Pro Services - Billing Rates

I have only one employee, but my rates change depending upon the year the contract was opened. I also have two different rates for any one contract year, depending upon the type of work involved.

In the Item list I have multiple types of Consulting Services. My clients do not get the QB-generated invoices. I use an Excel form I created for their monthly statements since I provide far more information on the services performed each day than QB can deal with. I can therefore code the different consulting Services anyway I want.

If your clients get the QB-generated invoices, using codes for the different types of Consulting Services, as you seem to be already doing, is probably the best way.

-- Vic Roberts Replace xxx with vdr in e-mail address.

If you don't mind a terribly huge item list you can setup items by client.

Client 1 Consulting

-Client 1 Sr. Developer

-Client 1 Developer

-Client 1 Other

This allows you to set the billable amount per employee, per client using Service Items. As I said though, it can get to be a pretty big list. I'd recommend judicial use of inactivating items (client rates) to keep your list shorter on viewing.

I was afraid of that - seems the item list is the way to go and the Pro Services edition really doesn't help us out in terms of multiple billing rates. The Pro Services Edition should really be multiple billing rates per customer and per employee. There should be a link between customers and employees that service that customer.

Just my 2 cents, Mark

That is the reason there are time and billing software packages on the market.

Allan -

Understood - as person who makes a living by creating software for clients, I know they need to keep their partners happy. However, if you want to make Premier Industry editions why not make something useful instead of getting half way there. I would much prefer Intuit stay at the Premier level and then tell customers they need to buy a partner's product. But then you run the risk of these add-ons with limited features costing MORE then the base accounting package. Which is what most of the decent time and billing products cost now. However, they also include a lot more features then most small business need. So, back to my original comment - Intuit should allow for the basic functionality for the industry editions and let the complex features be partner related.

Just my 2 sents, mark

Actually I was not refering to third party add-ons or any product even related to Quickbooks. If time and billing is a vital part of your business then look to those products that are dedicated to that function.