QuickBooks for Contractors blog » quickbooks tips

QuickBooks Tip-Chart of Accounts, Your CPA & Your Tax Return

Nancy Smyth — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:47:05 +0000

Many companies fail to set up their charts of accounts correctly in QuickBooks. Over the years I have seen charts of accountants that look like a collage of accounts in helter skelter format without any logical order, containing duplicate if not triplicate accounts, inconsistent protocols, and even inappropriate, if not undecipherable, names.

At tax time, when [Read the full article...]

QuickBooks Tip – Modifying & Working with your QuickBooks Chart of Accounts

Nancy Smyth — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:57:51 +0000

Setting up or modifying an existing Chart of Accounts is not an overwhelming task in QuickBooks.

If you are new to QuickBooks, when you create your company file (File menu -> New Company), the EasyStep Interview provides you with a “wizard”, industry specific templates, and example accounts are even suggested. If you need a starting point, [Read the full article...]

QuickBooks Tip – The Chart of Accounts, What It Is & It’s Many Uses In Your Business

Nancy Smyth — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:29:27 +0000

The Chart of Accounts in QuickBooks is the backbone for a company to track how much money it has, money it owes, money that is coming in, and money it is spending. The chart of accounts should be designed to include the accounts necessary for both financial and income tax [Read the full article...]

QuickBooks Tips – Four (4) Ways to Add Long Disclaimers on Forms

Nancy Smyth — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:00:01 +0000

As a business owner there can be several different situations that you encounter where you might need to include a long disclaimer or explanation when you sell a specific item, offer special discounts, provide warranty information or explain your payment requirements when bidding on a job or even invoicing a customer. There are four different methods for adding long disclaimers to your QuickBooks forms; choose the one that makes the most sense for your [Read the full article...]

QuickBooks Tip – Handling Retainage

Nancy Smyth — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:00:25 +0000

Retention or retainage is usually a specific percentage, for example 10%, of the total contract that is held back by the project owner in reserve to protect the owners interest. QuickBooks users must initiate work-arounds and make QuickBooks track retainage that is held on each progress [Read the full article...]

QuickBooks Tip – Paying Employees Using Different Frequencies

Nancy Smyth — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:00:54 +0000

Questions: We are new to QuickBooks payroll and would like to set up different payroll frequencies for our employees; weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly. How can we do this? Answer: Setup Payroll Schedules and Pay [Read the full article...]

QuickBooks Tips – Posting Transactions – Date Sensitivity

Nancy Smyth — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 11:00:56 +0000

QuickBooks automatically prefills the date field in every transaction you create (Enter Bill, Write Checks, Create Estimate, etc.) and report that you generate. In many cases, the date that QuickBooks provides you with is not the correct date that you [Read the full article...]

QuickBooks Tip – Construction A/P – Tracking Subcontractor Insurance

Nancy Smyth — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 11:00:19 +0000

Unlike some of the more costly construction specific software programs out there, QuickBooks wasn't designed to prevent us from generating a check to a Vendor/Subcontractor whose General Liability or Worker's Compensation insurance has [Read the full article...]

QuickBooks Tip – Accounts Payable – Vendor Bill Approvals

Nancy Smyth — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:34:53 +0000

Technically, the bill should be approved before it is input into QuickBooks; and generally indicating on the front or face of the document/purchase order/voucher/vendor invoice or whatever you happen to call it, is usually the relied upon [Read the full article...]

QuickBooks Tip – Construction Accounts Payable

Nancy Smyth — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:55:26 +0000

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 [Read the full article...]