Be A Better Bookkeeper
Being a bookkeeper or office manager for a construction business is one tough chore! There are thousands of little things that you have to keep track of and manage on a daily basis and there is always something “special” that your boss needs you to keep track of. Who has time to pick and poke around QuickBooks to see if you can automate a task? As a result, we all end up, at one point or another, resorting to a trusty Excel spreadsheet track something special. The result – fragmented data or information all over the place. These tips will help you to handle specific tasks.
Entering Historical Paychecks – Payroll Taxes and the Accounts They Post To
Setting up QuickBooks payroll and entering historical data can be quite confusing. Thankfully, there is a built in Payroll Setup Wizard that will help you through the rough spots; like creating payroll tax items and accounts and entering historical payroll data.
Still there are choices to make. Will you be processing future payrolls through QuickBooks - if so you'll need a payroll subscription. If you use an outside payroll service and just want to get that payroll data into your company file - then turning on manual payroll might be the way to go.
When it comes to entering historical data, there are a couple of ways to do it. But the method you choose should be based on how valuable job-costed payroll is.
Continue readingConditional and Unconditional Lien Waiver/Release Forms for Progress and Final Payments – Part 1
Knowing which lien waiver/release form to use when on a construction project can be confusing at times. This series of articles will help to clear up some of the questions.
In Part 1, we'll talk about Conditional and Unconditional Lien Waivers/Release Forms for Progress and Final Payments.
This article is an overview of waiver/release forms and is not legal advice. Please contact an attorney in your state with any questions you might have.
Continue readingRetainage Payable and Receivable – What’s the Difference?
- Retainage Receivable is money that is owed to you, while
- Retainage Payable is money that you owe to someone else
How-to Customize a Report – One Employee for All Jobs Worked
Customizing reports in QuickBooks is often a huge source of frustration for users. Here's a great example of just how frustrating it can be. This question was submitted by a reader of our blog.
This question involves wanting to create a report for one specific employee, on all jobs worked, over a specific time frame.
Continue readingJob Costing Payroll When Using a Payroll Service
Using an outside payroll service, such as Paychecx or ADP, is a popular option for many business owners. While using a payroll service often provides many benefits one of the biggest challenges or drawbacks is for the company that needs job costing. See this question submitted by a reader.
My company uses a 3rd party to do all of our payroll. We receive an itemized report back showing what we spent for the week. I am having trouble trying to get this information charged out to individual jobs. I track all of the hours separately in Excel, with estimated costs. How can I job cost this information?
Continue readingQuickBooks 2013 – Group Item Limit Increase
I’m a big fan of QuickBooks Group Items, I think that they are a HUGE productivity booster – but I’ve always had one gripe – they could only hold 20 items in previous versions of QuickBooks – which meant that you had to create more group items in order to accomplish what you set out to do. This has changed with the release of QuickBooks 2013. With the increased number of items that a group can hold, these item types will be even more powerful.
I often see users on the Intuit QuickBooks User forums asking how they can “memorize” an Estimate to use over and over again – why not create a group item that contains everything that you need to build your estimate?
NOTE: This increase will continue into future versions of QuickBooks from this point forward.
Continue readingQuickBooks 2013 Upgrade Do’s, Don’ts & Frequent Questions
Should I/Do I NEED to upgrade to QuickBooks 2013? When should I purchase QuickBooks 2013? Will the 3rd party add-ons that I use be compatible with QuickBooks 2013? Will QuickBooks 2013 run on my current computer - OR - will I need to buy a new one?
We'll answer questions like these and more!
Continue readingTracking Timesheet Hours vs Hours Invoiced
A reader asks - 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.
See what reports we've suggested.
Continue readingBilling Employee Time to Customers
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.
Continue readingCSI Masterformat Contractor Item List
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.
Continue readingBreaking Down Payroll by Job, Phase and Cost Code
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 - and my suggestion on how to resolve this.
Continue readingAn IRS Audit..and They Require Copies of Canceled Checks
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.
So what happens when during an IRS Audit you are asked to produce cancelled checks to substantiate the payment of an expense?
Continue readingRecording Transactions in QuickBooks
Recording transactions in QuickBooks can sometimes cause a lot of confusion. See this question submitted by a reader asking about how to record payments made on line - such as credit card and EFTPS payments as well as how to record petty cash transactions.
Continue readingWeekly Wrap-Up: News You Can Use 6/15/2012-6/21/2012
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.
See what caught my attention this week in these topics: Accounting & Taxes, eBooks/Webinars/Videos, Payroll/Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, QuickBooks, Small Business/Organization/Productivity, Construction, and Social Media/Marketing/Website Design.
Continue readingCreating a Simple Invoice for Taxable & Non-Taxable Items
Nancy Smyth, Sunburst Software Solutions, Inc.QuickBooks Construction & Payroll Expert
I've been using and supporting QuickBooks products since the early 1990's. I've worked with thousands of contractors, assisting them with QuickBooks setup, Certified Payroll Reporting requirements, AIA Billing and Weighted-Average Overtime.
QuickBooks is a powerful product, but learning how to use it in your construction business can be difficult. I hope you find resources available here to be helpful.
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