This report shows you whether your finances are on track for all your active jobs with estimates, and what your expected cost is to complete each of these jobs. You might want to run this report every week or two to keep a close eye on your expenses. Then if you start heading above your estimated costs, you can take action quickly to reduce costs before it's too late.

For each active job with an estimate, the report shows your estimated cost, the percentage the job is complete, and the actual cost to date. From these numbers, QuickBooks calculates and displays the cost to complete the job (that is, the estimated remaining cost), the expected actual cost (the actual cost to date plus the estimated cost to complete), and the amount over or under the estimate.

In order for QuickBooks to calculate cost to complete and expected actual cost of a given job, you need to have entered at least a summary estimate for that job into QuickBooks, and you need to tell QuickBooks how far along you are on the estimate items. When you run this report, QuickBooks first displays the Update Item Percent Complete window, which you use to indicate how far along you are on each item that appears on an active estimate. Enter a percentage for each item, indicating how close the item is to completion. See updating item percent complete for more information. If you don't enter a percent complete for an item, QuickBooks assumes the item is 0% complete.

The "% Complete" column is always defined as how complete the job is in total. If you change the Columns drop-down list to something other than "Total only," this column will not change.

This report shows a summary of the cost to complete all your jobs with active estimates. If you'd prefer to see the cost to complete for each item of a specific job, use the Cost to Complete by Job Detail report.

To create this report

From the Reports menu, choose Contractor and then Cost to Complete by Job Summary.

From the Reports menu, choose Project Costing and then Cost to Complete by Job Summary.

From the Reports menu, choose Industry Specific, then Contractor, and then Cost to Complete by Job Summary.

Related topics

• Getting the most out of a report

• Memorizing a report for reuse