QuickBooks 2005: The Missing Manual

Running Time Reports

Customers don't like being charged for too many hours, and workers are quick to complain if they're paid for too few. Before you use time records, generate time reports that QuickBooks provides to make sure your time data is correct.

To generate a report, choose Reports→Jobs, Time & Mileage, and then choose the report you want. Here're the reports you can choose and what they're useful for:

• Time by Job Summary. Review the total hours worked on a job during a period. If the hours seem too high or low, you can drill down with the Time by Job Detail report. This report groups hours first by customer or job and then by Service item. Because of the high-level view in this report, it's perfect for spotting time charged to inappropriate Service items or hours that exceed job limits.

• Time by Job Detail. If you want to verify that hours were correctly set as billable or non-billable, use this report. It's grouped by job and Service item, but each time entry shows the date the hours were worked, who performed the work, and whether the work is billable. If hours are billable but not yet invoiced, the report shows the Billing status as Unbilled.

• Time by Name. This report shows the hours worked by person, with the hours worked for each customer or job. If a person reports too many or too few hours for a period, use the Weekly Timesheet dialog box to look for signs of inaccurate or missing time reports.

• Time by Item. This report groups hours by Service item and then by job. ...