Adding in operational costs paid out as costs of business

[UncleRed99]

Hello all!

I've got a quick question regarding operational costs... 

So to provide context to the question, I am a mobile auto repair service. I have a client's vehicle that I'm actually going to tow to my HQ location to perform extensive repairs to, since my equipment is at home base, and this is an 89' year model car needing a ton of work... 

Towing the vehicle is going to be done via family assistance using their company tow wrecker. I did not want to charge my client for this, but am using partial of my repair service fee in the service invoice to compensate the tow, and would like it to be reflected in my reporting that it was a deduction of $$$ from the revenue collected from this work order. 

Is there any way to manually add in "Operational Costs" or "Costs of Conducting Business" in one way or another? If not, has anyone personally used some other method within the current functionality of Square that would produce that result without it being a specific function? 

Thanks In Advance!!

- Uncle Red

The title of this thread has been edited from the original by a Community Moderator to help with searching threads. 

[Candlestore · Accepted solution]

@UncleRed99 ;

My suggestion would be to add an item or Service called Towing.  Since this type of service/item maybe used more than once if you start getting more customers that require it.  Even if you have it and hardly use it, Square does let you have a huge catalog of Items and Services.  I am of 6500 items now.  By doing this you can charge the customer and it shows what they were charged for.

Now if you are trying to show this as a bill for doing business, this would require an accounting software program.  Square does not have this kind of detail for operating and tracking costs for Utilities, Rent, Advertising or other Operational types of expenses.  

Free starter version of an accounting package might be good for your example and also lets you keep track of your other overhead expenses ( tool purchases for example).

Here are some free ones:

https://www.waveapps.com 

https://www.zoho.com/us/books/pricing/ 

https://www.odoo.com/app/accounting 

There might be more Here is a list of the best free ones from Nerd Wallet which lists the 3 I linked to above.

https://www.nerdwallet.com/best/small-business/best-free-small-business-accounting-software 

I can not recommend one over the other as I use QuickBooks Desktop which is now only available through a monthly or yearly subscription.