31Jan 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Choosing QuickBooks & Add-Ons for Your Construction Business

QuickBooks Add-Ons, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup
QuickBooks, while a great software program, is a "generic" accounting program.  Even though there is a "Contractor version", it was designed to meet the needs of all types of contractors - from the home handyman to a general contractor.  Only through the use of QuickBooks integrated add-ons will you find that it then becomes a viable substitute for the more costly construction specific accounting programs available. 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…
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24Jan 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Bookkeeping/Accounting Tasks and Employee New Hire Packet

Be A Better Bookkeeper, Payroll Tips
Keeping track of bookkeeping/accounting tasks and the information that is required when you hire a new employee can be pretty overwhelming for a business owner or bookkeeper.  In the normal rush of day-to-day activities; sometimes important items can get overlooked and come back to bite you later. 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…
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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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19Jan 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Top 10 Thursday – News from around the Web 1/19/2012

News You Can Use
Top 10 Thursday features 10 of the most interesting articles that I found the previous week.  There is so much news and information available on the web – it’s difficult to read everything and stay up to date.  As I read articles on the web – I’ll share some that I feel are important. General Business: Guarding Against Fraud:  How to Protect Your Organization Business-driving technology worth considering in 2012 Bookkeeping, Accounting, Payroll & Taxes: Committee to start work on payroll-tax cut in mid-January Taxpayers Warned of Changes for Tax Season Construction: Top 10 transportation issues for 2012, including texting and cell phone usage while driving Indian considers right-to-work legislation Understanding General Liability Insurance for Contractors The Science of Bidding New York state plans to invest $15B in infrastructure improvements…
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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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16Jan 2012 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Weekly Timesheet – Service vs. Payroll Item

Job Costing Tips, Payroll Tips
The QuickBooks Weekly Timesheet can cause a lot of confusion for users who are implementing employee time tracking for the first time, mainly because the timesheet contains both a Service Item and a Payroll Item.  This article will explain what each column is used for and some common pitfalls that can happen. Job costing and employee time tracking are important aspects of many businesses - not just construction businesses.  However, when you initially set up timetracking there are many things that can cause confusion. About Service Items: The Service Item column represents the type of work that is being performed and allows you to select/enter/choose the name of the service item/cost code from your Item List that you want to use when your charge/bill your customer for this work -…
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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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09Jan 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Creating Estimates In Excel vs. QuickBooks – What’s the Difference?

Customers & Accounts Receivable, Job Costing Tips, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup
If you use QuickBooks for your accounting and you create your Estimates in Excel instead of within QuickBooks you loose out on job costing capabilities and so much more! I often see and hear comments such as this as I browse the web or talk with potential customers for our software: Right now we are using QuickBooks Contractor. It is ok for our accounting software but we are looking for something that works as an overall system for our office - CRM, estimating, job costing, proposals, work tickets and most importantly easy for my guys to use.  Right now we are using Excel for Estimates and invoices. When I see and hear comments like this I get so confused - because QuickBooks does allow you to create Estimates, Proposals, and…
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05Jan 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Employee Education & Training – Are You Making the Investment?

"Maad" Rants & Other Stuff, Be A Better Bookkeeper
Employee education and training is an investment that every business owner should make.  As a business owner, your company policies should include employee education and training requirements. Whether you are a business owner or an employee, education and training is part of your daily life - like it or not.   We need it in order to deal with new complexities that we face at work, for career advancement, and to obtain certification. Being a business owner myself, I find myself learning new things on a daily basis in order to make my job easier and more efficient.  For example, right now as I prepare this blog post,  I'm working with a new piece of software called Dragon Naturally Speaking.  Dragon allows me to dictate my blog post instead of physically…
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03Jan 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Happy New Year!

"Maad" Rants & Other Stuff
Wishing you all a happy, successful, and prosperous New Year!  I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season with family and friends. The holiday season is wonderful - but it's a time of short work weeks and lots of non-work related activities - I don't know about you but in some ways I'm REALLY glad the holiday season is over!  But unfortunately, I feel like a need a vacation just to get myself ready to go back to work and deal with the things ahead! Coming back to work after the Christmas and New Year's holidays can be tough - there are all the things that we need to catch up on that were set aside because of short work weeks and of course January means getting ready for…
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25Oct 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Tip – Easy Access to Employee Payroll Forms

Payroll Tips
This QuickBooks tip explains where you can easily access employee payroll forms; including the Federal I-9, W-4, and W-9's. Having used QuickBooks for many years, I can remember when needing an I-9 (Employment Eligibility Verification), a W-4 (Employee's Withholding Allowance Certificate), or a W-9 (Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification) meant a trip to the appropriate website to obtain the most current form - and depending on how busy I was at the moment, that could be a royal pain! The I-9, Federal W-4, and W-9 are now available to anyone with a current payroll subscription using QuickBooks Pro/Premier 2009-2012 or Enterprise 9.0-12.0 from the Employees menu -> Employee Forms option; you'll also find a Direct Deposit and Pay Card Authorization form. [caption id="attachment_2728" align="aligncenter" width="283" caption="Right click on…
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04Oct 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks 2012 – Turning Off Annoying Pop-Up Messages & Ads

"Stuff" that drives me insane, QuickBooks 2012 - What's New, QuickBooks Corner
NOTE: These instructions also work in QuickBooks 2013 and 2014 QuickBooks 2012 has both good and bad pop-up messages - just like any other version of QuickBooks, but there is nothing more annoying than having an ad pop-up when you are working in QuickBooks.  Let's be honest, getting rid of the message is another mouse click that you have to make and if messages and ads are popping up frequently we get into the habit of not reading what they have to say and miss something that could very well be important.  This article discusses how you can turn off most of them in QuickBooks 2012. Ok, I get it - Intuit is a business that makes it's money selling software and services to it's customers; but as a customer/business…
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28Sep 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks 2012 – Best Practices & Tips for Installing an Upgrade

QuickBooks 2012 - What's New
Best practices and tips for installing a QuickBooks 2012 upgrade on a computer that already has an existing version of QuickBooks in place. Remember, QuickBooks MUST be installed using a Standard User Account when you are running Windows Vista or Windows 7 AND you use QuickBooks integrated 3rd party programs - see Windows, QuickBooks & 3rd Party Apps - The Struggle Within. If you have Intuit do the upgrade, DO NOT let the Intuit rep install the new version from within your computer's Administrator account and DO NOT let them choose the "upgrade" option when they do the installation.  Also, make sure that your computer IT person is aware of the requirements and best practices - many do not. Make sure that you watch and understand what is being done…
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22Sep 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks for Contractors Tip – Receiving & Applying Joint Checks

Vendors & Accounts Payable
A QuickBooks for contractors tip about receiving and applying joint checks from a general contractor to pay a lower tier subcontractor or material supplier for work completed  or materials on a construction project. Quite frequently, in the construction industry, a contractor will receive a joint check from a General Contractor to pay their lower tier subcontractors or material suppliers for work completed and/or materials delivered to the construction project’s job site. Unlike many high-end construction accounting packages, QuickBooks doesn’t have a way to handle this automatically — or easily. This QuickBooks for contractors tip provides what we consider to be a best practice when a situation like this arises. Problem: Your company, Sam Subcontracting, received a $10,000.00 joint check from Joe's General Contracting; which is made out to both your…
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