Does QuickBooks Online offer job costing?

QuickBooks Online doesn’t have a separate “Job Costing” feature, but you can track job or project profitability using built-in tools. The two most common ways are Projects (recommended for Plus and Advanced plans) and sub-customers (works on all plans). Both let you see income, expenses, and profitability per job.

1. Use Projects (QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced only)

Projects is a dedicated job-tracking tool that associates income and expenses with a specific job, automatically keeping things organized.

• From the left navigation menu, select Projects.
• Click New Project.
• Enter a project name and choose the Customer this job belongs to.
• Add any notes, start/end dates, and save.

Now, whenever you create an invoice, expense, bill, cheque, or time activity, select the project from the Project dropdown on the transaction form. Labour costs and billable time can also be tracked.

To see job profitability: From the Projects list, click the project name and review the Project Overview tab, which shows income, costs, and profit for that job. You can also run a Profit & Loss by Customer report and filter by project or run the Project Profitability report (available in Advanced).

2. Use sub-customers (all plans)

Set up a “job” as a sub-customer under a main customer, then assign transactions to it.

Add a sub-customer

1. Go to Sales > Customers (or Expenses > Customers, depending on your navigation).
2. Click New customer.
3. Enter the job name (e.g., “Smith Remodel – Kitchen”) and fill in contact info.
4. Tick Is sub-customer.
5. Choose the Parent customer from the dropdown.
6. Under billing, select Bill this customer or Bill with parent (usually, you want Bill with parent so invoices go to the main customer but job costs are tracked).
7. Click Save.

Record transactions against the job

When creating an invoice, expense, bill, or cheque, pick the sub-customer in the Customer field. This ties income/costs to that specific job.

See profitability per job

Run the Profit & Loss by Customer report (from Reports, search for “Profit and Loss by Customer”). You’ll see each sub-customer broken out with its own income, cost, and profit. For total project tracking, you can group reports by the parent customer.

Which method is right for you?

• If you’re on Plus or Advanced and want separate job cost centres with dedicated reporting, use Projects.
• If you need a lightweight way to view job income vs. expenses across all plans, sub-customers work fine.

For very detailed job costing (estimating, change orders, subcontractor management), you might consider an integrated app. Browse the QuickBooks App Store and search for job costing tools that connect with QuickBooks Online.