QuickBooks: How do i set up jobs and items correctly?

Question

In quickbooks i need to set up jobs and items. I sell software so here is a list of the things i charge for.

1. license fee
2. annual maintenance fee
3. implementation costs (like installation and training)
4. additional development (programming of add ons)
5. tech support phone calls

if they add on new off the shelf modules, they will pay more licnese fee. Once a year they pay maitnenance fee. Each new add on they request that is not off the shelf is a development rate.

My question is how do i set up quickbook jobs and items to cover these things correctly? I dont really have a good handle on how this works. what is a job and what is an item? any suggestions on how i can make this work for my business?

thanks.

Answer 1

Jobs are different areas of work one may wish to add under a Customer. You cannot have a job without a customer to put it under. For example, Customer Joe Smith may wish you to develop software for billing (job: billing software) and then may need accounting software (job: accounting software). You can have many jobs under one customer. To set up: Add Customer (Lists, Customer:Job List, Add Customer) then highligth that Customer and click Customer/Job button and Add Job.

Items are what you would base an invoice on. For example, different kinds of software. You can input how much you pay for the item and what you sell it for. The five areas that you charge for would be items since you would bill your customers for them. However, you do not need to put a selling price in unless it remains the same most of the time. So for some items (probably your maintenance fee) you can put in the selling price when you set up the item. To do this, you can go to Lists, Item List, Item button on bottom of window, Add Item. Fill in as much information that will help you in maintaining inventory and creating an invoice without making it so automatic that you risk not changing prices that should be changed.

Good luck. I hope this helps.