QuickBooks Desktop has had Jobs and Job Tracking, but it appears QBO is going to offer something called Projects, which may be far broader reaching than Job Tracking if this labs feature comes to full fruition.
Projects allows you to create projects, assign transactions to them and then obtain a variety of reports, including project profitability, unbilled time/expense by project and transactions by project.
Turn-on Projects in Labs
Obviously, the first step is to set up projects by turning on the feature in QBO Labs:
- Click the Gear
- Select QuickBooks Online Labs
- Turn on Track Projects
- If haven't already, and you want to track Time or Items, go to Settings to turn on those features as well
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By the way, you can only use projects from your computer – there is no mobile access yet.
Setting-up Projects
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- Click Projects from the menu
- Click the green; add your first project button
- Give your project a Name
- Select or add a Customer
- Add any note (or come back and add it later)
- Save
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Adding an Invoice to a Project
Look for your new Project and click it
- Go to Add to Project
- Select Invoice. (The Project name will pre-fill, so just enter your invoice as usual)
- Save
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Add an Expense to your Project
Click on the green, add to project button
- Choose an Expense (or select an Invoice, Invoice payment, Expense, Estimate, Time, Bill or Purchase order)
- Enter the vendor/supplier's name; fill in the details; be sure to also include the Project name just to the right of the line amount
- Save
Adding Transactions to Projects from Outside of Projects
- Open global create (+)
- Select Invoice
- Pick the project from the Customer/Projects drop-down
- Add your invoice info as usual
- Save
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Prepare Project-related Reports
Of course, one of the reasons to have Projects (or Jobs) is to be able to conduct costing by project (as we did with QB Desktop jobs). The new Projects feature has several reporting options already configured:
- Select the Project you want to review
- Click any of the available reports:
- Transaction List
- Project Profitability
- Non-billable Time
- Unbilled time and expenses
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I’m confident there will be additional reports in the near future.
With the addition of Projects (in lieu of Jobs), QuickBooks Online is clearly on the way to offering some of the more sophisticated forms of cost-accounting that Desktop has been able to provide. We really needed this functionality, and I’m confident QBO Labs is committed to working out any kinks and bugs to bring this essential feature into the mainstream of QBO.