Tracking non-billable time in QuickBooks is pretty important to your business. It is important to know where your employees are spending their time that can't be billed back to a customer. Some business owners may argue that tracking non-billable time is a waste since all time should be considered part of the process of driving new sales. However, by tracking it you can identify patterns and opportunities that you may be missing with your non-billable time. Watch this video to learn more about how to track non-billable time and report on it in QuickBooks.
Set up non-billable time as items in QuickBooks
While there are other ways I can think of to track non-billable time in QuickBooks I use the item list. I like setting up non-billable events as items in QuickBooks because I think it works well with the reporting, which I will touch on later. I first start by opening the item list by going to Lists/Item List, along the top of your QuickBooks screen. I then create a new account called Non-Billable time as a service type item. I use this item as the parent item for all other non-billable items. Now create various non-billable items that pertain to your business and make them sub-items of the parent item non-billable time. Some suggestions for non-billable time would be blogging, networking, internet marketing, cold calling etc. Any item that you can't bill a particular customer for should be considered non-billable.
Use non-billable items in your employees' timesheets
From the QuickBooks home screen when you click on Enter Time/Use Weekly Timesheet it will bring up a Timesheet screen. From the drop down you can select a particular employee. In the details of the spreadsheet one of the items is service item. On the service item drop down you will see the various non-billable items that you set up to track. Now you simply fill out the non-billable time for each employee for that particular week.
Reporting on non-billable time in QuickBooks
You can find all the reports relating to time tracking in QuickBooks by going to Reports/Jobs, Time & Mileage. The two reports that I will highlight are the time by name and time by item report. The time by name report will show you a summary of hours by item for each employee. You can then drill into each employee's hours to see the details. The time by item report will show you how many hours are being spent on each item for your entire company. You can then drill into those items to see who is spending their time on what items.
While tracking non-billable time may not seem important it can offer you valuable information that can be crucial to helping you grow your business.
