Equipment cost-per-hour rates are calculated by adding together three distinct pieces of information. Once you know your Equipment Costs per hour, use QuickBooks to track these costs for job costing purposes. Continue reading
If you think that job costing is all it takes to have a good construction accounting system – think again! You need a firm handle on your costs and QuickBooks when properly setup and used does a very good job, however, you also need to be able to control those costs. Continue reading
It’s the start of construction season, is your job costing system in place?
While the start of a busy construction season may not be the time to do a full-scale revamp of your current job costing system, it is certainly… Continue reading
Job costing in QuickBooks starts with the Item List. When you tell this to most contractors they respond with “Items --- I don’t sell ITEMS --- what does Items have to do with construction????? Continue reading
I tell my clients that Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) is any cost incurred that directly relates to getting the sold goods out the door. I have them ask the question "Would you have this expense if you hadn't made the sale?" Continue reading
Tracking costs throughout a construction project is possibly the most important aspect of completing a project. This may seem like a simple function, but in a construction project, different entities need different financial information, and being able to track finances in real time saves a lot of work (and costs) later on. Continue reading
Gerry has overhead costs, employees, specialized equipment, company vehicles, materials, subcontractors, retainage, percentage of completion billing, and more that he needs to take into consideration when estimating. He works mostly on prevailing wage jobs, where he has to pay his employees a much higher rate of pay plus fringe benefits with a few private jobs - he isn't a union shop; so he is paying the prevailing wage fringe benefits in cash to his employees. Billing requirements for his jobs include Time & Materials and Percentage of Completion, where he needs to submit AIA billing forms and track retainage that he is owed and retainage he owes his subcontractors. Continue reading
Estimating and Job Costing needs will vary depending on the type of contractor you will be dealing with. We'll be meeting Harry the Handyman, Sam the Subcontractor and Gerry the General Contractor. Continue reading
Contractors will purchase QuickBooks because they hear it's drop dead simple to use or another contractor suggests they purchase it to help them keep track of their accounting needs - so off they go to the local office supply store and come home with their QuickBooks software, they get the program installed and crack open the manual.........only to discover that while they can read a set of blueprints the QuickBooks manual is like reading Greek! Continue reading
