{"id":1001180,"date":"2018-06-08T13:09:06","date_gmt":"2018-06-08T17:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.bmcgiverncpa.com\/?p=1001180"},"modified":"2020-01-22T04:06:20","modified_gmt":"2020-01-22T04:06:20","slug":"tracking-time-in-quickbooks-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bmcgiverncpa.com\/blog\/index.php\/2018\/06\/08\/tracking-time-in-quickbooks-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Tracking Time in QuickBooks, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

If your company sells services, you can track the time spent providing them in QuickBooks. <\/em><\/p>\n

When you sell a product to a customer, you know it. It goes away, and your inventory count in QuickBooks is reduced by one. This tracking helps you know what\u2019s selling and what\u2019s not, and it signals when a reorder is due.<\/p>\n

If your business provides services to customers, though, you\u2019re selling your employees\u2019 time and skills. There\u2019s no inventory count; you can sell as many hours as you have workers to fill them. Tracking time accurately and comprehensively, though, is as important as knowing how many hard drives or tote bags you\u2019ve sold.<\/p>\n

QuickBooks contains tools to help you record the hours employees spend doing work for customers, so you can bill them for services rendered. You can also use these same features to enter employee time for payroll purposes. The software offers two options here: single-activity records and timesheets.<\/p>\n

Building the Foundation<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve discussed QuickBooks\u2019 Preferences <\/strong>many times before. The software was designed to support small businesses with a wide variety of structures and needs, so it needs to be flexible. For that reason, we always recommend that you check in with your \u201cPreference\u201d options before you explore new features.<\/p>\n

To get there, open the Edit <\/strong>menu and select Preferences<\/strong>. In the left vertical pane, click on Time & Expenses<\/strong>, then on the Company Preferences <\/strong>tab at the top. Here is a look at the top part of the window that opens:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Company Preferences <\/strong>window for Time & Expenses<\/strong> displays multiple options.<\/em><\/p>\n

To make sure that QuickBooks\u2019 time-tracking features are turned on before you start, click the button next to Yes<\/strong> under Do you track time? <\/strong>Specify the First Day of Work Week <\/strong>by opening that drop-down list. If you know that all<\/u> your time entries will be billable, click in the box in front of that statement.<\/p>\n

There are other options in that window; we\u2019ll talk about them in a future post.<\/p>\n

Creating Service Items<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before you can start tracking billable time, you have to create a record for each service offered \u2013 just like you would for a physical product. Click the Items & Services<\/strong> icon on the home page or open the Lists <\/strong>menu and select Item List<\/strong>. The window that opens will eventually display a table containing all the items and services you\u2019ve created.<\/p>\n

To define a service item, click Item<\/strong> in the lower left corner, then New<\/strong>, to open a window like this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

You can create numerous types of items in QuickBooks; Service <\/strong>is one of them.<\/em><\/p>\n

Click the down arrow in the field under Type<\/strong> to see your options here. There are many, ranging from Service <\/strong>to Inventory Part <\/strong>to Sales Tax Group<\/strong>. Select Service<\/strong>. In the field under Item Name\/Number<\/strong>, enter a word or phrase and\/or number that describes the service, and that won\u2019t get confused with another.<\/p>\n

If you had already created an item like \u201cNew Construction Services\u201d and you wanted \u201cCarpet Installation\u201d to appear as a subitem of it, you\u2019d click in the box in front of Subitem of <\/strong>to create a checkmark, then open the drop-down list below it and select \u201cNew Construction Services.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ignore the Unit of Measure<\/strong> section. If this designation is important to your business, talk to us about upgrading your version of QuickBooks. Connect with us, too, if the service you\u2019re defining is used in assemblies or is performed by a subcontractor or partner<\/strong>, as these are more advanced situations.<\/p>\n

Enter a brief Description <\/strong>in that box and your hourly charge\u2014to the customer<\/em>\u2014in the field to the right of Rate<\/strong>. Click the down arrow in the field next to Tax Code <\/strong>to select the item\u2019s taxable status.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very important that you get the next field right. QuickBooks wants to know which account in your company\u2019s Chart of Accounts should be assigned to this item. In this case, it would be \u201cConstruction Income.\u201d If you\u2019re not yet familiar with the concept of assigning accounts, let\u2019s set up a session to deal with this and other basic knowledge you should have.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re done, click OK<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In a future post, we\u2019ll talk about entering time items in records and timesheets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If your company sells services, you can track the time spent providing them in QuickBooks. When you sell a product to a customer, you know it. It goes away, and your inventory count in QuickBooks is reduced by one. This tracking helps you know what\u2019s selling and what\u2019s not, and it signals when a reorder […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,64],"tags":[81,82,63,83],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmcgiverncpa.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1001180"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmcgiverncpa.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmcgiverncpa.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmcgiverncpa.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmcgiverncpa.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1001180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmcgiverncpa.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1001180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1001215,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmcgiverncpa.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1001180\/revisions\/1001215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bmcgiverncpa.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1001180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmcgiverncpa.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1001180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmcgiverncpa.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1001180"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bmcgiverncpa.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1001180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}