28Aug 2013 by Nancy Smyth
How To Turn On and Use Manual Payroll in QuickBooks

How To Turn On and Use Manual Payroll in QuickBooks

Payroll Tips, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup
We are a small company and are looking at various options for payroll; I've heard that there is a way to do payroll manually in QuickBooks, but I can't seem to find any information on how to turn on that feature, everything seems to indicate that we have to buy a payroll subscription and that just isn't in our budget right now.  Can you help?   Thanks in advance. --------------------------------------- How to turn on and use the manual payroll option in QuickBooks certainly feels like a highly guarded secret.  Intuit makes a lot of money selling payroll subscriptions and rightly so as keeping up with payroll tax laws and forms in each and every state is a lot of work! Even so, there are instances when a business chooses to have…
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27Jun 2013 by Nancy Smyth
QuickBooks Tip-How To Add a Logo and Customize Your Forms

QuickBooks Tip-How To Add a Logo and Customize Your Forms

Customers & Accounts Receivable, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup, QuickBooks Tips & Tricks
A QuickBooks Tip on how to add your company logo and customize yoour Estimate, Invoice, and Purchase Order forms in QuickBooks. So you use QuickBooks for your all of you bookkeeping and accounting functions, including creating Estimates, Invoices, Purchase Orders, etc.  Good for you!  It sounds like you are using many of the built-in features and functions.  But do the "forms" you send your clients/customers, vendors/subcontractors scream QuickBooks when they are opened? Just because you use QuickBooks doesn't mean that you can't send out professional looking forms.  Spend some time working with your Form Templates and go from drab to WOW! Where do I find the Form Templates? You'll find the Form Templates from the QuickBooks List menu -> Templates.  Once there if you look in the Type column you'll…
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18Apr 2013 by Nancy Smyth
Entering Historical Paychecks – Payroll Taxes and the Accounts They Post To

Entering Historical Paychecks – Payroll Taxes and the Accounts They Post To

Payroll Tips, Questions from our readers, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup
Setting up QuickBooks payroll and entering historical information can be quite confusing.  Thankfully there is a Payroll Setup wizard that will help you through most of the really rough parts. I am entering historical payroll from 2012.  Our fiscal year began 10/1/12. It is now 4/12/13.  How is best way to enter this payroll and balance month by month until I get to the current info.  Also, I am confused on what accounts the payroll taxes post to. I'm not sure I have them set up at this point. Especially on the exact accounts I need for payroll taxes and are they debits or credits. and how do I link them to my chart of accounts. Any help would be appreciated.  Debbie Hi Debbie If you are entering historical payroll…
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21Mar 2013 by Nancy Smyth
Retainage Payable and Receivable – What’s the Difference?

Retainage Payable and Receivable – What’s the Difference?

Customers & Accounts Receivable, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup, Vendors & Accounts Payable
Retainage or retention, in the construction industry, is an agreed upon portion of the contract price that is deliberately withheld until the work is substantially complete to assure that the contractor or subcontractor will satisfy its obligations and complete a construction project.  Retainage is often confusing all by itself, and then there is also a lot of very confusing terminology as well.  But there is a difference between Retainage Receivable and Retainage Payable. To put it as simply as possible: Retainage Receivable is money that is owed to you, while Retainage Payable is money that you owe to someone else Usually, if you are a General Contractor you will need to track both Retainage Receivable (for money due to your company) and Retainage Payable (money you owe to your Subcontractors).…
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07Nov 2012 by Nancy Smyth
Job Costing Payroll When Using a Payroll Service

Job Costing Payroll When Using a Payroll Service

Job Costing Tips, Payroll Tips, Questions from our readers, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup
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?  Thank you – Michelle Hi Michelle I bet you are having trouble getting payroll information charged to individual jobs, that’s one of the…
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27Sep 2012 by Nancy Smyth
QuickBooks 2013 Upgrade Do’s, Don’ts & Frequent Questions

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…
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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…
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16May 2012 by Nancy Smyth
Payroll for Work Hours & Drive Time Invoicing Problem

Payroll for Work Hours & Drive Time Invoicing Problem

Job Costing Tips, Payroll Tips, Questions from our readers, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup
  Entering payroll for normal employee work hours and drive time and passing only the work hours through to client invoices is not only important but confusing.  The following question was submitted by a reader. Hello - I own a residential and commercial cleaning company.  I have several employees.  I pay from the start of the first job till the end of the last job of the day (not including lunch break).  I have my employees fill out a time tracker sheet each day that shows the time started at the first job till the end, drive time in between jobs, so on and so forth.  I enter this into QuickBooks but I can't figure out where to enter in drive time to pay the girls their hourly wage on…
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30Mar 2012 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Tip: How To Create a Summary Invoice for Customers

Customers & Accounts Receivable, Job Costing Tips, Questions from our readers, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup
  This QuickBooks tip discusses how to create a summary invoice for a customer when you need to track details for job costing purposes.  This question was submitted by one of our readers. How can I print a summary invoice for an estimate that does not show all the details.  Most of my jobs are Total Contract but I really have things broke down to examine my job costs.  This break down is very confusing to customers who just want a basic contract description and price.  Any suggestions?  Thanks, Jim Hi Jim What you are experiencing is very common - a conflict between your need to good job costing an your customers need for something simple - all from the same Estimate in QuickBooks; and without having to duplicate the…
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28Mar 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Estimates vs. Purchase Orders: What’s the difference?

Be A Better Bookkeeper, Customers & Accounts Receivable, Job Costing Tips, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup, Vendors & Accounts Payable
  Estimates and Purchase Orders can be created using QuickBooks.  Many people want to know what the difference between the two are and when it is appropriate to use them.  I often see a lot of confusion on the QuickBooks forums about Estimates and Purchase Orders, what the differences are, and when you should use each one. An Estimate, otherwise known as a Bid, Proposal, Quote or perhaps even a Schedule of Values in the construction industry, is a detailed breakdown of work or tasks that you will perform in order to complete a project for a specific customer or a specific job and what you will charge them to do it. A Purchase Order, on the other hand is normally something that you issue for materials or the services…
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27Mar 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Estimate to Purchase Order Blues

Customers & Accounts Receivable, Questions from our readers, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup, Vendors & Accounts Payable
  In QuickBooks it's possible to create an Estimate and then from the Estimate create a Purchase Order, Sales Order, Invoice or even a letter - but there are some drawbacks to these features as noted in the question below, submitted by a reader.  Hello, I have just upgraded from Pro 2009 to Premier Contractor 2012.  I did this so I could turn Estimates into Purchase Orders.  I spent an hour on the phone with Intuit yesterday to have them say, "oh, it can't do that".  So I am scouring the internet for someone that can help me. When you choose to create a PO from select items, the selection screen has no line descriptions.  We don't have item codes for everything we sell, that is never going to happen. …
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06Mar 2012 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Tip: Prior Amount Totals for Invoicing from Estimates

Customers & Accounts Receivable, Questions from our readers, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup
  A QuickBooks tip for getting prior amount billed totals to appear when creating Progress Invoices from an Estimate; when you've either had to start a new QuickBooks company file or you are switching from another accounting software. I'm trying to get my JTD beginning balances to appear in the "Prior Amount" totals prior to preparing my first invoice.  I used your "To enter the JTD billing for each job" information to create JTD prior invoicing amounts.  When I create a new invoice there were no prior amounts or percentages shown on my progress invoice.  When I create an invoice stating the percent to bill, it calculates my percentage based on the estimate amount only--No JTD amounts show up.  I did create an invoice with a dollar amount and saved…
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14Feb 2012 by Shannon Tucker

How Well Does the New QuickBooks 2012 Condense Feature Work?

From Our Guest Bloggers, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup
  QuickBooks 2012 introduced a new approach to condensing large QuickBooks data files. How well does the new condense feature work? And how does it compare to the results given by third party data condensing services, like those of AccountingUsers, Inc.? We did some tests to find out. We used the new condense function in QuickBooks 2012 (using either QuickBooks 2012 Premier Accountant Edition, or Enterprise Accountant 12) and recorded the results. We then ‘supercondensed’ those same original files. We tested “apples to apples” for seven separate QBW files. Some files were QuickBooks Pro and some were Enterprise. Results? For 3 of the 7 files we tested, the QuickBooks condense function performed pretty well. Those files were reduced in size by 57%, 58% and 73%. When we supercondensed those same…
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