Turn on Projects, tag every invoice, bill and expense to the project through the Customer field, and decide before anyone enters time how labor reaches the project, because that one choice changes your profit number. Projects gives a service or home-improvement business profit per job without moving to Desktop-style job costing. It does not give you contract billing, and some features sit on Advanced only. Sources: Intuit’s “Create projects in QuickBooks Online or Intuit Enterprise Suite” (updated 10/6/2026), “How to set up and use projects” and “Track hourly labor costs and profitability by project” (both 8/5/2026) and “Learn about usage limits” (8/5/2026); all read 13 October 2026.
A project is a job record that sits under a customer. Every invoice, bill, check and expense you tag to it rolls into one dashboard, so you stop reconstructing profit per job in a spreadsheet. Intuit’s setup article says that once a project is completed you see its total income, expenses and profit margin, and that the numbers update as you add transactions.
Plan availability is where Intuit’s own pages disagree. The setup article body names QuickBooks Online Plus, Advanced and Intuit Enterprise Suite; another says Plus or Advanced; page tags also list Essentials and Simple Start. Check the Projects option in your own file before you promise a client anything. The usage-limits article (updated 8/5/2026) does not mention projects at all, so we state no project cap. It does give Plus 40 classes and locations combined and Advanced unlimited, which matters if you were using classes as a makeshift job tag.
For a home-improvement or service company, labor is often the largest cost on the job, so this is where project profit goes wrong. Intuit’s labor article (updated 8/5/2026) describes two methods:
| Method | What it uses | When the cost shows up | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Payroll expenses | Wages plus employer taxes and workers’ comp posted from payroll | After each payroll run is processed | Nothing lands on the project until payroll is run |
| Estimated hourly costs | Project timesheet hours times a fixed hourly cost rate per employee | Right away, as time is entered | Intuit says it “might be less accurate”; rates apply only to time tracked after the rate is set |
A dropdown on the project switches between Payroll Expenses and Hourly Costs for all projects. Intuit says changing it does not change your books, only what the project screens show. Two traps follow from the article. The Project profitability report uses payroll expenses only, so “if you only track hourly time costs, this report won’t give you accurate information.” And salaried employees only reach a project if they also fill in timesheets; Intuit suggests dividing annual wage including employer taxes by the weeks in a year, then by average weekly hours, to get their hourly cost rate. Payroll with Intuit is not required for either method.
Run this on your last three finished jobs before you trust the dashboard. Fill the middle column from your own invoices and bills; the right column is a made-up example, not a benchmark.
| Line | Your job | Illustrative job |
|---|---|---|
| Invoiced to the customer (project selected on every invoice) | $____ | $18,000 |
| Materials and supplies (bills, checks, card expenses tagged to the project) | $____ | $6,400 |
| Subcontractors (same tagging) | $____ | $3,100 |
| Labor: hours on the project times hourly cost rate | $____ | 120 h × $38 = $4,560 |
| Profit | $____ | $3,940 |
| Profit margin (profit ÷ invoiced) | ____% | 21.9% |
If the project screen and your worksheet disagree by more than a few percent, the usual cause is one of three things: a cost entered without the project selected, labor counted under the other method, or an hourly cost rate set after the hours were tracked. Fix those before you change anything else.
If you bill in stages against a contract, Projects will not give you a pay application; read AIA-style progress billing: Enterprise Contractor vs Online. If you build products from parts, you need costing, not projects; see QuickBooks Enterprise product costing. If you are deciding between plans because of this feature, start with Plus vs Advanced.
Intuit’s setup article, updated 10/6/2026, names QuickBooks Online Plus, Advanced and Intuit Enterprise Suite, while some page tags also list Essentials and Simple Start. Confirm the option in your own file. Project estimates and estimate-versus-actual tracking are for Advanced.
Go to Account and settings, choose Advanced, and switch on “Organize all job-related activity in one place.” Then create projects from Business overview, Projects, New project.
Two ways. Payroll expenses post to the project after payroll runs. Estimated hourly costs multiply project timesheet hours by a per-employee hourly cost rate and show up immediately, but Intuit says they might be less accurate. Salaried employees must track hours in timesheets to reach a project.
Intuit says the report uses payroll expenses only. If your project screen is set to Hourly Costs, or you only track hourly time costs, the two will differ.
For a profit-per-job view on a service or home-improvement business, often yes. For contract billing, phases with budgets or detailed costing, Intuit puts those on Advanced with the construction add-on or Intuit Enterprise Suite, so check your plan first.
We are not a CPA firm or tax adviser. Ask your CPA how labor burden and overhead should be treated in job profit. Want Projects set up and your job history cleaned up for you? See our bookkeeping service.
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Founder of Numerawise Solutions, established MMXXIV in Atlanta. Intuit ProAdvisor Gold tier. Former Intuit Technical Support engineer. Has personally led two hundred accounting software conversions for US small businesses since founding the practice. Reachable directly at [email protected].