09Apr 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Learn To Use QuickBooks In Your Construction Business

Be A Better Bookkeeper, Free & Fee-Based QuickBooks eBooks, Webinars & Training
  Learn to use Quickbooks® in your construction business - QuickBooks® for Contractors Bookkeeping Tips & Training is a new website that we launched over the weekend.  We are very pleased to announce the launch of a brand new QuickBooks® training resource for contractors and the accounting professionals who support them, owned and developed by Sunburst Software Solutions, Inc. - Learn to use QuickBooks® in your construction business. The new website will feature reasonably priced bookkeeping tips & training via: eBooks Live webinars Pre-recorded videos Specifically for commercial/government construction contractors who use QuickBooks® for their bookkeeping and accounting needs, their bookkeepers, and the accounting professionals who support them.  This new support and training site provides answers and techniques that are not available in the QuickBooks® Help file or even even…
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20Mar 2012 by Nancy Smyth

How To Setup a Scheduled Payment for a Payroll Liability

Free & Fee-Based QuickBooks eBooks, Payroll Tips, Questions from our readers
  Setting up Scheduled payments allows you to see all payroll related liability amounts that you owe for payroll taxes, health insurance, child support garnishments, etc. in the QuickBooks Payroll Center so that you can easily review the amounts and generate the payment.  Finding where you setup the payment schedule can be confusing, if you are new to QuickBooks - see this question from a reader. I have created a Garnishment deduction item, following your instructions step by step, but I did not generate the check to send to the Agency that is collecting the money.  Is there something else that I need to do to get this payroll Liability in the "Pay Schedule Liabilities" or "Custom Liability" box?  Thanks, Luz Hi Luz Usually as soon as you finish creating…
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23Jan 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Working With Taxable & Non-taxable Items and Customers

Customers & Accounts Receivable, Free & Fee-Based QuickBooks eBooks, Questions from our readers, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup, Webinars & Training
Working with taxable and non-taxable items and customers in QuickBooks sometimes just freaks people out and causes them to over think the entire situation.  I'm frequently asked how to do this by people who are setting up our AIA billing program - here's a question that I received recently. I am getting ready to set the AIA billing program {Construction Application for Payment Solution} up tomorrow and just have a few questions. Should the income items each be posted to an income general ledger account?  Or will I use the subtotal line to point to an income account?  If I have to post each income item to an income account - I will have to do 2 sets of them, one for wholesale (no tax) and one for retail (taxable)…
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17Jan 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Bookkeepers Test & Hiring a Bookkeeper or CPA

Be A Better Bookkeeper, Free & Fee-Based QuickBooks eBooks, Webinars & Training
So how do you find a "good" bookkeeper and test their knowledge before hiring them?  Or, perhaps you are ready to hire a CPA to help you with your business and your books. Congratulations!   We all know what a struggle it is to "try to do everything" yourself, and it almost goes without saying that as a busy contractor, we also know that time is best spent on the job and not in the office handling paperwork. 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…
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10Jan 2012 by Nancy Smyth

How To Complete an AIA G-702/G-703 & Document Change Orders

Be A Better Bookkeeper, Customers & Accounts Receivable, Free & Fee-Based QuickBooks eBooks, Webinars & Training
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…
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20Sep 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks 2012 – New Batch Timesheet Creation

Free & Fee-Based QuickBooks eBooks, Payroll Tips, QuickBooks 2012 - What's New
NOTE: This feature is also available in QuickBooks 2013 and 2014. QuickBooks 2012 will include batch timesheet creation as an enhancement to the current "Use Weekly Timesheet" feature, allowing you the option to select multiple employee or vendor names for time entry.  From the information that I've seen, Intuit is marketing this feature to contractors as a timesaver, and it may be for some businesses, BUT THERE IS A CATCH...... Each group of employees or vendors that you select MUST work on the same Job, under the same Service Item AND the same Payroll Item MUST be used during timesheet creation - additionally, they must ALL work the same number of hours each day! See the Batch Timesheet function in action on our YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX0Ct3SPv50 In order to successfully…
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16Sep 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Tip – File Size & DB File Fragments What Do They Mean?

Be A Better Bookkeeper, Free & Fee-Based QuickBooks eBooks, General QuickBooks News, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup
The size of your QuickBooks file and the number of DB File Fragments determines the health of your QuickBooks company data file. Most people don’t periodically check the health of their QuickBooks file to help prevent data corruption – mainly because they don’t realize that they should or even how to go about it. Monday's blog post - Basic File Maintenance Before & After You Upgrade - talked about checking your current file size and health before before you upgrade to a new version of QuickBooks.  In reality, you should periodically check this information just to see how healthy your file is or isn't. To check the size of your own QuickBooks file – with QuickBooks open press the CTRL and the 1 keys at the same time OR press…
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18Mar 2011 by Nancy Smyth

Freebie Friday – Your QuickBooks file, the IRS & YOU eBook

Be A Better Bookkeeper, Free & Fee-Based QuickBooks eBooks, IRS Information
Oh sweet Friday - sometimes you come way to fast and other times not fast enough! Yup, it's time for "Friday eBook" here on the QuickBooks for Contractors blog. This week, I confess, I took a shortcut and turned our popular series "Your QuickBooks file, the IRS & You" and turned it into an eBook and called it good!  Friday's come too fast for me, in terms of getting things done (I do just about all of my blogging at night, early in the morning, or on the weekend otherwise I would never get any real work done during the day) - so I hope you will excuse this shortcut on my part. One of the reasons that I decided to turn it into an eBook is so that you…
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11Mar 2011 by Nancy Smyth

Freebie Friday – AIA Billing (G-702/G-703) Training Exercise

Be A Better Bookkeeper, Customers & Accounts Receivable, Free & Fee-Based QuickBooks eBooks, The "Sunburst" Website
Freebie Friday!  The work week is just about over (for some of us, that is). This week's item is a fee-based AIA (G-702/G-703) Billing Training exercise. Have you ever been asked to complete a G-702 and G-703 billing form and don't know where to even start?  If so, than this training exercise is just what the doctor ordered! 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…
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04Mar 2011 by Nancy Smyth

#Freebie Friday – March 4, 2011

Free & Fee-Based QuickBooks eBooks
Hello all, Happy Friday! I have to confess, it's been a horribly busy week, and while I have a bunch of new "things" in the works, they all need some final touches so nothing new is ready for this week. I may need to re-evaluate a weekly Freebie Friday and go with a monthly one instead - I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, click here to view previous Free & Fee-based eBooks - this will open in a new window and you'll see a dozen ebooks to choose from. Have a great weekend!
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18Feb 2011 by Nancy Smyth

#Freebie Friday – Employee New Hire Checklist

Free & Fee-Based QuickBooks eBooks, Payroll Tips
It's FREEBIE FRIDAY!  Wow wasn't it Friday just a couple of days ago?  Feels that way to me.  Where has the week gone? This weeks Freebie Friday giveaway here on the QuickBooks for Contractors blog is an Employee New Hire Checklist. One of the hardest things about being a bookkeeper or payroll clerk, is that we seldom receive any information about new employees - other than the information that comes from their Federal W-4, State W-4, and their I-9 form. As a bookkeeper in the construction industry, a lot of times the ONLY information that I ever received was a scrawled note with the employees name on it - and I'd spend the rest of my week trying to chase down the rest of the information that I needed, because…
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04Feb 2011 by Nancy Smyth

Freebie Friday – Project/Contract Information Worksheet

Customers & Accounts Receivable, Free & Fee-Based QuickBooks eBooks
Happy Friday!  Where has the week gone?  I think for most of us, we've spent the week "digging out" from yet more snow! This week, our Freebie Friday giveaway is a Project/Contract Information Worksheet. Using a Project/Contract Information Worksheet is one of the best ways to document key information about requirements for a specific job and will help you to keep your project paperwork organized. We've developed a basic 2-page Project Information worksheet, with the help of several contractors over the years; it summarizes important aspects of a particular job and keeps essential information handy, it's also a great thing to give to your key office staff.  When you are working on multiple projects, you do not want to have to stop to re-read a lengthy contract in orer to…
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28Jan 2011 by Nancy Smyth

Freebie Friday – Email Etiquette eBook

Free & Fee-Based QuickBooks eBooks
This week's Freebie Friday eBook is all about Email Etiquette. We all use email every day, as a matter of fact just about all of us live in our email InBox – it’s a fast and effective means of communication.   But email is also cold, impersonal, unclear, and often used ineffectively.  It lacks the interpersonal contact of the traditional way of meeting someone. Email is also the source of many viruses, and is frequently used by spammers, so we should all pay close attention to how our email is perceived by the person receiving it. We only get one chance to meet someone for the first time and “WOW” them with our products and/or services, so, it’s important to really put your best foot forward; whether that first meeting…
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14Jan 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks for Contractors-High Cost of Payroll eBook

Free & Fee-Based QuickBooks eBooks, Payroll Tips
It's Friday again!  This weeks eBook is all about the High Cost of Payroll. How much does Joe Smith REALLY cost per hour?  Most business owners think of the payroll costs of employees in terms of their hourly cost - for example Joe's hourly rate of pay at $17.00 per hour, plus some payroll taxes Let's see what it would really cost your company, if Joe worked for you. March 8, 2013 - this eBook is currently being updated and will be available at a later date on Learn to use QuickBooks in your construction business website. Happy Friday everyone!
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