accounting software | QuickBooks for Contractors blog

30Jul 2010 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks for Contractors Tip – Basics of Progress Invoicing

Progress Invoicing is a standard feature of QuickBooks® Pro, Premier, and Enterprise editions; each of these versions also offer several options for invoicing as well. In order to implement the Progress Invoicing function you must also utilize the QuickBooks Estimate function – this will eliminate repetitive data entry and help you achieve good job costing reports, such as Estimate vs. Actual reports. To activate Progress billing you MUST first log into QuickBooks as the QuickBooks Administrator and be in single-user mode. From the Edit menu -> choose Preferences -> scroll down to Jobs & Estimate -> and click on the Company Preferences tab. Once you are in the Company Preferences tab, review and set the options as follows: Do You Create Estimates – should be set to Yes Do You…

29Jul 2010 by Nancy Smyth

An Introduction to Progress Invoicing

Customers & Accounts Receivable, The "Sunburst" Website

Progress Invoicing (also called progress billing, percentage of completion billing, or partial billing) involves billing from an estimate (or Schedule of Values) over the course of time and could be considered a type of installment billing. Progress billing is commonly associated with the construction industry; however, it is common in other industries as well. QuickBooks® Pro, Premier, and Enterprise editions all offer several options for invoicing and a Progress Invoicing function is also available. Some projects or jobs will require only a single invoice, others will require two invoices, others may require three invoices (one at the start of the job, one when you are 50% done, and the other when you are finished), other projects might require that you submit monthly progress invoices over the course of months or…

22Jul 2010 by Nancy Smyth

California DIR – New Prevailing Wage Compliance Requirements for Contractors

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Construction News, QuickBooks Add-Ons, The "Sunburst" Website

Beginning August 1, 2010 contractors working on public works construction projects in California will find that they are subject to the regulations of the Public Works Compliance Monitoring Unit (CMU) – part of the California Department of Industrial Relations - in accordance with State Senate Bill X2-9, that was signed into law in February 2009. The CMU will conduct the required monitoring and enforcement of the states public works prevailing wage laws on specific state bond funded and/or design-build procurement construction projects undertaken by public entities in California and awarded on or after the effect date of the regulations – August 1, 2010. The California Department of Industrial Relations Compliance Monitoring Unit’s mission is to ensure that workers on state bond funded and/or design-build procurement construction projects are being paid…

13Jul 2010 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Tips – Four (4) Ways to Add Long Disclaimers on Forms

Customers & Accounts Receivable

As a business owner there can be several different situations that you encounter where you might need to include a long legal disclaimer or explanation when you sell a specific item, offer special discounts, provide warranty disclaimers and information or explain your payment requirements when bidding on a job or even invoicing a customer. There are four different methods for addressing this issue; the one that you choose will depend on what makes the most sense for your business: ItemsTemplateLetters FunctionOutside of QuickBooks Using Items to add long disclaimers – If the additional information needs to be included when a specific product is sold, that information can be included in the description OR you can create a new item with a zero sales cost for the purpose of adding…

06Jul 2010 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Question – Inventory for Contractors

Questions from our readers, QuickBooks Add-Ons

A reader asked the following question: We are a small contractor in San Diego and we are wondering how we get around having to always do an inventory adjustment to get our purchases to the correct COGS account? We have (2) departments but they are both doing construction projects: Service dept does smaller installs and Contracts dept does the bigger jobs so I have been doing a JE to move the material from the Contracts material COGS account to the service COGS account. Is there an add-on for QB Enterprise 8 that we could use? Thank you so much for your website/blog. I've been reading it faithfully every day! ____________________________________________________________________ There are several inventory add-ons for QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise; check out these 3rd party add-ons at the Intuit…

30Jun 2010 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Tips – Posting Transactions – Date Sensitivity

Be A Better Bookkeeper

QuickBooks automatically prefills the date field in every transaction you create (Enter Bill, Write Checks, Create Estimate, etc.) and report that you generate. You should always verify that the date specified by QuickBooks is the correct date for the particular transaction or report. In many cases, the date that QuickBooks provides you with is not the correct date that you need. Additionally, you should verify that you are not posting transactions to a date in a period that has been "closed". Unfortunately, QuickBooks allows users to post new transactions to a prior period if they have access to change or delete transactions recorded before the closing date. Report Dates Every QuickBooks report automatically specifies a default date range each time the report is created. You should always verify that the…

29Jun 2010 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Tip – Construction A/P – Tracking Subcontractor Insurance

Free & Fee-Based QuickBooks eBooks, Questions from our readers, Vendors & Accounts Payable

A reader wrote to ask the following question: I have a vendor (subcontractor) whose general liability insurance expired. In QuickBooks I was able to produce a check for them. How do I QuickBooks to notify me that their insurance has expired? Answer: Unlike some of the more costly construction specific software programs out there, QuickBooks wasn't designed to prevent us from generating a check to a Vendor/Subcontractor whose General Liability or Worker's Compensation insurance has expired. The QuickBooks Premier (or Enterprise) Contractor edition does have a "section" in the Additional Info tab of the Vendor Record where you can enter an expiration date for both Worker's Comp and General Liability insurance - and if you enter dates in these fields you will get a warning when using a vendor whose…

24Jun 2010 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Tip – Construction Accounts Payable

Job Costing Tips, Vendors & Accounts Payable

If you think that job costing is all it takes to have a good construction accounting system – think again! You need a firm handle on your costs and QuickBooks when properly setup and used does a very good job, however, you also need to be able to control those costs. In almost every other industry, the Accounts Payable function is strictly a clerical function, found only in the accounting department. Most construction managers know that subcontract and purchase order control can only be achieved with a good accounts payable system in place. As much as 75% of your Accounting Department’s time is spent on the Accounts Payable process. Receiving and paying invoices is a constant, on-going process. Therefore, it had better be good. The problems of having to handle…

22Jun 2010 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Tip – 5 Reasons To Use QuickBooks Group Items – Part 2

Customers & Accounts Receivable, Job Costing Tips, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup

QuickBooks provides you with a powerful, and time saving tool within your items list, which is often under utilized and often misunderstood — the QuickBooks Group Item. 5 Reasons To Use QuickBooks Group Items: Creating and using Group Items is useful for quickly entering a group of individual items that you have already set up as single items in your Item List. Group Items are versatile – you can choose to print – or – not to print the items within the group, meaning you can track more detail than your customer needs to see. Group Items ensure that you don’t “leave something out” – which means lost dollars on your part. Group Items speed up the creation of Estimates and Invoices – imagine being able to pull in 19…

21Jun 2010 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Tips – 5 Reasons to Use QuickBooks Group Items – Part 1

Customers & Accounts Receivable, Job Costing Tips, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup

QuickBooks provides you with a powerful, and time saving tool within your items list, which is often under utilized and often misunderstood --- the QuickBooks Group Item. 5 Reasons To Use QuickBooks Group Items: Creating and using Group Items is useful for quickly entering a group of individual items that you have already set up as single items in your Item List. Group Items are versatile – you can choose to print – or – not to print the items within the group, meaning you can track more detail than your customer needs to see. Group Items ensure that you don’t “leave something out” – which means lost dollars on your part. Group Items speed up the creation of Estimates and Invoices – imagine being able to pull in 19…

17Jun 2010 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Service Outage – Practical QuickBooks blog

"Maad" Rants & Other Stuff, General QuickBooks News

Beginning on Tuesday evening, June 15, 2010, many Intuit websites and services became unavailable due to a power outage at their data center. Even though you may be using the Desktop version of QuickBooks, this could have had a major impact on your ability to conduct business. Charlie Russell, from the Practical QuickBooks blog wrote a very interesting piece yesterday that he is continuing to update, if you would like more information. Even though I use the desktop version, when I went to do payroll VERY early yesterday, before I knew about all of this, I did a payroll update and tried to process payroll but no taxes were withheld. Once I realized what was going on with Intuit servers I knew what the problem was - I couldn't connect…

16Jun 2010 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks for Contractors Newsletter – June 2010 Edition

The "Sunburst" Website

The June 2010 edition of the QuickBooks for Contractors Newsletter, published on a quarterly basis by Sunburst Software Solutions, Inc. is now available. This quarters newsletter is all about job costing equipment in QuickBooks: Determining Equipment Costs per Hour - explains how equipment costs-per-hour is determined by adding together three (3) distinct pieces of information. Equipment Cost Calculator - an Excel spreadsheet designed to calculate the ACTUAL hour rate it costs you to have a specific piece of equipment on the jobsite. The spreadsheet has formulas, based on the calculations in the article above. QuickBooks Tips & Techniques - Advanced Job Costing - Getting Equipment Costs into Job Costing Reports - a FREE 17-page eBook which guides you step-by-step in getting your equipment costs into your job costing reports. Get…

15Jun 2010 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Tip – 12 Steps to Implement Job Costing

Job Costing Tips, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup

It’s the start of construction season, is your job costing system in place? While the start of a busy construction season may not be the time to do a full-scale revamp of your current job costing system, it is certainly time to give it a thorough review for the upcoming season and perhaps make some modifications to your existing system within QuickBooks. As you read through this article, take some notes and see what you can change now and what should wait until you are in “off season” before implementing. QuickBooks is a very flexible and versatile program. The Customer Center List provides you with the ability to track your Customers (project owners, awarding authorities, or general contractors) that you perform work for. For each Customer you can then track…

10Jun 2010 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Tip – Job Costing Starts With A Simple Item

Job Costing Tips, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup

For many contractors job costing is a key part of the success of their business – how else will they know if they are actually making a profit on the jobs they are bidding on. Job costing in QuickBooks starts with the Item List. When you tell this to most contractors they respond with “Items --- I don’t sell ITEMS --- what does Items have to do with construction????? This is a common feeling shared by many who use QuickBooks – not just contractors. What is an “Item”? By way of explanation, QuickBooks is a generic software program which can be used in any industry or business type; therefore, many of the terms in QuickBooks are generic and often confusing when trying to make it work in a specific industry. …

21May 2010 by Nancy Smyth

Construction Accounting – Tracking Construction Costs Primer

Job Costing Tips

Tracking costs throughout a construction project is possibly the most important aspect of completing a project. This may seem like a simple function, but in a construction project, different entities need different financial information, and being able to track finances in real time saves a lot of work (and costs) later on. Let’s look at some of the costs and how accounting software fills the need. Construction accounting software makes it easier to keep track of direct material purchases. Direct materials consist of basic building supplies like drywall, wire, pipes, and wood. Essentially, direct materials are everything purchased for a project. Sometimes these materials are purchased tax-free or with a builder’s discount. These items are generally recorded separate of labor costs to ensure accurate profit and loss statements. The cost…

Tag: accounting software