Create Your Own Speculative Job Costing Report

This article addresses the concept of creating something other than a typical pre-made job costing report for your speculative (not custom) home building projects in QuickBooks Online.

QuickBooks, both the Desktop and Online versions, have a number of pre-made job costing reports available for your reporting needs, if the information is indeed posted correctly and the proper job costing items are utilized and everything is coded appropriately.

Sometimes these reports are confusing for different reasons and you may not indeed understand where the information that is presented to you is really coming from.

A solution can be that you simply set up your own coding and job costing system in the bookkeeping software (and don’t integrate with outside applications) and thus you can create your own customized reports that are befitting for your own specific needs, plus you can better understand and rely on where the information in the reports is coming from and what it all means.

So, one example of customizing a system is to simply create your own (for speculative homes only) materials and labor service item codes (be sure these items are connected directly to Construction in Progress asset type of accounts since this article only addresses Speculative Homes), and thus, each expense posting will be done the following way:

• Post the expense utilizing items and not accounts.
• Very importantly, also utilize the “Customer” field within the Item details posting and select your job/project.

Now, to create your customized summary report to see this information:

• Within QuickBooks Online, select the “Balance Sheet Report” option.
• At the top, select “Customers” in the “Display columns by” parameter.
• Be sure the set your dates and accounting method and Run Report.

The result should be:

• Balance Sheet type of accounts are the rows.
• All of your jobs/projects are the headings at the top for the columns.
• All of your materials and labor building expenses for your jobs should be coded to that “Construction in Progress” asset type of account.

Click on that Construction in Progress number to see the details in another report including each job item description.

Note: AccuraBooks is a bookkeeping firm only, so please consult with your C.P.A. for verification and clarification about the contents of this article.