I have employees that use the corporate van for jobs.
They fill up as needed using the company card. I would like to enter figure out how much these jobs are costing me in gas (maybe tolls as well).
What is the best way to enter the gas expenses into quickbooks? Do I create a bill for each gas expense? Or I do it some other way.
I am starting to sync my credit card statements to quickbooks, so I am going to what to match them up.
Do you use a third party program like expensify?
Thank you
Sounds like a job for fleet management products unless you really mean "a company van" and not multiple.
Just an example (Verizon Telematics).
We use Verizon Networkfleet to track service and inspections for our trucks. Super helpful.
We use QB 2017 Desktop and most of our purchases are expensed to a job.
Write a check to the gas station, and in the customer:job field you would enter the customer.
Easiest thing to do is when they turn their receipts in, they write the job name on the receipt.
IMO this is a pretty minor thing to track per job. I would not bother. $30 per fill up gets us through 3-5 days of installs. $30 on a week long install is a drop in the bucket. Plus mix in service calls or a stop at another client and there is no way to tell how much fuel was actually used per job. Not to mention how fuel was in the truck before the jo started etc.
We expense all trips to Home Depot, parts, etc to clients. But I also know when my crew buys conduit fittings, screws, anchors etc, some of those materials are getting used on future jobs. I also know they are using items that were expensed to prior projects.
Our projects are flat bids, so the client does not get billed. This just helps figure profit per job. But if you try to calculate it down to the penny, you are going to spend more time and money than it's worth.
It just dawned on me, instead of tracking fuel purchases, keeping a log of mileage would be much better. Anytime your tech moves the van, he logs where he is going. Probably be a pain to enforce
If you want to get down to those details, you might as well add in operating costs like oil changes, brake jobs, tires, general wear and tear, etc.
You could use the IRS mileage rate, but that is geared more to lighter duty vehicle usage (traveling sales person model).
Every vehicle is going to be different, but a good way to get to an average per-mile operating cost is to track all expenses, and miles, for a given vehicle over a 1 year period and then compute an average mileage operating rate. This will likely go up as the vehicle gets older (out of warranty, etc), but should give you a good baseline.
Then, you track mileage for each job, and multiply by your vehicle operating costs and you should have a good idea of what each job 'costs' in terms of vehicle expenses.
You may find that some of your vehicles are more cost-effective than others (assuming they are not all the same/similarly loaded).
To be more accurate, you should also factor in depreciation.
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