out.

Thanks for your reply.

Do i need also to make inputs for a project using Estimate for Balance Sheet accounts too?

Kindly explain please.

Best regards 

Mahmoud 

Hi there, Mahmoud.

Yes, you can use Estimate to input your project for Balance sheet accounts. The balance sheet accounts includes the business's assets. Each balance accounts has its own register, to track the transactions involving the accounts and their balances. 

For future references, you can check on this article about Track job costs in QuickBooks Desktop.

Let me know if you've more questions. I'll be right here to answer. 

Hello Joyce, 

Thank you so much for your answer.

Usually we contractors make budget for projects that we build for our clients so that we can monitor the actual cost and check variance and also to evaluate the performance of our Engineers as well as our Estimators.

so project estimate is apple to apple with P&L accounts ONLY. Thant why I still didn't get you when you mentioned we can also make budget for Balance Sheet accounts Project related also.

I know we can make a balance sheet accounts budget BUT this will be for the whole company NOT for certain projects. Is that make sense?

Thanks for the short reply.

Regards 

Mahmoud 

Hey there, Mahmoud.

You can use the balance sheet accounts when you create an estimate. You can use fixed asset items. Though, it will still not show on the report since an estimate is a non-posting transaction. You'll still have to create an invoice from it.

Please check the screenshot below as your reference.

Feel free to reach out if you have other questions. 

Hello @Mahmoud , 

I'm going to try to explain how I did this to make it show up on Actual vs Estimates and also the Balance Sheet.  Once you have it set up, it's easy to track and create reports.  

First, you need to create your Balance Sheet accounts.  For example, I have a construction project in process right now, so I have my "fixed asset" accounts set for Hard Costs with subaccounts (Phase I, II and III, Sitework, etc.) Soft Costs, with subaccounts (marketing, appraisals, architect, engineers, inspections, etc).  You may have these already set up for your business.  

Second, you need to set up Items.  When you set those up, be sure to choose "service" as the type and to check the box that says "This service is used in assemblies or is performed by a subcontractor or partner."  That will drop down a couple more options.  On the left side, choose the fixed asset account that you need that item to post to and on the right side, choose the income account that you would use once the sale goes through for your project.  If you do not have one, you can create a general income account such as construction services.  Create all your items and subitems that you want to track. 

Now, you are ready to create your estimate. Create your customer and create a "job" for that customer.   Then create an estimate for that job.  Choose from your item list and then enter the estimated (or budgeted) amount.  

When you receive an invoice or AIA, you will use the "item" tab instead of the "expenses" tab in the enter bill screen.   When you enter the charge, click on the "items" tab, choose the item from your list, enter any additional description, the cost and then under "customer:job" choose the job that it applies to.  

When you want to view a report for your project, go to Reports, Jobs Time Mileage, Job Estimates vs Actual Detail.  Choose the Job and then you can view the report and see how you are doing based on your original budget.  By using items and linking them to your balance sheet accounts, they will also show on your balance sheet report. 

I hope that helps!!  

Dear BMW, 

Thank you so much for your great reply.

I  appreciate your support.

I understod everything except " By using items and linking them to your balance sheet accounts, they will also show on your balance sheet report. ""

As my balance sheet has nothing to do with my projects coz simply projects costs and revenues will be closed to P&L.

In other words all fixed assets will be my ownership and it will be reflceted in my balance sheet and will run depreciation to them annually as usual.

Best regards 

Mahmoud 

Mahmoud, 

I must have misunderstood.  I thought you needed it to show on your balance sheet as well.   I believe the process that I detailed in my previous post will work for non-balance sheet accounts as well.  Instead of pointing your Item to a Fixed Asset account, point it to the account that you need to track.  Still use the items when you enter an invoice and select the job that the charges pertain to and it should still show up on the job reports.  

Let me know if it works!  :-)

Brenda

Exactly.

Thank you so much.

Regards 

Mahmoud

Hoping you can help!! 

We have many (1,000) generic non-inventory items already set up in our QB file that are linked to our P&L accounts.  If I want to get more sophisticated in my project cost reporting and link expenses to a job's "phase" (which I set up as service items), do I need to create a new (duplicate) item that reports up to the new project "phase"?  I guess what I'm trying to figure out is if I need to blow away all of my item history because now I want to be more detailed in my project costing. 

We are a custom home builder and do not use ITEMS because they do not pull into our WIP reports correctly.   We post to Other Asset WIP accounts during the build until the project is complete and sold (cause they are technically "our" assets until they are finished and the sale is complete). 

I did see where the Fixed Assets accounts pulled into the Items dropdown in the Estimates form but the Other Assets do NOT.  Is there a way to get them to pull in?  Again, we do not want to use ITEMS (kind of stupid actually - you should be able to use regular accounts in the estimates).

Thanks for any ideas on how to make it work.

Hi there, telrod.

Allow me to share some information that will assist you in tracking and integrating it into your WIP accounts.

I understand that using ITEMS or Products and Services in estimates does not fit with your custom home-building business processes, particularly when tracking Work in Progress (WIP) in QuickBooks Desktop. 

In QuickBooks Desktop, ITEMS is the standard approach for tracking costs and revenue in estimates, and the available item types are predefined and do not include a specific item type for the Other Asset WIP account.

However, you can consider setting up a Non-inventory item as the item type and assign it to the Other Asset WIP account. This alternative solution allows you to allocate costs accurately to the designated WIP account.

Here's how:

1. Go to the Lists menu, then choose Item List.
2. Click on the Item button at the bottom, and hit New.
3. Select the Non-inventory item type for the new item.
4. Provide a unique name for the item.
5. In the Income Account field, select the appropriate "Other Asset WIP account".
6. To save, hit OK.
   

While this solution still involves the use of items, this will allow you to track costs accurately under the specific Other Asset WIP accounts you prefer. 

I've also added these articles about customizing reports and job costing:
 

• Customize customer, job, and sales reports in QuickBooks Desktop
• Tracking job costs in QuickBooks Desktop

Feel free to leave a comment below if you have other questions. I'm always here to help. Have a great day!

I appreciate your attempt to help but you are missing the point.  We do NOT want to use items at all!  But we would like to create estimates within Quickbooks but estimates will ONLY let us create using Items.  Using Items makes us have to basically duplicate our Chart of Accounts and as I stated before, the reports we have created for our WIP reports, which shows all of the invoices by WIP account as well as all bank draws on the construction notes and any customer payments and the balance of the job to date.

It is aggravating that Quickbooks only allows items to be used in estimates.  We would love to utilize some of the job cost reports but they ONLY work with items.