Start by enabling Projects in your account settings. Go to Settings, then Account and Settings, then Advanced. Look for the Projects section and turn it on. Once enabled, you’ll see a Projects option in your left navigation menu.

Each project ties to a customer. When you create a new project, you select which customer it belongs to. If you do multiple jobs for the same client, each becomes a separate project under that customer’s name. This structure works well for contractors, consultants, agencies, and anyone else doing distinct engagements for repeat clients.

The key to useful project tracking is assigning every transaction. When you enter an expense, bill, invoice, or time entry, select the project in the Customer/Project field. Income shows as project revenue. Expenses show as project costs. The difference is your profit margin on that specific job.

Run the Project Profitability report to see how each project is performing. You can view total income, total costs, and the resulting margin. QBO also shows unbilled time and expenses, which helps when you need to invoice for reimbursables or catch time that hasn’t been billed yet.

Projects works best when your work has clear start and end points. Construction jobs, marketing campaigns, consulting engagements, and event planning all fit naturally. If you’re doing ongoing monthly services without discrete projects, you might find Classes or Tags more useful than the Projects feature.

The biggest reason project tracking fails is inconsistent transaction assignment. You enter expenses but forget to select the project. You wait two weeks to categorize things and can’t remember which job the materials were for. By the time you run reports, half your costs are sitting in “unassigned” and your profitability numbers mean nothing. Assign transactions the same day they happen.

Projects is available in QBO Plus and Advanced, not in Simple Start or Essentials. If you’re on a lower tier and can’t upgrade, you’ll need to track jobs using sub-customers or Classes instead. Both approaches work but require different report configurations.

For businesses doing complex job costing, Projects provides a starting point but may not be enough on its own. Construction companies often need to separate labor, materials, and subcontractor costs within each project. That requires combining Projects with a properly structured chart of accounts and possibly QBO setup that accounts for how you actually estimate and bid work.

If your project tracking isn’t giving you useful profitability data, the issue is usually setup or discipline rather than the software itself. A bookkeeping service familiar with project-based businesses can configure your file correctly and build workflows that make consistent tracking easier to maintain.