You can set up a job ID in the Maintain Jobs window.
If you want to track only the total cost incurred or total profit from a job, you can use a job ID and not specify phases (stages) or cost codes, which are categories of expense (Sage 50 Premium Accounting and higher). For example, if you are a painter who paints murals for clients, it may not be beneficial to divide your job costs into stages because stages may not have accompanied costs. Also, dividing your costs into labor, materials, and subcontractor may not be very useful to you since you may paint all by yourself and charge by complexity of a job, not materials used. Other examples can be:
If you need to categorize the cost of material or time or labor, you can set up phases and cost types in your jobs.
Understanding the advantages of using jobs
Setting up a job ID with phases (Sage 50 Premium Accounting and higher)
Setting up a job ID with phases and cost codes (Sage 50 Premium Accounting and higher)
Using cost types with cost codes in phases (Sage 50 Premium Accounting and higher)