Projects not showing all labor

Hello there.

I understand how significant it is for you to get this fixed quickly. No worries, let me assist you with this and make everything clear.

Upon checking here, the investigation about labor not showing in projects has been marked as closed. In this kind of situation, adding time to a project, please be sure to select "add work details" and this area select the customer and project to ensure that the time is attributed to that project.

If you're still experiencing the same issue, I suggest contacting our QuickBooks Support Team once more so they can further sort this out and assist you promptly using their tools.

Here's how:

1. Sign in to your QuickBooks Online company account.
2. Look for the Help icon.
3. Click the Search tab and select Contact us.
4. Provide a summary of your concern and click Continue.
5. Choose a way to connect with us. You can either choose Chat with us or Have us call you.

Additionally, here's an article you can check out for you to be able to track your project's profitability: Manage projects in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

If you have any further queries managing your projects or anything else about QuickBooks, let us know by leaving a comment below. We're always here to assist you 24/7. Have a good one.

I already spoke with someone from QBO support and they suggested that I put a note on the community page. 

Quickbooks Online, at some point in August or Sept 2024, suddenly changed the way they apply labor costs in their project profitability software. ALL projects were changed - even projects that were previously closed from prior years. Basically, labor costs were removed. It makes no sense.

I called their help center and the agents either didn't speak enough English to communicate or had no idea what I was talking about. The last agent admitted to not using Quickbooks Online and was just regurgitating the possible tests off of a help database. If you go to the reports page and search for the job cost reports, you will see that the jobs suddenly include those costs, but if you go into the individual projects, those costs are missing, so you get different results from the same reports in two different places.  The agent I spoke with wanted me to set up a new job and put a bunch of stuff in and run a payroll to see if it was still happening. It was happening already with my new jobs, so I said that was a useless exercise. I was labeled as uncooperative and was no longer assisted.

I'll keep calling in the hopes that I get someone that is competent enough to have actually use the software as a accountant and understands the problem.

This is not the experience we aim to provide, Intermark. We always prioritize ensuring every aspect of your work is handled efficiently. I'll connect you with the appropriate support team to assist you further.

In QuickBooks Online, labor costs are tracked using hourly costs or payroll expenses. The calculation will be based on timesheets associated with the project.

I acknowledge you've already reached out to our support team. However, I recommend contacting them again, as the issue persists with closed and new jobs. They can conduct a detailed analysis of why labor costs are not aligning as expected when reports are generated from different areas to provide the most appropriate fix.

Here's how:

1. Click (?) Help and choose the Search tab.
2. Select Contact Us, then pick Ask about something else.
3. Enter your concern in the designated box and hit Continue.
4. Determine how you would like to talk with an expert: Start a chat or Have us call you.

Additionally, please consider checking their support hours to connect with them accordingly.

Moreover, you might want to delve into this article for guidance on modifying your reports to get the specific information you need: Customize reports in QuickBooks Online.

Should you have more inquiries about how labor costs are calculated, we're just a message away here in the forum. We’re here to assist you with using QuickBooks Online and handling related tasks.

I seem to be having a similar problem. When I use the products and services filter, the report show no labor costs, even though the main report shows the geneeral labor costs (COGS: Labor) for all products and services with no filter. I have it set to use the actual payroll figures not the estimated payroll costs. I am trying to get a report that shows just the costs for one particular item in a project, the paving that was done. The material costs show up for the paving, but not the labor tor that task, even though I assign the labor item to hours worked in the Quickbooks Time. The labor costs don't show in the report. Making the items billable doesn't do anything and that doesn't make sense anyway, because I create an invoice out of an estimate, because the jobs are fixed price contracts, not time and material. I still need to know how much the labor for this or that item of work costs. What use are these reports if you can't get the specific information you want or you need to pay one of their QB accountants to figure out how to set up the reports correctly or spend half the day going online line me today with no success? I might as well pay an accountant to do everything and dump Quickbooks. With the size of my business it would probably be cheaper that way. QB desktop used to be so helpful for for the small business owner who was doing their own books, and affordable. I have been using QB since 2001, and this QB Online is quickly becoming like learning Greek to me. Now it is just another expense shrinking my bottom line which is already pretty shrunken.

Being able to track labor costs is indeed important and I understand how you would want to show it in your report, @TMoore.

In QuickBooks Online (QBO), projects don’t directly link with the total item cost and the labor cost. This feature is primarily used to track the expense accounts for a project, rather than associating labor costs with specific items.

Based on your recording preference, I recommend consulting with your accountant. They can provide guidance on the best approach and may suggest an application to help track labor costs tied to individual items.

On the other hand, you can check this resource for guidance on customizing your reports to access the specific information you need: Customize reports in QBO.

We're always here to help if you have any other questions.

That would be a good feature to have, because is was in QB desktop. Anyway, the labor costs are not being estimated for newer employees by Quickbooks Online anymore. There used to be a dialogue box that helped me figure out the estimated labor cost by giving me gross hourly wage, estimated taxes, WC insurance for an employ based on the information on setup for the employee, . Now there is one box for me to enter an amount that I need to calculate myself. What happened to that? The help still mentions it.

I agree how this feature would be good to have in QuickBooks Online (QBO), Tmoore. While the lack of the dialogue box can make things challenging, QBO has a feature called Labor Costing for Projects that allows you to assign actual payroll costs directly to specific projects as an alternative approach. 

This method helps you calculate and track detailed labor costs tied to tasks like the paving work you mentioned.  It allows businesses to associate actual payroll costs (including wages, taxes, and benefits) with specific projects or tasks for more accurate job costing. By linking employee hours worked to projects through QuickBooks Time and payroll data, you can identify the true cost of each task and improve profitability tracking. 

Here’s an article that explains how this feature works: NEW for QuickBooks Online: Labor Costing for Projects!

On the other hand, I encourage you to submit your suggestions directly to our product development team through the Feedback option in QBO. This helps guide future updates and improvements, including bringing back features like the dialogue box for estimating labor costs. Follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings and select Feedback.
2. Enter your comments or product suggestions. Then select Next to submit feedback.

If you'd like help customizing your reports to show specific information, you can use this article as a future reference: Customize reports.

We’re here to assist you with any additional questions or concerns. Don’t hesitate to reply on this thread.

Here's the basic problem: When looking to calculate job costs, it is important that all of the costs related to the job be included so that the report is accurate. Just randomly deciding that labor directly logged into the Quickbooks Time system is no longer going to be included in a job cost total makes QBO job costing completely useless. Those of us that selected QBO for this and are now being told that QBO decided to change this is absolutely a deal breaker. Do not tell people that they have to start manually calculating job costs. I don't know what genius decided that labor on a job is no longer to be used in a job cost calculation, but they should be fired. QBO has failed completely on this issue. We will be looking elsewhere for a system that will do this properly.