Export or back up the relevant data first. Do not delete, void, unreconcile, or adjust historical transactions unless you understand the accounting impact.
Menu names can change. We link current first-party instructions so you can confirm product behavior before acting.
Use a QuickBooks project as a governed container for one customer engagement, not as a substitute for the chart of accounts or a task-management system. Confirm current plan availability, create a naming rule, assign every relevant sale, cost, and approved labor record to the project, investigate unallocated activity, compare estimates with actuals where supported, and close the project only after billing, costs, cash, and profitability are complete.
Best for: project-based businesses, finance teams, and bookkeepers using QuickBooks Online Projects
What this guide covers—and what it does not
The page owns one search intent: operating the QuickBooks Projects workflow from setup through profitability and close. Related jobs have their own canonical guides so you can move between them without mixing product selection, setup, troubleshooting, and migration advice.
- This page owns the generic QuickBooks Online Projects feature and profitability workflow.
- The contractor guide owns construction or contractor operating practices and the 1099 guide owns contractor reporting.
- Projects do not replace operational scheduling, resource planning, change approval, or a subledger when those controls are required.
Evidence-first workflow
Run one project from authorization to close
The project record is reliable only when its scope, transaction assignment, review, and close status follow one controlled sequence.
- 1
Define
Record the customer, engagement, owner, dates, scope, pricing basis, cost model, and project naming rule.
Evidence: The project can be distinguished from every other engagement.
- 2
Estimate
Set approved revenue, cost, labor, and margin expectations in the supported planning workflow.
Evidence: The baseline agrees with the approved commercial record.
- 3
Capture
Assign invoices, expenses, bills, time, credits, and adjustments to the correct project exactly once.
Evidence: Source documents trace to project activity without duplicate posting.
- 4
Review
Investigate unbilled, unallocated, late, missing, or misclassified activity and compare actuals with the baseline.
Evidence: Profitability is reproducible from underlying transactions.
- 5
Close
Finish billing, accrue or record remaining costs, reconcile balances, document variance, and mark the project complete.
Evidence: No open commercial or accounting item remains without an owner.
Decision control
Choose from evidence, not a feature list
Use the same four gates for operating the QuickBooks Projects workflow from setup through profitability and close: define the job, surface constraints, choose the smallest workable option, then verify the records.
Choose the right tracking object
Use the smallest structure that preserves customer, operational, and reporting meaning without entering the same dimension twice.
| Your situation | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| One engagement for an existing customer | Use a Project | The project groups engagement-specific income, cost, time, and profitability beneath the customer. |
| A branch, department, or enduring business segment | Use class or location | An organizational dimension should not be reopened as a new project for every period. |
| Tasks, dependencies, resource capacity, or approvals | Use a project-management system | QuickBooks Projects is an accounting view and does not replace operational delivery controls. |
| A separate legal entity | Use a separate company and consolidation process | A project cannot create legal-entity separation or standalone books. |
Design the project model before creating records
Write the rule for when a project begins, what identifies it, which customer owns it, who may create or close it, and how changes are approved. Include a stable project code in the name when names can repeat. Decide whether phases belong in items, custom fields, estimates, or the operating system rather than creating uncontrolled project fragments.
Confirm current plan and regional availability before promising a workflow. Intuit currently documents Projects for eligible Online plans, while cost-estimate and advanced reporting capabilities can differ. Test the exact account with representative transactions.
- Customer and project identifiers
- Contract and estimate reference
- Project manager and finance owner
- Start, target completion, and accounting close dates
- Revenue, direct-cost, labor, and overhead policy
Assign complete income, cost, and labor activity
Require the project selection on every supported source transaction that belongs to the engagement. Review bills, expenses, checks, credit-card activity, invoices, credits, time, payroll-derived labor, and imported records. A project report cannot recover costs that were posted only to a general account with no project dimension.
Define how reimbursable and billable expenses work. Billable status is a customer-billing control, while project assignment is a profitability control; neither proves that the cost was authorized or invoiced. Prevent a second system from importing an event already posted manually.
Changing a historical project assignment changes project reporting and may affect customer billing. Preserve the original report and approval before bulk corrections.
Reconcile project profitability instead of trusting the headline
Compare project income to customer invoices and credits, direct costs to source documents, labor to approved time or payroll cost, and unbilled amounts to the commercial record. Investigate zero-cost items, expenses without a project, revenue with no estimate, negative margins, stale unbilled work, and transactions dated outside the project period.
Document the reporting basis. Cash-basis project results can differ from accrual economics, and an internal labor cost rate can differ from payroll expense. State which measure management is using and retain the report settings with the review.
Close the project with an exception record
Before marking a project complete, issue final invoices and credits, resolve customer deposits, record approved final costs, review unpaid bills, clear unbilled time and expenses, and explain the final estimate-to-actual variance. Confirm accounts receivable and cash separately; completed work is not the same as collected cash.
Retain the contract, approved changes, estimate, final profitability report, unbilled review, customer balance, project exception log, and close approval. Reopening should require a reason and a second close review.
Completion checklist
Do not call the decision or setup complete until someone independent of the initial change can verify these items.
Frequently asked questions
Is a QuickBooks project the same as a customer or sub-customer?
No. A project sits under a customer and groups one engagement. Test reporting, billing, imports, and integrations before converting an established sub-customer design.
Why is project profit wrong?
Common causes include missing project assignments, costs posted through unsupported paths, zero-cost items, unapproved labor rates, duplicate imports, credits, or a cash-versus-accrual mismatch. Reconcile the detail rather than changing the target margin.
Should every job be a separate QuickBooks company?
Normally no. Use a project for an engagement within one legal entity. Separate company files are for entities or books that genuinely require separation.
Still comparing adjacent tasks? Use the complete guide library to find the one page that owns your intent.
Optional free utilities
Tools that support this workflow
These run in your browser and can help prepare or inspect files. They do not replace reconciliation, source-document review, or an accountant’s approval.
Sources checked
First-party product documentation used to verify the workflow and risk notes in this guide.