Nancy Smyth | QuickBooks for Contractors blog

27Sep 2012 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks 2013 Upgrade Do’s, Don’ts & Frequent Questions

General QuickBooks News, QuickBooks 2013 - What's New?, QuickBooks Add-Ons, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup

QuickBooks 2013 can be purchased right now directly from Inuit websites or through Authorized Intuit Affiliate links - however, it won't be in stores until the middle of October. Many companies will want to upgrade right away. However, it seems that each year when Intuit announces a new version of QuickBooks, I'm overwhelmed with phone calls and emails from clients and customers asking a multitude of questions about the new version. Here is a list of do's, don'ts and frequent questions. Frequently Asked Questions: Should I/Do I NEED to upgrade to QuickBooks 2013? I'm usually very conservative in regards to this question, especially the last few years with money being so tight for everyone, but typically my answer is: If you are currently using a version of QuickBooks that Intuit…

20Sep 2012 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks 2013 – Where Have the Colors Gone?

"Stuff" that drives me insane, QuickBooks 2013 - What's New?

QuickBooks 2013 has an entirely new look and I have to admit there are many things about the product redesign that I really like, however, the biggest issue that I have with the redesign is the fact that Intuit has removed the ability to change the color scheme of the software. Where oh where can my QuickBooks colors be, Intuit took them away from me…….ya, I know that sounds like a really bad rendition of an old song that went like this – “Where oh where can my baby be, the lord took her away from me, she’s gone to heaven I’ve got to be good so I can see my baby when I leave this world”. Color is an important part of our daily lives. Did you know that…

18Sep 2012 by Nancy Smyth

EEOC Reports & Government Funded Construction Projects – Q & A

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Construction News, The "Sunburst" Website

EEOC Reports are just another compliance requirement that must be met when you perform work on government funded/prevailing wage jobs - in addition to the submission of a weekly certified payroll report. In this Q & A we'll discuss your obligations, what types of forms you might need to file, and when you have to file them. What is the EEOC and what do they do? The U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person's race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetic information. What is an EEOC Report? An EEOC Report is really nothing more than than a report that includes how many employees you…

10Sep 2012 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks 2013 Announced

General QuickBooks News, QuickBooks 2013 - What's New?

Intuit has just announced the release of QuickBooks 2013 (today – 9/10/2012) - view the announcement here. I’ve been actively involved in working with QuickBooks 2013, as an Alpha and a Beta tester, since the end of June. According to Intuit, this year, a top request that they heard from customers like you was to make the product easier to use so you could work more efficiently – no additional features, just a better experience. As Intuit began planning for the release of QuickBooks 2013, they determined that updating the look and feel was a key way to deliver on their objective to make QuickBooks easier to use. They felt there was an opportunity to remove some of the complexity and clutter while also creating more consistency across the product.…

28Aug 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Tracking Timesheet Hours vs Hours Invoiced

Job Costing Tips, Payroll Tips, Questions from our readers, Reports

Tracking timesheet hours vs hours invoiced is crucial for a companies cash flow. See this question submitted by a reader. Hello Experts, I'm looking for a report so I can compare hours reported via the timesheet or really hours that have been paid out Vs. the hours that have been paid for or Invoiced. I've also noticed it is possible to add time to timesheets that have already been billed. Is there a way to prevent this? Thanks for your time and energy. Brian Hello Brian Thanks for stopping by and submitting a question. QuickBooks has some good time tracking reports, here are my recommendations for some reports for you to look at. The Time by Job Detail Report is available in all versions/flavors (Pro, Premier, Enterprise); access it from…

16Aug 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Billing Employee Time to Customers

Be A Better Bookkeeper, Customers & Accounts Receivable, Questions from our readers, Reports

Billing employee time on customer invoices is something that many business need to do - not just contractors who perform Time & Materials Billing. Making sure that you bill all of the time your employee(s) have spent working on specific jobs or tasks for customers is crucial and depends data that you've entered in QuickBooks. Here's a question from a reader. Hi Nancy- Thanks for the tips. I'm used to using the "Unbilled costs by job" report, however I am stumped when it comes to billable hours I've entered using the timesheet function. How do I tell if I need to create an invoice for a client to bill them for hours entered? Those hours do not show up on the "Unbilled costs by job report" !! Any help would…

13Aug 2012 by Nancy Smyth

CSI Masterformat Contractor Item List

Customers & Accounts Receivable, Job Costing Tips, Questions from our readers, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup

The CSI (Construction Specifications Institute) MasterFormat contractor item list is a standard item list used for most commercial building design and construction projects in North America. It lists titles and section numbers for organizing data about construction requirements, products, and activities. The latest version, revised in April 2012, contains 48 main categories or divisions. Two readers have asked questions recently about the CSI MasterFormat list - here's what they had to say. Is there anyway that QuickBooks has the MasterFormat codes already on the system? We are looking to start using the codes, but not sure if we have to enter them all ourselves or if there is a way to just find them on QuickBooks online. Thank you. Drew Hi, I need to know how to turn on the…

09Aug 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Reporting Fringe Benefits Paid in Cash on Certified Payroll

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Payroll Tips, Questions from our readers, The "Sunburst" Website, Webinars & Training

Reporting prevailing wage fringe benefits paid in cash to the employee has specific requirements when completing the Federal WH-347 Certified Payroll Report. Here is a question from a reader who is submitting the built-in QuickBooks certified payroll report and is being told that she is not correctly reporting the cash fringe benefit amounts. Hi, I found your blog through a Google search and can't believe all the information you have here about certified payroll, prevailing wage and using QuickBooks - so far I've learned so much! I could really use some help and couldn't find anything that I thought fit our specific situation. We are a non-union contractor working on prevailing wage jobs and we pay the full fringe benefit amount to the employee in cash. We use the QuickBooks…

03Aug 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Weekly Wrap-Up: News You Can Use 7/27-8/2/2012

News You Can Use

Weekly wrap-up of news and information from around the web – there’s so much information out there that it’s difficult (at best) to keep up! I’ve added a WordPress plug-in that grabs information from my Twitter stream to help me (and hopefully you as well) keep up with everything. Look for the Weekly Wrap-Up: News You Can Use every Friday. I’ll try to be consistent and organize the information into the same categories each week It’s been an insanely busy week here and I didn’t get to spend as much time on the internet surfing and reading as I normally do - but here's what I found that was interesting. Accounting & Taxes ARTICLE: What to Look for in a Construction CPA https://t.co/UXOu0CU5 -> A gallery of previous ABBO (Accountants,…

01Aug 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Breaking Down Payroll by Job, Phase and Cost Code

Job Costing Tips, Payroll Tips, Reports

Breaking down payroll by job, phase, and cost code is something that I'm often asked about by the construction clients/customers that I work with. Construction payroll is probably one of the more complex payrolls that anyone can encounter, see this question submitted by a reader. I need payroll broken down by Job, then Phase (service item), then cost code. Is there a way to enter time in QuickBooks by three categories? Thanks, Susan Hi Susan Thanks for stopping by and submitting this awesome question! Actually, I'm asked this question a lot and have been working on an entire training series (eBook and several videos) about different ways that contractors can set up QuickBooks to handle even the most complex payrolls like this - unfortunately it won't be finished until…

27Jul 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Weekly Wrap-Up: News You Can Use 7/20/2012 – 7/26/2012

News You Can Use

Weekly wrap-up of news and information from around the web – there’s so much information out there that it’s difficult (at best) to keep up! I’ve added a WordPress plug-in that grabs information from my Twitter stream to help me (and hopefully you as well) keep up with everything. Look for the Weekly Wrap-Up: News You Can Use every Friday. I’ll try to be consistent and organize the information into the same categories each week It's been an insanely busy week here and I didn't get to spend as much time on the internet surfing and reading as I normally do. Accounting & Taxes Why was my voice not Heard by The AICPA? https://t.co/I5J9NqCw -> Doom Awaits the Student Loan Defaulters https://t.co/Ce3JEqGu via @bruce_taxguy -> An IRS Audit..and They Require…

25Jul 2012 by Nancy Smyth

An IRS Audit..and They Require Copies of Canceled Checks

Be A Better Bookkeeper, IRS Information

An IRS Audit can require you to substantiate expenditures with front and back copies of canceled checks according to an article that I read yesterday on the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) website, are you going to be prepared if that happens to you? Perhaps you haven't received your canceled checks back from your bank in years, or perhaps your bank has even stopped providing you with printed images of those checks with your bank statement, like mine has - and I must confess I can't even remember when they stopped doing that with our business account - but I do know that it's been several years. Perhaps like me, when your bank stopped returning your canceled checks or stopped providing you with images of them with your bank statement;…

23Jul 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Wage Restitution and Certified Payroll Revisions

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Payroll Tips, Questions from our readers

Wage restitution and certified payroll revisions happen when you miss an update to the wage determination which increases the prevailing wage rate and the fringe benefit rate or perhaps you weren't informed until after working on the project for several weeks/months that this project was subject to prevailing wage. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of clear guidelines for submitting revised certified payroll reports, however, I've had experience in following two different sets of requirements. See this question submitted by a reader. My question is, if a subcontractor pays restitution for an employee(s), do they have to send the same Certified Payroll Reports back with revision on top? Or will they have to send a separate Certified Payroll Report with the dates they were owed restitution stating the dates they…

20Jul 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Weekly Wrap-Up: News You Can Use 7/13-7/19/2012

News You Can Use

Weekly wrap-up of news and information from around the web – there’s so much information out there that it’s difficult (at best) to keep up! I’ve added a WordPress plug-in that grabs information from my Twitter stream to help me (and hopefully you as well) keep up with everything. Look for the Weekly Wrap-Up: News You Can Use every Friday. I’ll try to be consistent and organize the information into the same categories each week. (Technorati claim token 3JSYVT43VAMQ). Accounting & Taxes Oregon Tax Scam Could Have Been Much Bigger| AccountingWeb | https://t.co/ZcFla7kn -> Do you need to file a tax return https://t.co/K0JwKyt3 via @bruce_taxguy -> Senate Republicans Vote Down Small-Business Tax Breaks : The World :: American Express OPEN Forum https://t.co/muNkjKLj via @OpenForum -> Should You Get an…

17Jul 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Recording Transactions in QuickBooks

Be A Better Bookkeeper, Questions from our readers

Recording transactions in QuickBooks can sometimes cause a lot of confusion. See this question submitted by a reader. Hi, I'm fairly new to using QuickBooks and while I understand how to record most normal transactions by writing checks, paying bills, and entering credit card transactions, etc., I'm sort of stumped on how to record payments that I make online. For example, I log into the website of our credit card company and make the credit card payment there and I log into the EFTPS site to pay our payroll liabilities; how do I record these transactions in QuickBooks - because I'm not really writing a check if you follow me. Another thing that stumps me is how to record petty cash expenditures, we have cash that we keep in…

Author: Nancy Smyth