Contractors Guide To QuickBooks Pro 2005
The Definitive Guide To Using QuickBooks Pro 2005 in Your Contractor Business

By Karen Mitchell, Craig Savage, Jim Erwin

QuickBooks Pro can save you hours of time in preparing your taxes. But setting up the new 2005 QuickBooks Pro can be complex and time-consuming.

Contractor's Guide to QuickBooks Pro 2005 can save hours of time in setting up and putting to use all the new features that this 2005 edition offers.

QuickBooks Pro isn't just for taxes. You can use it for payroll, keeping track of your vendors and subs -- even job costing (comparing your estimated costs to your actual costs and finding out where you're making and losing money.)

If you'd rather be building homes than burning the midnight oil trying to balance your books, you should have this new book. It includes a CD-ROM with a template for a construction company to help speed your set up, an estimating program with a 5000-item database, a program that converts your estimates into QuickBooks forms so you can compare with your actual costs, and blank construction forms for your use.

According to a recent national survey, more construction contractors use QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks than all other accounting programs combined. And for good reason. QuickBooks Pro excels at all the routine paperwork in a construction office: writing checks, keeping track of your bank balance, sending out invoices and statements, creating up-to-the-minute profit and loss statements for the month, year or by job, writing payroll checks, paying suppliers and subcontractors, tracking job costs, comparing estimated and actual costs for each job, and much more.

But there’s a lot to learn in QuickBooks Pro. And converting to a new accounting system can be a complex and confusing task, even if you have a strong background in accounting and plenty of time to install the new system. That’s why this book was written—because most construction pros aren’t accounting experts and have more important work to do at the job site.

Contractor’s Guide to QuickBooks Pro 2005 will walk you step-by-step through QuickBooks Pro’s detailed setup procedure and then explain item-by-item how you should be using QuickBooks Pro every day. In days, rather than weeks, you’ll create a first-rate accounting system that’s an asset to your company.

Here you’ll find simple, well-illustrated instructions for customizing the setup for QuickBooks Pro 2005, including what each screen on your monitor should look like. This manual explains every choice you need to make and every button you need to click on. And it tells you how to get a trial version of QuickBooks Pro if you want to try it before buying, and includes two other programs you’ll want to use when estimating costs with QuickBooks Pro. Here’s what’s on the CD in the back of this manual:

With this book, the other programs included in this package, and QuickBooks Pro 2005, you have at your fingertips all the financial tools needed to keep a company running strong and in the black. Just add your own company data.

The Authors

Karen Mitchell, Craig Savage and Jim Erwin are contractors, accountants and QuickBooks Pro experts. They’ve spent years studying and simplifying the installation of QuickBooks Pro in construction offices.

Karen, Craig and Jim tour the country giving accounting seminars to professional groups, consulting with individual contractors and actually setting up QuickBooks Pro accounting systems for builders. They’ll help you get excellent results with QuickBooks Pro the same way they’ve helped hundreds of other construction professionals.

Contents:

Introduction 5

Why You Need This Book, 5

What You Can Expect from This Book, 6

QuickBooks, QuickBooks Pro, or Premier: Contractor Edition? 7

Why Should You Believe Us? 9

What's on the CD? 12

How Do I Use This CD? 13

1 Setting Up Your QuickBooks Pro Company, 17

QuickBooks Pro Company Files, 18

Begin with Our Sample and Company Data Files, 19

Upgrade to QuickBooks Pro Version 2005, 23

Convert from Quicken to QuickBooks Pro, 25

Convert an Existing Data File to Our Setup, 30

2 How to Set

QuickBooks Pro Preferences, 33

General Preferences, 33

Accounting Preferences, 34

Checking Preferences, 36

Finance Charge Preferences, 38

Jobs and Estimates Preferences, 41

Payroll and Employees Preferences, 42

Purchases and Vendors Preferences, 43

Reminders Preferences, 45

Reports and Graphs Preferences, 46

Sales and Customers Preferences, 46

Sales Tax and Send Forms Preferences, 48

Service Connection Preferences, 50

Spelling Preferences, 51

Tax: 1099 Preferences, 52

Time Tracking Preferences, 54

3 Chart of Accounts, 55

How to Use the Sample Chart of Accounts, 57

Change, Add to, and Print Your Chart of Accounts, 60

QuickBooks Premier: Contractor Edition Features, 63

Loan Manager, 64

4 Items, 73

Entering Items for a Non-Inventory Based Business, 74

Entering Items for an Inventory Based Business, 76

Creating a Group of Items, 78

Entering Non-Job Related Items, 79

5 Payroll Items, 83

Using Payroll Items to Track Workers' Comp Costs, 83

Using Payroll Items if You Don't Track Workers' Comp, 91

Including Sole Proprietor and Partners' Time Costs in Job Costs, 94

6 Classes, 101

Using Classes to Track Cost Categories, 101

How to Create a Class, 102

7 Customers and Jobs, 105

How to Set Up a Customer, 105

Adding a Job for a Customer, 109

Exporting or Printing Your Customer List, 112

8 Vendors and Subcontractors, 113

Setting Up 1099 Vendors, 113

Setting Up a Non-1099 Vendor, 117

9 Employees, 119

Setting Up Your Employee List, 119

10 Opening Balances, 127

Entering Opening Balances in QuickBooks Pro, 127

Entering Invoices for Accounts Receivable, 128

Entering Bills for Accounts Payable, 130

11 Organizing Work Flow, 133

Setting Up Your Office Files, 134

Organizing Your Payroll, 137

Keeping Office Paperwork Current, 137

12 Estimating, 141

Using a Summary Estimate You Make Outside of QuickBooks Pro, 142

Customizing an Estimate Form, 144

Memorizing an Estimate, 145

Estimates and Progress Billing, 147

Getting Detailed Estimates, 147

13 Receivables, 149

Four Ways to Invoice a Customer, 150

Tracking Change Orders On Estimates, 160

How to Handle Retainage, 162

Recording a Payment You Receive, 167

Recording a Deposit, 168

Recording a Job Deposit, 169

14 Payables, 173

Creating and Using Purchase Orders, 174

Using Purchase Orders to Track Multiple Draws and Committed Costs, 175

Entering Bills Without Purchase Orders, 179

Selecting Bills for Payment, 181

Printing Checks, 182

Vendor Workers' Comp Reports, 184

15 Payroll, 189

Entering a Timesheet, 189

Processing Employee Payroll, 193

Allocating Sole Proprietor or Partner's Time to a Job, 199

16 Using QuickBooks Pro on a Cash Basis, 203

How to Record a Check, 204

How to Record a Deposit, 207

Checking Your Transactions with the QuickBooks Pro Register, 209

17 Reports, 211

How to Modify Reports, 211

Using Our Memorized Reports, 215

Using Jobs, Time & Mileage Reports, 232

18 End of Month and End of Year Procedures, 243

Reading and Understanding Your Financial Reports, 251

End of Year Procedures, 255

19 Real Estate Development, 259

New Accounts, 259

Setting Up a Development Job, 260

Using Items to Track Construction Costs as WIP, 261

Land Purchase Transactions, 263

Personal Loans, 267

Development Loans, 273

Construction Loans, 277

Recording the Sale of a Property, 280

Appendix A Estimating with QuickBooks Pro 285

Three Good Reasons to Try QuickBooks Pro Estimating, 285

A Road Map to Your Destination, 286

Setting Preferences for Estimating, 287

Building Your Item List, 289

Creating an Estimate in QuickBooks Pro, 291

Turning an Estimate into an Invoice, 294

Tidying Up Your Company File, 297

Appendix B Job Cost Tracking and Importing Estimates 299

Estimates into Invoices, 302

Handling Tax, 302

Using Items for Job Cost Tracking, 304

Help Learning National Estimator, 306

Estimating with National Estimator, 307

Converting Estimates with Job Cost Wizard, 321

Index, 333