finance | QuickBooks for Contractors blog

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…

11Oct 2011 by Nancy Smyth

Protecting Your Business From Fraud-Are You Doing Enough?

Be A Better Bookkeeper

Protecting your business from fraud and theft is a tough job these days - are you doing enough as a business owner to ensure that your assets are safe? Did you know that according to a 2010 report from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, incidents of occupational fraud are 31% more likely to occur at small business as opposed to larger companies? And, to add insult to injury, as many as 40% of small business owners are embezzlement victims and that a staggering one-third of all bankruptcies are the direct result of internal theft! To be hones, I had no idea of these statistics - until I read a very interesting article yesterday called Five steps to prevent small business fraud, in the Hartford Business Journal Online. The article…

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…

05Jul 2011 by Nancy Smyth

Top 10 Tuesday – Tips from Around the Web – 7/5/2011

News You Can Use

Top 10 Tuesday includes our favorite tips and news stories from around the web. This week there are some important articles for you to read and information to be aware of. Tax News: accountingTODAY for the WebCPA - Temporary FUTA Surtax Expires After 35 Years QuickBooks News & Tips QuickBooks and Your Business - How-NOT-to Guide for Using QuickBooks Bloomberg - Interview with Brad Smith, Intuit Inc. (video) Muir & Associates - 5 Keys to Job Costing in QuickBooks so You Can Increase Your Profitability (video - Windows Media Player format) QuickBooks & Beyond - QuickBooks 2011 R7 Released Construction Industry News: Mike Purdy's Public Contracting Blog - Ohio Legislature Reaches Compromise on Multiple Prime Contracts and Prevailing Wage Business, Customers, Website Design & Networking: American Express…

13Jun 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Payroll Tip – Workers Compensation Based on Hours Worked

Payroll Tips

A QuickBooks payroll tip for calculating Workers Compensation when it is based on hours worked. Workers Compensation Insurance is usually calculated as a rate which is applied to gross wages; and that's how the built-in QuickBooks Worker's Compensation feature calculates it. Last week, on the Intuit Community Forum, someone asked how you would set QuickBooks up to track Workers Compensation when it was a rate based on hours worked. I gave a brief overview on the forum, but thought that it deserved a more detailed "how to" here on our blog. Before you begin, you'll need at least three accounts in your Chart of Accounts to track your Liability and Expenses: one to track the accruing Worker's Compensation Liability {an Other Current Liability Account} one to track job or field…

09Jun 2011 by Jo Ellen Peters

Payroll Tip – The IRS May Hold You Liable For 941 Payments

From Our Guest Bloggers, IRS Information, Payroll Tips

A payroll tip about who the IRS may hold liable for 941 tax payments. Are you the bookkeeper or accountant for your company? Are you a signer on any of the company bank accounts? What about your client’s accounts? Do you sign on any of them? If so, you may be held responsible by the IRS for underpaid 941 liabilities. Sounds scary, but it can be true. How is it possible that can be true? The IRS says the federal income tax and the employee’s portion of social security and medicare taxes withheld is a trust fund. It is to be deposited according to the schedule they have determined for your company. The IRS cannot collect this tax from the employee, even if the employer does not pay the tax…

02Jun 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Payroll Tip – Replacing a Lost Employee Paycheck

Payroll Tips

A QuickBooks payroll tip for replacing a lost employee paycheck. I'm sure that you've all run into this situation at one time or another: an employee sheepishly comes to you and tells you that he's lost his paycheck, it was run through the washer, blew out the car window on his way to the bank, he can't find it, etc. - and he NEEDS his money! This situation can create quite a quandary for some business owners and their payroll clerks about how to replace this lost check. The immediate need is to reissue the paycheck. Follow these easy steps to replace a lost employee paycheck: Go the Employee Center, click on the Employees tab and click on the Employees name to display his payroll history Write down the Number…

31May 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Payroll Tip – Voiding Paychecks

Payroll Tips

A QuickBooks payroll tip about voiding paychecks - you should be very careful when choosing to void a paycheck because payroll checks have associated tax and other liability calculations and payments that need to be taken into consideration and it will result in changing payroll year-to-date amounts. A common, and acceptable, reason to void a paycheck would be if the employee or someone else in your company notices an error on the check before it is cashed - in this situation voiding the check is acceptable because it will not have a negative impact on payroll liability calculations - because those liabilities have not yet been paid. Be VERY careful about voiding a check if the employee has never picked it up - or it cannot be delivered to the…

25May 2011 by Nancy Smyth

The Benefits of Paying Prevailing Wage Fringes to a Bona-fide Plan

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Construction News, Payroll Tips

The benefits of paying the Prevailing Wage Fringe Benefit portion to bona-fide plan is often misunderstood by employers and employees alike. Prevailing wage jobs, those jobs that are subject to the Davis-Bacon Act and/or State Prevailing Wage Laws, require that all laborers and mechanics {including tradesmen such as carpenters, equipment operators, painters, pipefitters, plumbers, etc.) who perform work on the jobsite are to be paid a set base rate of pay PLUS an hourly fringe benefit rate. Union contractors automatically pay the total hourly fringe benefit rate to the union hall on behalf of the employee, usually splitting the full hourly rate into specific "funds" - Health & Welfare, Pension, Vacation, etc. When this happens the Union contractor doesn't pay payroll taxes, worker's compensation, or general liability insurance on this…

23May 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Creating a More Meaningful Payroll Expenses Section

Payroll Tips, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup

QuickBooks, by default, offers a single account called Payroll Expenses in your Chart of Accounts and all of the pre-programmed Payroll Items for wages and taxes are assigned to that one single account. When a business owner runs a Profit & Loss Report, when QuickBooks is set up in this manner, the report doesn't really provide him with any real idea of how much he paid in wages vs. taxes because it’s all just lumped together in a single amount. [caption id="attachment_2183" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Right click on the image to enlarge it"][/caption] I find this to be very frustrating because it means that you have to run additional reports and perform additional calculations in order to determine very basic information. Previously, we covered creating a more functional Payroll Liabilities section…

16May 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Tip-Creating a Functional Payroll Liabilities Section

Payroll Tips, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup

A QuickBooks Payroll Tip for creating a more functional Payroll Liabilities section on your Chart of Accounts. QuickBooks, by default, provides a limited Payroll Chart of Accounts containing only two accounts - Payroll Liabilities and Payroll Expenses. When you run a Balance Sheet or a Profit & Loss Report (or look at your Chart of Accounts listing) you only see the totals with no details and have to run further reports to find the individual amounts that make up the totals. I find this to be problematic. This article will show you how to add sub-accounts to the standard Payroll Liabilities account so that you can quickly and easily "see" the individual amounts for each payroll liability and how to edit your existing payroll items to accurately point to these…

09May 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Payroll Tip – Tracking Employee Advances or Loans

Be A Better Bookkeeper, Payroll Tips, QuickBooks Corner, QuickBooks Tips & Tricks

Tracking employee advances or loans in QuickBooks on future paychecks is a must for those companies that has a policy that allows giving employees advances/loans for personal reasons. There are three ways in which to record an employee advance or loan: Including it with the employees regular paycheck Writing a regular check Giving the employee cash from the company Petty Cash account Step 1 - Create an Other Current Asset Account to track employee advances/loans The first thing that you need to do - or have in place - is an Other Current Asset type account in your QuickBooks Chart of Accounts to track the money that is given to the employee. If you need to create the account: From the Lists menu -> choose Chart of Accounts Click the…

04May 2011 by Nancy Smyth

Unraveling Certified Payroll Requirements On Federal Construction Projects

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, Webinars & Training

Unraveling Certified Payroll Requirements On Federal Construction Projects webinar presented for L2 Federal Resources, LLC Wednesday, May 18, 2011 • 1:00 - 2:30 PM EDT Presented by: Nancy Smyth, Sunburst Software Solutions, Inc. _____________________ Making the move from residential/commercial construction projects to government-funded construction projects, which have certified payroll reporting requirements, can be overwhelming for most contractors, their office staff, and the accounting professionals who support them. This often misunderstood requirement can lead to major problems, including non-approval of payment requisitions, denial of payment for change orders and claims, and contract termination. Don't get caught in a payroll certification trap; learn the ins and outs of federal certification payroll requirements and get all your questions answered. Our live, instructor-led, on-line training class focuses on the following: What government agencies make…

13Apr 2011 by Nancy Smyth

New Certified Payroll Solution Support Article

The "Sunburst" Website

A new Certified Payroll Solution support article has been added to our main website - Matching Your QuickBooks Paycheck Totals With Your Certified Payroll Report Totals A guide for verifying and troubleshooting the accuracy of your final certified payroll reports before you submit them is an important step in your overall success in using Certified Payroll Solution and getting paid on time. This mini-manual focuses on the Federal WH-347 form - which everyone has access to, 99% of the time, if the WH-347 form is accurate, any other state specific form that you are required to complete will be also. It will teach you how to: Match your QuickBooks paycheck totals with your Certified Payroll Report totals Correct the 6 most common problems, based on over 10 years worth of…

11Apr 2011 by Nancy Smyth

QuickBooks Payroll Tip-Setting Up General Liability Insurance Tracking

Payroll Tips, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup

QuickBooks Payroll, when properly set up, is capable of tracking and including the cost of your General Liability Insurance; as well as many of the other things that costly construction software does automatically - with a little more effort on your part and without the big price tag. Tracking General Liability Insurance, when it is based on gross payroll, and getting those costs into Job Costing Reports is vital for many businesses, especially the construction industry. NOTE: The best time to implement this procedure is when your General Liability Insurance Policy period starts. The following instructions will allow you to track your General Liability Insurance costs when it is based on gross payroll and get those costs into your job costing reports without making complex journal entries. It will also…

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