Using Job Type
GENERAL DISCUSSION
The Job Type list may be accessed in the List menu under the Customer & Vendor Profile Lists section. The Job Type selection is made in the Edit Customer dialog box on the Additional Information tab. The Job Type list is used to differentiate between types of jobs (Custom Home vs Room Addition) for the sole purpose of filtering P&L reports.
The Job Type setting is designed to be used to filter P&L Reports so you may see just the income, costs and profitability of your projects for a specific type of project.
Unfortunately, QuickBooks cannot use the Job Type setting in the Customer Edit dialog box to create separate columns on a P&L Report. In other words, you can’t split a standard P&L Report into columns for each Job Type, you can only filter the report by a single job type.
If you wanted to use the Job Type List to track the income, costs and profitability of your projects for a specific type of project, which is certainly important, you might want to use some of the following Job Types:
- Apartment Building
- Apartment Complex
- Basement Remodeling
- Bathroom Remodel
- Commercial Project
- Commercial Remodeling
- Condominium Building
- Custom Home
- Design Contract
- General Remodeling
- Historic Restoration
- Insurance Work
- Kitchen Remodeling
- Maintenance/Repairs
- Production Home
- Property Inspection
- Rental Property
- Residential Renovation
- Room Addition
- Small Jobs
- Spec House
- Specialty Project
- Townhouse Complex
- Window Replacement
If you are a member of an NAHB Builder 20 group, you might also consider using the Job Type List to track your sales by type of project as required by the Builder 20 reporting format, as follows:
- Commercial
- Custom Homes (with Land)
- Custom Homes (without Land)
- Lot Sales to Others
- Multifamily
- Production (Spec)
- Remodeling
- Semi-Custom (with land)
MY RECOMMENDATION
I believe you should use the Job Type List as it was intended, to distinguish between types of projects and to allow you to easily filter your P&L reports by a specific type of project, thus allowing you to analyze your gross profitability for each type of project you perform, ostensibly to determine what types of projects are the most profitable for you.
The similar Customer Type List, which has the singular advantage over the Job Type List in it’s ability to provide columns on a P&L report, is better suited and thus should be reserved for identifying the completed contracts status of your projects, an obviously important task if your tax liability is being calculated on the Completed Contracts method. Having the ability to generate P&L reports with columns for different tax years by completed contracts far outweighs any need, if any, to have P&L reports with adjacent columns comparing the profitability of different types of projects, a analysis that can just as easily be performed on separate P&L reports using the Job Type List.