Job Costing with Salary Employee

For this: "Employee works 50 hours on job but his salary only pays 40 hours. How does that work?"

You assign the Units for how you want the Salary Split and allocated, and do Not enter this on the Paycheck. Start from the Timesheet, and set your employee Default, and each existing employee to be Paid from Time data. Now the Timesheet info will be passed to the paycheck details for you. You also need to set Preferences to Job Track per Earnings Item. That allows the Salary Item to Reiterate = shows multiple times, to split it across the Service item and the Job Names. Also, in paycheck Voucher Printing, make sure to mark you want to use Hours for Salary. This can be units. or hours.

"Since actual payroll hours are not used to create pay checks?"

Yes, they are. You get to decide the Allocation, for Salary. Example:

They worked 1/4 Admin and 3/4 one Job = 1 and 3 or 10 and 30. For your request of 50, yes, use your specific Hours as units. And it helps to put your own company as a Customer name and a Service Item for Admin Time, for their Non-job-related allocation.

Please see my attachment.

I have a question in relation to the salary job costing in QB time sheets.  What if I have a few salary payroll items based on governmental accounting? I have Salary Direct vs. Salary Indirect so I can split an individuals hours between the 2 allocations on 1 pay check. Do I have something set up wrong if I do not have the option to enter the payroll item in the time sheet? 

Hi there, @Tacoma12.

I'd like to ensure we're on the same page so we can narrow down this issue. May I ask if you received any message when trying to enter a payroll item? Any extra details are much appreciated.

For now, I recommend verifying the set up of your payroll item to see if it's assigned to the appropriate job.

Please get back to me with more information about this concern, and we'll take it from there.

I'll be keeping an eye out for your response on this.

@Tacoma12 

RE: What if I have a few salary payroll items based on governmental accounting?

With QB you can use as many of the same or different salary items as you want.  But, the employee still has (legally and in QB) one salary.

So, for an employee with a a $50,000 salary, you can set up the employee earnings table (or the paycheck) like this:

Item, Amount

Salary1, $50,000

Salary2, $50,000

Salary3, $50,000

When you pay the employee set up like this, and you don't enter hours at all, the total salary will be $50,000 / pay periods in a year, then divided between the three salaries equally.

Similarly, you can use one Salary item  (e.g. "Salary1")  three times on the paycheck with the same result.

OR, perhaps useful for your case, you can enter hours on each salary line and then QB will re-apportion the salary amounts across the salary lines using the hours you enter.

For example, if you have an employee where the per-pay period salary is $2000 and you enter two salary lines, and enter hours, then the salary will be split according to that ratio:

Item, Hours, Amount

Salary1,  30, $1500

Salary1, 10,  $500

This is most useful when the goal is to split the salary between Jobs.

Hi there,

I was reading the questions and answers but I still don't understand one part.

I changed the payroll setting to create paycheques using time data.

Let's say this salaried employee has worked 90 hrs and we are paying him 80 hrs. In the paycheque details, I see 90 hrs for 3 different jobs.

How do I adjust this 10 hrs difference in the paycheque? Deducting hours from jobs will cause the job costing report to be inaccurate. Am I right or I just didn't completely understand the point? 

Many thanks

Hi there Mina, 

It's awesome that you've started to use the Timesheets feature with your QuickBooks Desktop Payroll in order to help calculate job costing easier. Knowing how much money is spent on certain projects is a key part of running your business. I can provide some insight into this matter.

Job costing in QuickBooks Desktop is calculated based on the hours in the timesheet and not the ones in payroll. If you've made timesheets for 90 hours' worth of work, then while running payroll you adjust it to 80 hours, it'll appear as 80 hours on the paycheque, but will remain 90 in your timecard. Since the data for the job cost will be based on the timesheet, it'll be calculated based on 90 hours. You can verify this by going to check your Timesheet that you originally created to make sure it is unchanged, or by running a job report like the Time by Job Summary or Time by Job Detail. To access these reports, you'd click on Reports in the top bar, then select Report Centre. You'll find them in the category named Jobs, Time & Mileage located in the left column.  Here's an article I find useful regarding the use of Job Costing In QuickBooks Desktop. You can find some more articles like these in your QuickBooks Desktop account by following these steps:

• Select the Help menu from the top menu bar.
• Choose QuickBooks Desktop Help.
• Select the Help tab, then click Search.
• Use keywords like "timesheets" or "job costing" to find related articles
• Click an article to learn more.

I hope this helps clarify how Job Costing is affected by salaried employees. Have a great day.

Hi Alex,

Thank you for taking the time to explain this to me. I was using timesheets before but my issue was that when I was creating a job costing report, the report was excluded from salaried employees so I had to create a separate report just for salaried employees.

Thanks again!

Hello Mina2021,

I'm so glad to hear that you were able to reach your goal in QuickBooks. If you have any more questions, you can reach out to us. I'm happy to be of help!

Hello.  How do we job cost with salaried employees to where the correct $$ cost goes to the jobs?  In the example above, QB will break the salary down by the total number of hours worked and then put that to the jobs.  Doing it this way will make the same persons rate different each pay period based on total number of hours worked.  Is there a way to pay a salaried employee and have the same rate go to the job every time?

Example:

Salary is $2500 every two weeks/per 80 hours

John Doe works 100 hours pay period 1 - I want the rate to be $31.25 ($2500/80) - Not $25 ($2500/100)

John Doe works 80 hours pay period 2 - I want the rate to be $31.25 ($2500/80) - This week it works out

John Doe works 140 hours pay period 3 - - I want the rate to be $31.25 ($2500/80) - Not $17.86 ($2500/140)

Can someone please help me with this?  Is there a way to do this in the payroll screen?

If we use timesheets/bill it out as a $0.00 payable to each employee, then we are getting the correct hourly rate in the job but all the benefits are now missing from the job cost.

Help!

Thanks

Billie-Jo

Hi there, SC Companies. Allow me to share some insights about this.

When creating and running payroll, the system will only depend on the details you've set up in QuickBooks Desktop. At this time, we'll have to manually enter and adjust the information in the Preview Paycheck screen to show the desired rate.

Since you want the same rate to go to the job every period, I recommend creating service items that we can apply to your timesheets. Here's how:

1. Go to Lists and then select New.
2. Choose Service.
3. Enter a name.
4. Place a checkmark beside the This service is used in assemblies or is performed by a subcontractor or partner box.
5. Under cost, enter the rate.
6. Add the other details.
7. Once done, click OK.
8. Repeat the steps for the other rate.

Once done, apply the created items to your timesheets. I'll show you how:

1. Go to Employees, then Enter Time. 
2. Choose Use Weekly Timesheet.
3. Select the employee name from the Name drop-down list.
4. Add the Customer: Job and the Payroll Item.
5. On the Service Item field, enter the items you've created. 
6. Place a checkmark in the Billable column if the hours worked are billable.
7. In the Days column, enter the number of hours worked.
8. Hit Save & Close when done.

Please feel free to reach out to me anytime if you require further assistance with QuickBooks. My goal is to ensure that you always achieve your desired outcomes with payroll. Take care and stay safe! 

We are a Solar Contracting Company and up until the middle of February 2024 we have been able to job cost our salaried electricians directly to each project.  This is a real problem for us and is the reason we shifted over to QB time and Elite payroll since we need job-costing in order to bill.  We have spent numerous hours on this with customer support and no one can help us to date.  Our case numbers are [removed] and [removed].  Any help would be appreciated.     

I appreciate you sharing cases you've had with our experts, mtnrider7775. Let me redirect you to our support to get the job costing for salaried electricians' work.

I recognize the urgency to job cost your salaried electricians directly to each project. Since you have reported cases regarding this issue, I recommend contacting our Support Team again. Rest assured that they're doing everything to help you create billable time moving forward.

Here's how:

1. Go to the Help icon, then select QuickBooks Desktop Help.
2. Press Contact Us.
3. Enter a description of your subscription concern, then click Continue.

Please note our operating hours so you can contact us promptly: Contact Payroll Support.

I'm adding these resources about personalizing reports and job costing:

• Customize customer, job, and sales reports
• Tracking job costs

Don't hesitate to update me about the results after trying the steps above. I'm always here to assist if there's anything else you need. Take care.

Our situation is that our salaried employees clocked time from quickbooks time do not export to quickbooks desktop - only their overtime hours export.  We end up having to manually enter all their different jobs into timesheets in QB desktop in order to create job costing reports.

There MUST be a simple setting that allows clocked salary hours to export.

Hi, how about if we are to correct the job costing? So they set up the project prior to running the payroll but since the salaried employees entire pay being costed to that job -- now the cost went high

I appreciate you joining the thread, @nice42. Let me chime in and offer you an alternative on how to correct the job cost of your salaried employees.

Please know that the increase in cost is due to the inclusion of the employee's entire salary in the report of the project. With that in mind, you'll want to review and check whether the project is associated with the salary item in the Preview Paycheck page to review the paycheck.

In addition, it's also important to note that QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT) bases the job cost on the entire salary of a salaried employee, regardless of the actual hours worked.

As a workaround, you can consider splitting the salary item for a single employee in your payroll to adjust the amounts. I'd be glad to show you how:

1. Go to the Employee menu in your QBDT. Then, select Employee Center.
2. Double-click on the employee to split the salary amount.
3. Select the Payroll info tab.
4. In the Earnings section, split the salary by adding another salary item.
5. Review other details. Then, hit OK.

After this, run payroll and click on Open paycheck detail to review the details reflected.

Moreover, I can see the importance of having a direct way to correct the job cost for your salaried employees. We encourage you to share your feedback with us directly, as your input will guide our efforts in refining the feature and other aspects of QuickBooks Desktop Payroll (QBDP) to better meet your requirements. To submit feedback, here's how: 

1. Click the Help menu, then Send Feedback Online.
2. Select Product Suggestion.
3. Enter your recommendations.

Furthermore, you can run a job costing report to track and view the payroll wages, taxes, deductions, and contributions by job.

Feel free to reach out to us if you have further questions about job costing is QBDT. We, in the Community, are always here to help.