Sunday, September 7, 2014

Job Costing in QuickBooks

A job is a project of a customer.  Job costing is the tracking of expenses for a particular job.  This is very important because it will give the owners an idea on which job is profitable or not and of course it will also measure the overall health of the business.  Construction companies, architects, wedding planners and lawyers are just some examples of businesses that needs job costing.

In QuickBooks, job costing allows business owners to see how much they spent and made for each of the jobs of his customers.  So  how can we get a Profit and Loss per Job in QuickBooks? It's very simple.

Steps:

1. In purchasing inventory or paying for services, we use the icon for the Purchase orders, Enter Bills or Write Checks.


2. The most important step in tracking job costs for a certain project is to put the customer name or job in the column designated once we purchase then uncheck the billable column.




3. Invoice the customer the usual way.


4. Now your reports are ready! Go to Reports > Jobs, Time & Mileage then choose from the available reports. You may try the Profit and Loss by Job or the Job Profitability Summary.  If you used estimates before creating the invoices, you may also check the Job Estimates vs Actual Reports.



For any questions, email us at albqbsolutions@gmail.com

Entering Batch Transactions in QuickBooks

Entering batch transactions in QuickBooks is every bookkeeper's solution to their dilemma of entering backlog transactions especially if it involves a number of months.  It's a good thing if you already have an excel file of the transactions because it can easily be exported to QuickBooks by just copy and paste after doing some modifications in the columns.  If there is no excel file yet and all you have are just raw data like the hard copy of receipts or invoices then at least you don't have to click Save for every transaction and it will at least save some time and effort.  This feature started in QuickBooks Accountant 2013 and QuickBooks Enterprise Accountant 2013.  In these editions, we can do batch entry for checks, deposits and credit card charges.  But in the 2014 editions of QuickBooks Accountant and QuickBooks Enterprise Accountant, we can also batch entry the invoices, credit memos, bills and bill credits in addition to checks, deposits and credit card charges.

Steps:

1. Click the Accountant menu then choose Batch Enter Transactions from the drop down.


2. In the Batch Enter Transactions window, choose what type of transaction you would like to export. In this example, we use checks so you need to choose from which bank account you take the money from.


3. Make sure that the columns in your excel file are the same as the columns in QuickBooks. You may click the Customize button to do this.


4. Once QuickBooks has the same columns as the excel file or vice versa, you may now copy from excel then position your cursor in the first field in QuickBooks then click Paste.


5. Review the entries. If there are red entries, it means that there is an error. You may hover your mouse on the red entries and you can see an error message at the bottom of the page.


6. After being fixed, click Save Transactions at the bottom then you're done.



Tips:
1. Create a backup first before copying from excel.
2. Make sure that the vendor names in excel are the same spelling as what you have in QuickBooks because it will prompt you to add the vendor. Do the same thing with customers if you enter deposits and invoices.
3. Make sure that the accounts are the same spelling as what you have in QuickBooks because it will also prompt you to add a new account.
4. Make sure that the amounts doesn't have a currency. You may format the excel file first as plain numbers.
5. If the account is a sub account, the format should be like this - Automobile Expense:Gasoline Expense. Please refer to Step 5 and 6.