QuickBooks Time Tracking

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This is QuickBooks lesson: time tracking.0002

QuickBooks has a feature that allows you to do time sheets and track your time on various jobs or for employees, whichever purpose you might have.0006

So, what we want to do is activate this feature in QuickBooks, so in order to activate that, we want to go to the Edit and Preference area.0016

And you will notice that we will have the Time Tracker - Time and Expenses - down at the very bottom of our Preferences, and we want to turn that on.0027

So, when we click on Time and Expenses, go to the Company Preference tab, and it says do you track time?0040

We want to make sure that, that says Yes.0045

It will say What is the first day of your work week etc. We can go into all that.0048

We can create invoices from the list of Time and Expenses, etc. We can always choose that if we want to track and reimburse expenses as income and etc.0055

So, here is a default mark-up of 20% for our expenses, etc., and in it, it we will put those expenses as construction income.0064

So, whenever we have reimbursed expenses and things like that, it will actually generate a 20% income on top of those expenses, so that is nice.0072

We will click OK, so now that, that is turned on.0082

So, the next thing we want to do is we are going to learn how to enter the time an employee works. They need to get paid.0086

We need to assign that time to the job.0096

It is very important that when you are in the construction business or a manufacturing business, some sort0097

that where you have individual jobs and you have labor associated with that to track those laborers.0102

I have always, always insisted on my clients to make sure that they will track their time and labor per job.0108

So, when someone comes on to do the job, they start working on XYZ job.0119

On their time sheet, they make sure that it has associated that 1 hour and 1/2 or 2 and 1/2 hours or 2 and 1/4 hours for that particular job.0124

And then, they can move on to the next job or the next project, and they track that time, as well,0131

so that when we go ahead and do our job costing, it is accurate, and we know exactly how much time was spent on that particular job or project.0137

It is associated with attorneys or accountants, and service industries. Many industries have that ability that they need to track that time.0148

So, we are going to show you how to do that in QuickBooks rather easily.0157

Under the Employee menu in QuickBooks, you will see where it says Enter time.0161

We have a couple of ways of doing that, and the first way that we want to do it is using a single activity.0167

So, you can say "Well, I spent 2 and 1/2 hours on this particular job. I want to assign that".0173

So, our new employee, Lisa Sample, went ahead and did some work, and so we are going to record that time.0180

That question was about payroll, so we said Yes. We want to include that for time tracking on payroll, as well.0193

Lisa did some work on our new remodel job, and we are going to put that down there on Paula Easley.0200

On this kitchen remodel, Lisa was doing some research or purchasing for that, let's say, and the service item is going to be labor, OK?0210

And we are going to make sure that is done, and then, there is payroll. We want to make sure that this person is getting paid on a regular pay, OK?0221

And we can put down the description that we were purchasing a material for job, OK?0229

And that took this person 1 hour and 1/4, let's say, 1 hour and 15 minutes.0243

See how I put it in as 1 hour and 1/4, and it converted it to 1 hour and 15 minutes.0250

I can also say 1 hour and 15 minutes, or if we are going to start a project, here is a neat little certain deal.0256

If we have not done it yet, and this person is doing online purchases or whatever,0266

they can say "I am going to start doing this", and I am going to start it and let it run.0271

You will see the little ticker going off and this little timer, and the person is on the phone. They are on the line.0277

They are making these purchase orders, etc., and they are ordering all that product for this particular job.0281

If you are in the service industry, accountants or attorneys or architecture, whichever,0288

you can also use this timer to track your time as you are on the phone with a client.0294

Or if you are doing a draft of architectural work or if you are an accountant working on particular numbers for a client,0298

you can actually track and use this as a timer.0308

Then, once it his done with that project, you are done with that, you can stop it. It will take it to the nearest minute.0311

That is how attorneys do it. They do it at 6 minute increments, and they call this 1 minute, 6 minutes, so this, we are not doing.0319

We are going to say it is 1 hour and 1/4 that she took to run around making these purchases, and we are going to Save and close that.0327

So, that is how we enter that particular time and recording that particular time.0334

So, now, there is a time weekly sheet. Maybe, our employee is using a paper time sheet with Monday to Friday or Monday to Saturday.0339

And they are actually filling in by hand the time sheet.0350

So, they turn that into us at the end of the week or to the accountant or your payroll. You take a look at it and say "OK, great".0354

OK, here is the job, so we are going to enter that in, or we want to do the same thing on a weekly time sheet.0361

So, let's use the weekly time sheet instead. Let's go to the Employees menu from the Menu bar.0366

We will go down to Enter time, and we will say Use weekly time sheet. So, we are going to pull weekly time sheet here, and here it is.0373

This is again for our Lisa Sample employee. It shows that we did this particular job.0384

We did 1 hour and 1/4 on the 15th - OK - for this Paula Easley job, etc., and we can now enter in new items per day.0391

Let's say, we did it for a family room or something. We did some more labor here, and it is regular pay.0402

And we could put down that we were installing whichever it was that we install, flooring, whatever, and that was on the 12th, and it was a 6-hour job.0411

The person was there. It is billable to the customer.0426

Here is all the information we have. We can pull it down and go to the very next, keep tabbing.0429

Or we go over the next line , and so forth. Then, we can continue adding in different items and etc.0435

That full Monday, let's say that she did some other work. Let's say there is something on a shed whatever it is in repair work or something, OK?0441

And let's say it was repair shed or something, and that took 1 hour 1/2.0452

So, that day here is 7 1/2 hours already for that particular day, and then, we can see where that day fills up and this, etc.0459

So, we can see where our employees are utilizing their time or even ourself, how we are using our time. That is how we record time on a weekly basis.0468

Well, let's say our employee has a mileage or has expense or something. They had to bus something on their own, and we want to repay them for that.0479

There is a couple of ways of doing it. My recommendation is we cut a separate check for that reimbursement of an expense.0490

If the person has to go down to Home Depot and pull up some additional things on their own dime,0496

they had to buy some nails or who knows what it was, I am going to write that person a check.0500

So, in order to do that, I want to make sure that, that is reimbursable, and we bill those materials to the client, to the customer.0505

So, I am going to write the check, and I am going to reimburse that to my employee, Lisa Sample.0513

It is not going to be payroll. It is not payroll, but I am reimbursing her for the $38 that she spends at Home Depot, OK?0519

And it is going to say Home Depot for materials.0527

And the account is going to be construction materials or something, material expense I guess, whichever it is.0536

We are going to pull that down and make sure we have it. Let's just say it is at a material cost.0547

It gets sold. I put it down there, and it says Materials for a job, and it was for...I can choose a job.0556

It does not really matter. It is for the garage repair of Chris Baker, and we choose that job.0566

Now, it is billable to the customer, so when we put in this expense, it is billable to that customer, Chris Baker.0572

If we say it is not billable, that means we are going to go ahead and reimburse our employee for those cost at Home Depot.0583

But, we are not going to bill it to the job.0589

I want to recoup my expenses, so, I am going to put that down and that is a remodel, OK?0593

So, I will Save and close, and there it is. I want to have and I expensed that item.0599

I have reimbursed. I could have went down myself, wrote a company check and bought material at Home Depot0603

and wrote a check on Home Depot or whichever and still put in that customer job and made it billable, so that is how we reimburse those costs.0608

Well, we are going to go ahead and invoice that customer for those time and costs if I can remember who it was we billed.0617

So, we are going to create an invoice, and we want to be recouped. We want those time and expense recoup.0625

So, when I create an invoice from the Icon bar, I can click Invoice right away, or I can go to0631

the customer center and say "Well, I think it was Chris Baker that I did that repair work on", OK?0639

I will click on that job from the Customer Center, a garage repair work under Chris Baker, and I will do New Transactions and say here is an invoice.0648

When I hit tab, it is going to give me a warning that says0657

"Hey, guess what, the customer job or job you selected has outstanding billable time and/or cost,0660

do you want to select the outstanding billable time and cost to add to this invoice?" Well, sure I do.0666

So, I am going to go ahead and click on OK, and I will look at it and say "Well, here is some time, but here is some expenses, Lisa Sample". There it is.0673

Well, I want to check that, and I want to bill that to them, so I am billing them for this reimbursed cost.0682

Here it is $38. We are doing a mark-up of 20%, and we are going to charge him $45.60 for that.0688

Now, we can look at the invoice, what it will look like to the customer, and there it is.0696

It shows them that the materials. Here is the mark-up.0701

Boom. This goes to them, and so we can create that invoice, and it is done.0703

I believe we had some time for our employee that we did, so if we look at Lisa's time sheet, if we want to do that, we did Abercrombie on the family room.0709

So, let's say we want to bill when we do the family room, and we invoice that, well, we can bill for that time, as well.0724

So, when we go into Abercrombie, to that job and do an invoice and we hit tab, we can pull it in,0732

and it is going to say "Here is the time for this particular job", and yes, I want to bill this.0740

I want to recoup Lisa's time, and of course well, gee, Greg did some time on the family room, as well.0744

There was some frame in the labor, so we will click OK to that. It will pull it all in.0750

Here is the labor - you know - 6 hours. We do not have a rate, but we will put in a rate of $45 for her.0756

And we are going to bill them 6 hours $45, and it is done.0765

We have that bill. We are billing for that time, and that is how we can pull the time and costs into an invoice by using those features.0770

So, we will just click on OK on that.0780

So, once we have billed, once we have entered our time, we have entered costs and expenses that are billed back to our customer,0783

we can now actually look at those Time by Job reports and see what it looks like, so let's go look at the Time by Job reports.0791

So, under Reports menu, we are going to go down to our Jobs, Time and Mileage section, and we will see down here, it says Time by Job detail.0801

I want to look at the detail. I can always look at the summary but I like detail, so I will say detail.0810

Now, I can see well, there is some time that we had Lisa there. She did 6 hours.0815

Lisa also worked on the utility shed. We see where Greg worked on a few things here, to,o on Bryan Cook, etc.0821

And we see that here is Paula Easley our new kitchen remodel that Lisa worked on. Greg did some work on installation, etc.0832

So, we see where it had broken down by job how much time we spent.0840

So, it is very valuable that we can track if we are hitting close to what our bid was, getting close to what our estimate was.0845

We can manage our costs in that way by using these reports and seeing how much time it really takes for these jobs.0852

And we can see if we are going to be profitable or not, so that is very helpful.0861

Now, of course, we have the option of having contractors or other non-employees that we may0867

have to bill our customers for or sub-contract that to get the job done, and that is a common occurrence.0873

So, we have that. We want to be able to put in their information, as well.0882

Well, by using the weekly time sheet, we can do the same thing for those non-employee workers.0886

So, if I go up to the Employees menu, and I say Enter time and use a weekly time sheet,0897

I can pull down a particular vendor and say "Well, this vendor, Dan Miller, did some work for us".0905

"Well, he did some work for us on that new remodel here. On that kitchen remodel in Paula Easley, he did some work".0913

And he did some repairs, or maybe he did some labor, installation or something. Here are some installation labor that he was doing0924

So, he did some installation work, and we can record that time that he did.0934

He did 2 hours here, 3 hours there, whichever on the different days, and we can add it all in to the various jobs that we paid Dan Miller to work for us.0940

Of course, whenever we do that, a vendor or a contractor has a 1099 that we have to issue to them.0950

We have to make sure that we are abiding by the law, and that they are not an employee,0956

that they are free to do other contract work with like-minded companies like ourselves.0962

And they are free to do work for our competitors, even. That is why there is a contract or independent contractor.0968

This is a very fine line. If they walk like a duck, they are a duck.0975

If they act and walk like an employee, they are an employee, so be sure to make sure that you are following the Labor Law there.0979

But, there we have is we can record that information for Dan Miller who is not an employee and get that taken care of. We Save and close.0986

So, using time sheet and jobs, the time sheet is the best way again, this little time sheet that we had up for each job.0997

And we can pull up Dan Miller, by the way, and see how utilizing this is going to help us manage our jobs, our job costs,1007

manage how we are profitable with each job by using this time sheet and using it properly and regularly.1020

Thank you for visiting Educator.com. We hope to see you next time.1031