Vendors & Accounts Payable | QuickBooks for Contractors blog

19Mar 2015 by Nancy Smyth

Tips for Effectively Using QuickBooks Purchase Orders

Job Costing Tips, Vendors & Accounts Payable

Using Purchase Orders and running the Open Purchase Orders by Job report in QuickBooks are excellent tools for General Contractors as well as Subcontractors who sub out a portion of the job to someone else. Purchase Orders can also be customized and used to record a verbal bid for materials from a supplier as well as using them to create an Invitation to Bid, which will ultimately be sent to several subcontractors at once. Using Purchase Orders in QuickBooks can help you to ensure that your Subcontractors or Material Suppliers do not charge you more than what they originally quoted you for a price and the Open Purchase Order by Job Report can help you to see how much in committed costs there are left on your jobs. Both very…

06May 2014 by Nancy Smyth

Is Managing QuickBooks Purchase Orders Driving You Insane?

Questions from our readers, Vendors & Accounts Payable

Implementing the QuickBooks Purchase Order function can speed up data entry and ensure accurate job costing, because you don’t have to worry if you are selecting the correct cost code from the QuickBooks Item List; BUT knowing which Purchase Order belongs to which Vendor Bill can be quite a task – see this question from a reader. Hi, We are a growing construction business and we have recently starting creating Purchase Orders to our Subcontractors and Materials Suppliers from our QuickBooks Estimates – this feature works great and I love it. It makes data entry so much easier and allows us to easily see if our costs are increasing without our knowledge. We have one vendor that we buy the majority of our materials from, so we have a lot…

26Nov 2013 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks at Year-End: Getting Ready for 1099’s

1099"s, Payroll Tips, Reports, Vendors & Accounts Payable

Here we are almost at year end and one of the tasks that we will soon be faced with in QuickBooks is getting ready to issue 1099's. According to the IRS, business owners must file Form 1099-MISC for each person to whom you have paid at least $10.00 in royalties or broker payments in lieu of dividends or tax-exempt interest; at least $600 in rents, services (including parts and materials), prizes and awards, other income payments, medical and health care payments, crop insurance proceeds, cash payments for fish (or other aquatic life) you purchase from anyone engaged in the trade or business of catching fish, or, generally, the cash paid from a notional principal contract to an individual, partnership, or estate; any fishing boat proceeds, or gross proceeds of $600,…

21Nov 2013 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Year-End Tip – Tracking 1099 & W-9 Information

1099"s, IRS Information, Payroll Tips, Reports, Vendors & Accounts Payable

Every vendor record in QuickBooks provides you with a place to indicate if a Vendor is eligible for a 1099 and a spot for you to enter the Vendors tax ID number and I highly recommend that you utilize this functionality along with the ability to attach a completed W-9 to the Vendor record. You can enter this information by going to the Vendor Center, selecting and editing a Vendor record. Exactly where you enter this information will depend on what "year" version of QuickBooks you are using, I've included a couple of examples below to help point you in the right direction. [caption id="attachment_4362" align="aligncenter" width="300"] In QuickBooks 2012 - you'll enter 1099 information in the Additional Info tab.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_4363" align="aligncenter" width="300"] In QuickBooks 2014 you'll enter Vendor…

22Oct 2013 by Nancy Smyth

Recording & Tracking Employee Personal Tool Purchases

Customers & Accounts Receivable, Payroll Tips, Vendors & Accounts Payable

This question came up on a discussion list that I belong to over the weekend and I thought "hey, what a great blog post and how to tip this would make"! So here goes! I am bookkeeper for a construction company. Sometimes the workers purchase tools on the company American Express card and write TOC for "Take Out of Check" on the receipt. There are oftentimes material expenses for the company on the same receipt. How do I record this? What they did before was to subtract the amount from the gross wages when called into ADP, so it's kind of a pay advance. But don't advances require the taxes to be taken out? Should I get check breakdown and subtract from net wages instead or treat as a loan?…

25Jun 2013 by Kimberly Shannon

Employees and Company Credit Cards – What’s the Charge?

Be A Better Bookkeeper, From Our Guest Bloggers, Vendors & Accounts Payable

If you provide your employees with a company credit card, eventually someone is going to use it for a personal expense. In many cases, the employee is not attempting to defraud the company. But in other cases, it can be intentional. Either way it can create potential problems for your business. Several years ago, one of my clients issued her bookkeeper a company credit card. After a period of time, the bookkeeper regularly used the company credit card for personal purchases and did not notify the employer or reimburse the company. As the balance on the credit card increased, the bookkeeper began making partial payments on the increasing balance. My client completely trusted her bookkeeper, and never reviewed the credit card statements prior to payment, and the balance became quite…

21Mar 2013 by Nancy Smyth

Retainage Payable and Receivable – What’s the Difference?

Customers & Accounts Receivable, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup, Vendors & Accounts Payable

Retainage or retention, in the construction industry, is an agreed upon portion of the contract price that is deliberately withheld until the work is substantially complete to assure that the contractor or subcontractor will satisfy its obligations and complete a construction project. Retainage is often confusing all by itself, and then there is also a lot of very confusing terminology as well. But there is a difference between Retainage Receivable and Retainage Payable. To put it as simply as possible: Retainage Receivable is money that is owed to you, while Retainage Payable is money that you owe to someone else Usually, if you are a General Contractor you will need to track both Retainage Receivable (for money due to your company) and Retainage Payable (money you owe to your Subcontractors).…

01May 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Entering Bills or Checks in QuickBooks – Items vs. Expenses

Job Costing Tips, Vendors & Accounts Payable

When entering bills, checks, or even credit card purchases in QuickBooks you have the choice to use an Items or Expenses tab - choosing the Items vs. Expenses tab will depend on what the money being spent was for. Your business spends money on a wide variety of things - employee payroll, payroll taxes, office supplies (such as paper and envelopes), utility bills, things that you purchase to resell to others, and goods or services from others are just a few examples. In essence every penny that your business spends is an expense to your business - but how you record the purchase in QuickBooks does make a difference. Because you do you a choice to use an Items or Expense tab when entering transactions in QuickBooks; many people…

28Mar 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Estimates vs. Purchase Orders: What’s the difference?

Be A Better Bookkeeper, Customers & Accounts Receivable, Job Costing Tips, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup, Vendors & Accounts Payable

Estimates and Purchase Orders can be created using QuickBooks. Many people want to know what the difference between the two are and when it is appropriate to use them. I often see a lot of confusion on the QuickBooks forums about Estimates and Purchase Orders, what the differences are, and when you should use each one. An Estimate, otherwise known as a Bid, Proposal, Quote or perhaps even a Schedule of Values in the construction industry, is a detailed breakdown of work or tasks that you will perform in order to complete a project for a specific customer or a specific job and what you will charge them to do it. A Purchase Order, on the other hand is normally something that you issue for materials or the services…

27Mar 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Estimate to Purchase Order Blues

Customers & Accounts Receivable, Questions from our readers, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup, Vendors & Accounts Payable

In QuickBooks it's possible to create an Estimate and then from the Estimate create a Purchase Order, Sales Order, Invoice or even a letter - but there are some drawbacks to these features as noted in the question below, submitted by a reader. Hello, I have just upgraded from Pro 2009 to Premier Contractor 2012. I did this so I could turn Estimates into Purchase Orders. I spent an hour on the phone with Intuit yesterday to have them say, "oh, it can't do that". So I am scouring the internet for someone that can help me. When you choose to create a PO from select items, the selection screen has no line descriptions. We don't have item codes for everything we sell, that is never going to happen. …

22Sep 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks for Contractors Tip – Receiving & Applying Joint Checks

Vendors & Accounts Payable

A QuickBooks for contractors tip about receiving and applying joint checks from a general contractor to pay a lower tier subcontractor or material supplier for work completed or materials on a construction project. Quite frequently, in the construction industry, a contractor will receive a joint check from a General Contractor to pay their lower tier subcontractors or material suppliers for work completed and/or materials delivered to the construction project’s job site. Unlike many high-end construction accounting packages, QuickBooks doesn’t have a way to handle this automatically — or easily. This QuickBooks for contractors tip provides what we consider to be a best practice when a situation like this arises. Problem: Your company, Sam Subcontracting, received a $10,000.00 joint check from Joe's General Contracting; which is made out to both your…

15Aug 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks for Contractors Tip – Issuing Joint Checks

Vendors & Accounts Payable

A QuickBooks for contractors tip about issuing joint checks to a subcontractor and a lower tier subcontractor or material supplier for payment for work completed on a construction project. Quite frequently, in the construction industry, a contractor needs to issue a joint or two-party check to a subcontractor and a lower-tier subcontractor or material supplier for work completed and/or materials delivered to the construction project's job site. Unlike many high-end construction accounting packages, QuickBooks doesn't have a way to handle this automatically -- or easily. This QuickBooks for contractors tip provides what we consider to be a best practice when a situation like this arises. Problem: Joe's General Contracting, Inc. needs to issue a $10,000.00 joint check to Sam Subcontractor AND O'Fallon's Gravel for sand, gravel, and crushed rock which…

08Jun 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Tip – Creating Lien Waivers & Contract Documents

Vendors & Accounts Payable

A QuickBooks Tip for creating Lien Waivers, Releases, and other Contract Documents from within the software by using the Letters function. QuickBooks doesn't have the ability to automatically generate a Lien Waiver & Release form, or any other Contract Document, like many of the more costly construction software packages, this means that QuickBooks users must find an alternative method to generate these vital contract documents. Let's say that you are a Subcontractor and need to generate a very simple Lien Waiver and Release form to a General Contractor. One method is to create a Word document that has to be manually updated each time you need to generate the form. Another method is to take that existing Word "template" and bring it into the QuickBooks Prepare Letters and Envelopes function…

10May 2011 by Nancy Smyth

Top 10 Tuesday QuickBooks Tips from Around the Web-5/10/2011

Construction News, News You Can Use, QuickBooks Tips & Tricks, Vendors & Accounts Payable

Top 10 Tuesday features our favorite QuickBooks, social media, construction and business tips from around the web. It's tough to choose just 10 and even tougher to read everything that is of interest - if I did ....... well I wouldn't ever get anything else done! This week's Top 10 include: Carrie Kahn Why Use Accounts Payable? Darren Slaughter The Law of 25 5 Reasons to Use How-To Articles for Contractor Marketing Intuit Small Business Blog How to Deal With Working Alone Top Notch Bookkeeping Can You Read Your Balance Sheet? A Bookkeeper's Corner Do You Have a Bookkeeper Or Do You Have a "Bookkeeper"? ProBlogger 3 Simple Changes to Increase Your Subscribers by 50% BNET 5 Signs That You're The Problem QuickBooks and Beyond QuickBooks Auto Data Recovery QuickBooks…

09Mar 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Tip-Tracking Retainage Payable to Subcontractors

Vendors & Accounts Payable

There are two possible ways to track retainage (retention) that you owe to your subcontractors; one method utilizes a Sub-Account of Accounts Payable, called Retainage Payable, and the other method utilizes an Other Liability Account, called Retainage Due to Subcontractors. Please review the setup and use of both methods, and choose whichever one seems more appropriate for your use. You will need to inform your accountant of this at year end, so he or she, may make the necessary Journal Entries. Method 1: Retainage as an Accounts Payable Sub-Account Accountants tend to really like this method, but, it is a two-part process for the person actually doing the billing, which means that it's error prone, simply due to normal day-to-day distractions. From the Lists menu, choose Chart of Accounts From…

Category: Vendors & Accounts Payable