The QuickBooks Weekly Timesheet can cause a lot of confusion for users who are implementing employee time tracking for the first time, mainly because the timesheet contains both a Service Item and a Payroll Item. This article will explain what each column is used for and some common pitfalls that can happen.
Job costing and employee time tracking are important aspects of many businesses – not just construction businesses. However, when you initially set up timetracking there are many things that can cause confusion.
About Service Items:
The Service Item column represents the type of work that is being performed and allows you to select/enter/choose the name of the service item/cost code from your Item List that you want to use when your charge/bill your customer for this work – OR – when you pay a subcontractor/non-employee for this item.
Even if you do not intend to charge anyone for this work, entering a service item provides a record of the amount of time spent on this specific type of work. This information will then flow through the the various “Time by” reports as well as your job costing reports..
When a Service Item is brought into an Invoice, it tells QuickBooks which accounts to use to track the income you receive and what Cost of Goods Sold/Expense account to use to track the money your company has spent – so it’s important that your items are set up to capture both Income and Expenses. This provides you with the ability to analyze which types of work/services are the most profitable and how much company time is spent on producing them.
About Payroll Items:
Payroll Item column allow you to select a Payroll Item {that also exists in the employee record} which determines how much the employee should be paid for doing the work that you selected in the Service Item column. This information will then flow through into employee paychecks and perhaps any invoices that you create that are based on billable time and costs.
What if the Payroll Item Column isn’t displayed?
When the Payroll Item column doesn’t appear in the Weekly Timesheet, for one or all employees, it usually means that the employee’s haven’t been setup to utilize timetracking, and you’ll need to check the setup in the employee record to be sure that the “Use time data to create paychecks” option has been checked and that Time tracking has been turned on in the Preferences.
We hope you’ve found this article to be helpful, if so please take a moment to leave a comment or to share it with others on your favorite social networking site using the buttons below.
Like everyone who writes a blog, I always wonder how well it’s doing – how many people visit, what the most popular posts are, are people really interested in the information that I post here, are they really using this information – meaning are they printing out a specific post to perhaps use later on down the road, are they sharing this information —- bottom line —- is it worth it for me to keep investing the amount of time I spend each day? Luckily WordPress has some pretty awesome tools that track all of this information.
Even though we host our own WordPress blog on our site {rather than hosting it directly on WordPress.com for free}, I did create a WordPress.com account and tied it to our blog – this mean that I can access Site Stats right from the Admin panel of the blog using the fairly new Jetpack features. Sure I use other site stat tracking options as well – AddThis has a plug in that shows me which posts were shared, I also have a Google Analytics account – but the one that provided me with the most information was the WordPress Site Stats – especially the year in review that they did for our blog. This is what it had to say.
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 140,000 times in 2011. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 6 days for that many people to see it. {Wow! 6 days – good grief, better bring LOTS of your favorite beverage if you are going to hang out here at our blog for that long!}
In 2011, there were 45 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 303 posts.
The busiest day of the year was September 21st with 830 views. The most popular post that day was QuickBooks 2012 Announced.
Our top referrers {where people found us} for 2011 were:
- linkedin.com
- our own website
- quickbooksusers.com
- facebook.com
- the search engines, of course, played an important role in how people found us
Most of our visitors came from the United States; with Canada and the United Kingdom not far behind.
Our top 5 posts in 2011 were:
- QuickBooks 2012 Announced – 9/7/2011
- Using Account Numbers in Your QuickBooks Chart of Accounts – 1/09/2009
- Straight From the IRS – Social Security Tax Reduced to 4.2% – 12/17/2010
- Calculating & Displaying Fringe Benefits on a Certified Payroll Report – 7/12/2010
- Freebie Friday – Bookkeeping & Accounting Tasks Schedule – 2/11/2011
I just thought this was pretty interesting and wanted to share it with you. Have a great day!
Knowing how to complete an AIA G-702/G-703 billing form and documenting change orders are important for your overall cash flow, if they aren’t done correctly – well you don’t get paid on time! This Tuesday Training segment will provide you with detailed information on both
Welcome to Tuesday Training!
Tuesday Training is a new feature here on the QuickBooks for Contractors blog. While everyday focuses on training of one sort or another, Tuesday’s are dedicated to more in-depth training.
We’ll teach you the things you need to know about using QuickBooks, that you won’t find in the QuickBooks Help file, in order to successfully run your construction business and obtain accurate job costing reports; from eBooks, live webinars, and recorded training sessions.
You’ll find high-quality (budget friendly) training without having to leave the comfort of your home or office.
AIA G-702/G-703 Training Exercise – $25.00
Most anyone will tell you that completing the AIA G-702 and G-703 forms by hand is frustrating and difficult. To fill out one correctly, you pretty much have to:
- forget about any basic accounting principals you’ve ever learned
- ignore change orders that have been submitted or approved, but not processed
- ignore money that is still outstanding from previously submitted applications for payment
You need to realize that the payment applications that you submit are an important piece of your overall cash flow management. When your payment applications get screwed up — bad things happen; none of which put you in “good standing” with the General Contractor or Project Owner, and can ultimately damage your company’s overall cash position.
This 38 page eBook contains everything you’ll need to learn how to complete these billing forms correctly; including a sample AIA training exercise that walks you through, from start to finish, how to complete an AIA G-702 & G-703 form by hand.
Purchase your copy today for $25.00.
Documenting Change Orders, Extra Work Orders & Job Costs
It almost goes without saying that on any construction project, a contractor’s ability to get paid for the Original contract, Extra Work Orders and/or Change Orders is vital to the business’s profit margin.
It’s the start of a new contruction season, is your job costing system in place?
Free eBook – click here to download.
If you use QuickBooks for your accounting and you create your Estimates in Excel instead of within QuickBooks you loose out on job costing capabilities and so much more!
I often see and hear comments such as this as I browse the web or talk with potential customers for our software:
Right now we are using QuickBooks Contractor. It is ok for our accounting software but we are looking for something that works as an overall system for our office – CRM, estimating, job costing, proposals, work tickets and most importantly easy for my guys to use. Right now we are using Excel for Estimates and invoices.
When I see and hear comments like this I get so confused – because QuickBooks does allow you to create Estimates, Proposals, and do Job Costing - so I thought I’d attempt to write a short article to address this.
Creating Estimates in Excel vs. QuickBooks – Pros and Cons:
Excel is REALLY easy to use – anyone can quickly whip up an Estimate, Proposal or a Work Order., you can create some great looking documents that you are proud to hand to your prospective customer. But that is about as far as you can go.
QuickBooks, on the other hand, if set up properly will allow you to create an Estimate, Proposal, Work Order, or an Invoice and perform job costing just by entering vendor bills, writing checks, entering credit card charges, and employee payroll. You then can access all kinds of Job Costing reports and an Actual vs. Estimate Report – which allows you to see the difference between what you thought you’d make on the job vs. what you actually made.
But….QuickBooks requires more work on the front end and then proper training for your employees.
I think I just heard everyone groan! There is no way that I can write a “short” article on the benefits of using QuickBooks to prepare these documents for your business, but I can provide you with some suggestions to get started.
- Is the QuickBooks Estimate function turned on? If not go to the Edit menu -> Preferences -> Jobs & Estimates -> Company Preferences tab -> set “Do You Create Estimates” AND “Do You Do Progress Invoicing” to Yes
- Modify/Customize the built in forms to meet the needs of your company using the Layout Designer, by downloading a pre-built template or by using the Create Form Design option. All of these options are available from the Lists menu -> Templates -> and then clicking the Template button at the bottom of the window.
- Create a FULL list of the services, cost codes and/or products your company uses for billing
- Have a meeting – get EVERYONE involved – take that master list of products and/or services/cost codes and come up with descriptions that EVERYONE can agree on {letting them know that they can “tweak” it more to their liking later}
- Go to the Items List and set up items that correspond to that master list of of the things your company does, creating Group Items or Inventory Assemblies if appropriate
- Create an Estimate, a Proposal, or a Work Order using the entries in your Item List – print it out and see what everyone things of it. If they are happy teach your Estimators how to use the Estimating function
- When entering Vendor bills, writing checks, or entering Credit Card Charges use the Items tab and assign the cost to the job
- Turn on time tracking, enter employee hours by Job, Service Item, and Payroll Item
- Create a Progress Invoice from an Estimate for the current amount that you are billing the customer
- Look at the Estimate vs Actual Report for a specific job and look at the report results
These suggestions are just the tip of the iceburg for taking QuickBooks from plain-Jane accounting to job-costing accounting. Use the search box on our site and enter specific keywords for additional tips.
If you can’t get your Estimators to leave Excel, there is a 3rd party application Transaction Pro Importer – that will import your Excel based Estimate into QuickBooks for you and you can implement some of the other suggestions in this article.
I hope you’ve found this article to be helpful, if so please take a moment to leave a comment or ask a question – or share it on your favorite social networking site if you think others would find it to be useful.
Friday is Free eBook day, here on the QuickBooks for Contractors blog it’s better known as Freebie Friday! Each Friday we’ll tell you about a free eBook that we’ve found or one that we have created. Look for eBooks on a variety of educational topics.
Free eBook: 25 Website “Must Haves” for Driving Traffic, Leads and Sales
We all know how important a website is to a business’s online strategy, but what does it really take to have a great website that drives visitors, leads and revenue?
This free, 52-page guide from HubSpot is the ultimate resource to having a killer website. You’ll learn:
- How to get found online with Search Engine Optimization (SEO), including building inbound links, meta tags and more
- Important design and usability factors you need to know
- Tips for creating awesome content that attracts and keeps visitors on your website
- Best practices for converting traffic into leads, including Calls-to-Action, Landing Pages, and Forms
Whether you’re looking to build your first website, or if your existing site just isn’t getting the traffic or leads you were hoping for, this eBook is for you! Get started by completing the request form on HubSpot’s website to download the “25 Website Must-Haves for Driving Traffic, Leads & Sales” eBook today!
We hope you find today’s eBook to be helpful, if so please take a moment to leave a comment or to share this post on your favorite social networking site.
Have a great weekend 
