We are a home contractor looking to use QB to track the cost associated with building homes. Are others using Projects to accomplish this?

You may start from QBO Plus then utilize the Project feature and Class feature.

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Should you need more feature, consider using a construction project management app and integrate it with your QBO. 

Just my 2 cents.

Good Morning, @heather31. It's great to have you here in the Community.

Projects in QuickBooks is a great way to keep up with your income and the cost of the projects being or been working on. Let me explain more to you.

Projects are a feature that helps you organize all the moving pieces of your project, including transactions, time, and running reports – so you always know where you stand with all your jobs. Connect invoices, expenses, and transactions to each project.

Stay organized by the project:

• Organize your books the way you work by keeping all job-related information in one place.
• Connect invoices, expenses and transactions to each individual project.
• View all of your open jobs to see precisely where you’re spending your time and money.

Understand each project’s profitability:

• Efficiently run reports to understand if you’re making or losing money on each project.
• Four custom reports help you quickly see your profitability, invoices that need to be sent, sales transactions, and any nonbillable time.
• Track all time and expenses, and view outstanding payments and unbilled work.
• No more cumbersome workarounds to understand profitability or spending extra money on third-party solutions to manage finances for your jobs.

Turning on projects in QuickBooks Online Plus for existing customers:

1. Select the Gear, and then Accounts and Settings.
2. Select Advanced.
3. Turn on projects.

Don’t have QuickBooks Online Plus? You can easily upgrade at any time following the steps below.

Steps for upgrading your subscription:

• Click the Gear icon.
• Click Account and Settings.
• Select Billing and Subscription on the left panel, select “upgrade” by your plan details, and select “Plus” on the next screen.
• Review your selection and select “Done” to finalize the upgrade.

Once you’ve upgraded, please reference the steps above to turn on projects.

I also have an article that has information that will help you understand Video on Projects to Track Project Income & Cost.

If you have any more questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach back out. Have a great week!

Thanks for the reply Sarah!  

I do currently have Projects.  I am actually new to the world of construction, as I worked 12 years for accounting in a 3rd party distributor.  

For the first house we just built, I posted everything as assets on the balance sheet (construction in process, etc....).  While I definitely have our true cost, I do feel I am making it harder than it needs to be.

For the construction industry the "expenses" to build a home are categorized as the current asset "Work in progress". Is there a report which will show the WIP totals in the projects module?

Hi there, @barthel-leanne.

At this time, handling Work in Progress (WIP) in QuickBooks Online can be completed manually. This will accumulate costs in an asset account.

To track all of your WIP costs, you'll need to create an asset account. This way, you can transfer the costs from Asset to the Expense account when the project is sold and complete. Also, this will show on your Profit and Loss report as an expense account.

But most importantly, I encourage seeking help with your accountant to set this up properly in QBO.

For now, you can visit our blog site so you'll be able to get the latest news about QuickBooks and what our Product Care Team is working on. 

Please touch base with me here for all of your QuickBooks needs, I'm always happy to help. Have a great day and keep safe.

I have looked a plus and project tracking. From what iI could see so far, it doesn't look like that is the correct software to track my cost and expenses as an owner, hiring a contractor, to build my new home. As the owner, I would still need and like to know and track all my cost and expenses associated with the home being built. I want to be able to do this so that I can make sure all my payments to the contractor are correct and that I wont run out of funds because someone, missed something. I also need to track my purchases for things like fixture and tiles, architect fees, plants and ALL the rest that are not a part of the contractors bid. So when it come time, I will have the information necessary to be able to prove to the IRS what the cost basis is for the home. What can I use for that? And of course I also still want to be able to still do my personal bookkeeping in the program, as well as my small Real Estate self employed business. 

Good day, STquestions.

The Project feature can help us track the costs of building your house. Aside from that, you can also use other third-party apps in tracking it.

We have a lot of supported apps that you can check if it meets your needs. Simply go to the Apps tab.

I've also added these articles for more information with the Project feature:

• Track income, costs, and profitability by project
• Projects FAQ

Please leave a comment again if you have other questions. Have a great day!

@STquestions 

If you are running a construction business, explore QB Desktop Premier edition.