A great article that I just had to share from a newsletter that I subscribe to.
There are many reasons why you should check the references of prospective employees. Often, applicants’ resumes and application forms are incomplete or even contain misrepresentations that could lead to a bad hiring decision. So, if you check references, you can help eliminate undesirable applicants, identify the best candidate, reduce turnover and training costs, and even prevent liability for negligent hiring.
At a minimum, carefully conducted reference checks can help ensure that your hiring decisions are more informed. Generally, reference checks should be made before the offer of employment is extended so that you have as much information about a candidate as possible. However, it may be difficult to get a reference-giver to provide helpful information because of their fears of defamation claims and restrictive corporate policies allowing only the release of a former employee’s “name, rank, and serial number.” The following five strategies can help your organization conduct effective reference checks:
- Insist that every applicant sign a release. Never check references before obtaining the candidate’s written permission to do so. Consent is a strong defense to defamation and other tort (wrongful act) claims an applicant may bring, and it also generally is required under the Fair Credit Reporting Act before an employer can use a third party to conduct checks. To protect further against applicant lawsuits, the consent form also should include language that releases the organization and its agents, as well as former employers and reference givers, from any legal liability that may result from the checks.
- Get job-related information from applicants. Before conducting reference checks, request that applicants provide background documentation such as old pay stubs, business cards, job descriptions, and performance appraisals. These items can be used to verify information provided in resumes, application forms, and interviews and can help identify specific issues to follow up on in reference inquiries.
- Minimize reference resistance. Expect reference sources to be guarded, or even defensive, since so many organizations try to limit potential legal exposure by releasing only the “name, rank and serial number” of former employees. To facilitate the process, fax or mail the signed consent and release to the reference giver. When calling references, the interviewer can help break the ice by briefly sharing information about himself, the organization, and the job the candidate has applied for. Some employers even ask an applicant to contact referrers first to help ensure that they can actually get through to them.
- Keep questions pertinent. To obtain relevant and consistent information on applicants, develop a reference check form with a list of standard questions and require its use for all checks. At a minimum, the form should cover the basics including dates of employment, positions held, and pay rates. In addition, it should contain open-ended questions about skills, qualifications, strengths, weaknesses, work habits, and suitability for the position. The form also should include specific questions about performance issues and disciplinary actions, eligibility for rehire, and reasons for leaving.
- Document responses, even if limited. Keep an accurate written record of all your reference discussions to support your hiring decisions and to help protect against negligent hiring, defamation, and other legal claims. And, if the reference giver refuses to provide any information, document the request and the lack of cooperation.
Of course, reference checks are just one of many tools that you need to make a good hiring decision. You also should verify other information on a candidate’s resume or application (such as educational history pertinent to the job) and consider performing additional background checks (such as criminal, credit, and driving checks) if the nature of the job warrants these checks. In addition, you may want to conduct skills testing to further evaluate a candidate’s abilities. All of these steps will help you make more effective hiring decisions.
Download a FREE 42 page sample hiring model policy that includes Labor Law Posters from HR Matters.
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Distributed by Sunburst Software Solutions, Inc. with permission from:
HR Matters E-Tips, copyright Personnel Policy Service, Inc., Louisville, KY, all rights reserved, the HR Policy and Employment Law Compliance Experts for over 30 years, 1-800-437-3735. Personnel Policy Service markets group legal service benefits and publishes HR information products, including the free weekly electronic newsletter, HR Matters E-Tips (www.ppspublishers.com/hrmetips.htm). This article is not intended as legal advice. Readers are encouraged to seek appropriate legal or other professional advice.
There are many times that a contractor will want to create a budget, to capture the costs and markup, for a job that they are working on. There are several methods to do so, but the one that I like best is to create a custom Estimate that will track estimated costs (the budget) a planned mark-up and a fixed sales price to the customer. This method is available to contractors using QuickBooks Pro, Premier (any flavor), or Enterprise (any flavor).
To accomplish this we’ll start at the Lists menu -> Templates ->
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This will open a window displaying a list of all the available form templates within QuickBooks; scroll down until you find the Custom Estimate template – click on it to highlight it.
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Click the Templates button at the bottom and select Duplicate -> Estimate -> and click OK. Your list now contains a template named Copy of: Custom Estimate. Double-click on this template. This opens the Basic Customization window.
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Click the Manage Templates button, this opens the Manage Templates window. In the Template Name field, change the name FROM Copy of: Custom Estimate to something like Estimate with Budget and click the OK button.
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Back at the Basic Customization window, you can:
- Insert/Use your company logo on the Estimate form by clicking into the box just in front of the words “Use logo”, this activates the Select Logo button and you can browse to the location of your logo file on your computer.
- Select a Color Scheme - click the drop down menu and choose from: Black, Gray, Maroon, Green, Blue or Beige.
- Change Font For – Title, Company Name, Company Address, Labels, Data, Subtotals Label, or Totals Label; you can change the Font Style, Color, and Size.
- Company & Transaction Information – select by checking whether or not you with to display Company Name, Company Address, Fax Number, Phone Number, Email Address, or Web Site Address. Click the Update Information button to make sure that the items you have selected are available in the Company Information window.
- Additional Customization button – this is the button that we want to click on.
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Clicking the Additional Customization button displays a window with several tabs – Header, Columns, Footer, and Print. These tabs allow you to design an Estimate that will meet the needs of your company. Starting with the Header tab, you can choose whether you want to print the following items on the actual Estimate form or to simply display them on your Estimate form, you can also change the titles of all the options available. Standard options include: Title (form Title), Date, Estimate #, Name/Address (billing), Ship To, Project/Job, P.O. Number, Terms, Due Date, Rep, Account Number, FOB, Other, and any Custom Fields that you have created in the Customer and/or Job Record.
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When you have made your selections, click on the Columns tab. Here you want to make sure that the Item, Description, Quantity, Cost, Amount, Markup, and Total items are selected to display on your Screen; while the Description, Quantity, Amount and Total are selected to Print on the actual form. You can also change the title of these fields if you wish – for example, you can change the Markup title to Profit & Overhead.
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Click on the Footer tab. Here, you can choose to Print a Message, Subtotal, Sales Tax, Total, and Signature on the final form. You will not be able to choose to display on your form the Subtotal, Signature, or Plain Text items. When you are ready click the Layout Designer button.
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The Layout Designer allows you to arrange the elements that you have selected to appear on your printed Estimate form. In most instances clicking on an item will allow you to drag it to another location or resize it.
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When you have arranged everything to your satisfaction click the OK button twice, and close the Templates List window.
Using the New Estimate:
When you use the new Estimate form, you need to use it in a specific order – enter information in the Item, Quantity, Cost and the Markup/Profit & Overhead columns. Overhead & Profit can be entered as a fixed dollar amount or a percentage – if you use a percentage you MUST enter the % sign.
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When you enter the line items on your estimate in this way, QuickBooks automatically calculates the Total that you will be charging your customer using the following formula: Quantity (15) times Cost (125.00) = Est. Amount (1875.00) plus Profit & Overhead (33.3% or 624.375) equals Total (2499.38). You’ll also notice that QuickBooks will keep track of the totals of your Estimated Amount, your Profit & Overhead, and the Total that you will charge your customer.
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When you’ve entered all of the vendor bills for this job and have billed it off to your customer, you should run an Actual vs. Estimate Report to see how you did. Compare the numbers from the report to the totals of your Estimate to see where you need to adjust your Profit & Overhead. Keep in mind that any difference in cost will effect your total Profit & Overhead.
Let’s assume that you had a small job, you estimated costs at $2375.00 added a total Profit & Overhead of $749.38 for a total contract of $3124.38.
When all bills were entered your actual cost was $2500.00 or $125.00 more than you Estimated; this means that your Profit on the Job is really $624.38 ($749.38 Estimated Profit & Overhead MINUS $125.00).
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Having access to this information is vital to your bidding process.
News from the National Association of Government Contractors
SBA officials announced on Oct. 4 that the agency is setting up procedures to help woman-owned small businesses gain more access to the federal contracting marketplace. A final rule is forthcoming in the Federal Register.
Working with the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council, SBA officials will begin a four-month implementation of the Women-Owned Small Business program. They will be building infrastructure to support the certification process and allowing for ongoing oversight.
Officials say that by early 2011 contracts will begin to become available to small businesses owned by women under the program. Such an initiative has been promised for years to bolster access to women-owned businesses who have been an historically under-represented segment of the government contracting community.
The proposed rule states that the purpose “is to enable contracting officers to identify and establish a sheltered market for competition.”
Under an amended statute, contracting officers can set aside a portion of contracts for women business owners without first giving preference to other types of business.
In SBA’s rule, officials identified over 80 industries in which women would be eligible for federal contract assistance under the new program.
To formulate this list SBA officials used the analysis in a 2007 study commissioned by SBA from the Kauffman-Rand Foundation to identify industries where women are underrepresented.
Welcome to the launch of “Freebie Friday’s” here on the #QuickBooks for Contractors blog.
Each Friday we will be offering a free QuickBooks related eBook, offering tips, tricks, and training – so stayed tuned, visit often or sign up to have our posts delivered daily via email.
To start off our Freebie Friday’s eBook give away, we are offering an 18-page eBook called Payroll Mistakes – It’s Not As Easy as 1-2-3 ; it seemed appropriate since year end payroll is just around the corner. After all, payroll is an essential part of your business – not just a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly annoyance. Payroll is the primary way that employees are rewarded for good job performance and retained. If you are issuing late or incorrect paychecks it can lead to dissatisfied, unmotivated workers – or worse. It’s hard to keep good employees when a company gets payroll wrong.
FREE Payroll Mistakes eBook:
Learn common mistakes that occur during the hiring process, paycheck generation, at year end, and all year long. Request our FREE 18 page eBook; Payroll Mistakes – It’s NOT As Easy As 1-2-3, which expands on common mistakes and learn how to avoid them.
Have you or your clients received a QuickBooks 2011 message window, when you are not connected to the internet, stating:
We can’t detect your internet connection, so we can’t verify your QuickBooks subscription.
I frequently receive this message and others when I work on my Vista laptop and it is not connected to the internet. Is QuickBooks 2011 “phoning home” to Intuit? I seriously believe that it is phoning home to Intuit on a daily basis – either that or I’ve found a bug.
Background:
QuickBooks Premier Accountant 2011 R3P with no internet connection on a Vista 32 bit laptop, a Windows 7 64-bit laptop AND a Windows 7 64-bit desktop; logged in as a Windows “Standard” User.
Details of the problem:
Boot computer normally. The Vista (or Windows 7) User Account Control window will appear, displaying the following message:
A program needs your permission to continue
QuickBooks Utility Application
When I click on the Details option, the following file name and location displays on Vista:
C:\Program Files\Intuit\QuickBooks 2011\DBManagerExe.exe, Start Server 256
When I enter the Admin password, QuickBooks launches automatically – without my doing anything – and a window appears stating:
We can’t detect your internet connection, so we can’t verify your QuickBooks subscription. Check that you are connected to the Internet and click Retry.
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Because I know that I’m not connected to the Internet, I click Cancel (clicking Retry only makes the message display again).
QuickBooks 2011 then loads, but loads “oddly” – meaning that it doesn’t load the Home page, the Icon bar, or even the last company file that I had open – only the Menu bar loads but even that does not load properly.
The ONLY items that are active on the menu bar are the File and Help menus.
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Using the File menu, I scroll down to the Open Previous Company option; which displays no previous files – when in fact it should display 9 different company files that I have been working with.
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In order to actually open a company file, I have to use the Open or Restore Company option and browse/select which file I want to work with.
This behavior has been happening consistently on my Vista laptop every morning this week (I use this machine in the wee hours of the morning on the comfort of my couch).
I decided to test my theory, so when I came to work this morning I unplugged my Windows 7 desktop and my husbands Windows 7 laptop (both 64-bit machines).
I experienced different results with these machines, which leads me to believe the following:
- If you have selected the option to Keep QuickBooks running for faster startups (Edit menu -> Preferences -> General Preference -> My Preferences tab) AND you are not connected to the internet; then you will experience the UAC Window for the QuickBooks Utility Application. If you turn this option off, you will not receive this any longer.
- I believe that the “Can’t Verify Subscription” message is due to having signed up for an Intuit Workplace Application at one point or another and canceled the subscription. My husband who has never signed up for an Intuit Workplace Application did not receive the “Can’t Verify subscription” message – while I have signed up to test Intuit Workplace Applications.
I have submitted this as a “bug” to Intuit.
I’m making this information available because I have seen others post about the same issues and thought that you would like a “heads up”.
