QuickBooks for contractors is a great and inexpensive tool for managing your construction business and gain control over their employment costs, but to use their maximum potential need for installation and use of QuickBooks a little different than it would for many other businesses.

First, and most importantly, need to configure your articles correctly, they are the heart of QuickBooks for Contractors. You must be a configuration point for each level of detail you want in your work costing reports. It can be as simple as Labor and Materials or as detailed as have hundreds of subcategories for the services it offers. A good example of the background (detail sufficient to manage its labor costs without being overwhelming) can be found at the contractor of the sample-based business that comes with QuickBooks file:

1 Plans and Permits.
01.1 Plans
01.2 Building Permits
City & Co. Mr. 01.3 's & Fees
02 The Work
02.10 Demo
03 Excavation
04 concrete
05 Masonry
06 Floor Framing
07 Wall Framing
08 Roof Framing
09 Roof Flashing
10 Exterior Trim & Decks
11 Siding
12 Doors & Trim
Windows 13 & Trim
14 plumbing
15 HVAC
16 Electrical & Lighting
17 Insulation
18 Interior walls
19 Roofing & Cover
20 Carpentry & Trim
21 cabinets and vanities
22 specialists
23 Floor Coverings
24 paintings
25 Clean
Landscape and paving 26
27 Quota

Many sub-contractors working add Articles and materials which is useful if you want to track costs separately. This also makes it easier to report only the part of job invoice from a subcontractor in 1099.

After determining that trouble you want to track, you're ready to add their articles. Go to lists – List of items, click on the item and select New. Employment costs should always be setup as part of services which, fortunately, so default. If you are a contractor with short-term jobs sure to install all items of service as two sides, with an expense and as an operating account. This does not occur automatically and unfortunately is not very intuitive. You need to put a check next to "This service is used in assemblies or is performed by a subcontractor or partner "for the table of costs added to the configuration screen. Contractors often use a cost of sales expenses account called something like "work-related costs" for work-related.

Builders, on the other hand, with projects extending over several months or more generally, use of a work in progress (WIP) or construction in progress (CIP) asset account, because labor costs are not related to expenses usually until the project has completed. For this reason, its service need not be double sided. You should consult your tax advisor or CPA before deciding which is right for your business.

Once your items are setup, you need to start using them. Many of the reports of job costing, and the estimates actual vs, require the use of items in all transactions, including invoices, checks and charge card credit. Again, this is not very intuitive, especially since all these transactions default rates to a record of expenses, but look closely and you'll see a tab for the article just to the right of the tab for expenses. To take full advantage of QuickBooks for contractors, you should always use this tab. Forget that the Expenses tab even exists. It is also important to assign all transactions for a client / employment, of course.

Finally, if you want to get the most out of QuickBooks for contractors always, always come in an estimate for the level of detail you are trying to track. You do not need to send this to your customers, but you might find that this is very useful. Many users that this adds an extra step necessary for its day to day accounting entries, but this is one of the beautiful things about QuickBooks for Contractors. Once enter the estimate, which can make it an invoice, a sales order and / or a purchase order with just the click of a button (the three are hidden under the "Create Invoice "button on the form of estimates). Thus, rather than adding an extra step that often find that you'll end up saving an enormous amount of input data in the future, and I'm going to get much better, more detailed reports.

Ruth Perryman, MBA, CMA, CFE, CFM is a QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions Provider and a Certified Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisor. She specializes in customizing QuickBooks for contractors and builders. Ruth can be reached at 800-707-0940 x101 or email: ruth@theQBspecialists.com“>ruth@theQBspecialists.com

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