Accounting Software Recommendations?

Mike Finley · 06-14-2009, 08:08 PM

Here's another one I just had to deal with.

Insurance audit. Insurance audit requires you give them all your subs and gross dollar amounts paid to them. Now this should be about the simplest thing in the world to do with a contractors addition accounting program that's been on the market for 20 years.

Try it and tell me how that one works out for you.

You'll get something but it won't be anything you could actually send to your insurance company, instead you'll be dumping it in excel and manipulating the data into something you can give them.

Timberline = crystal reports module. Quickbooks = some jerk ass antiquated report system built around what I have no idea.

There is lots and lots more, I won't even go into how crazy trying to estimate jobs is, anything beyond hours and a few standard materials and forget it. Items? Yeah right!

rbsremodeling · 06-14-2009, 08:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Finley

Here's another one I just had to deal with.

Insurance audit. Insurance audit requires you give them all your subs and gross dollar amounts paid to them. Now this should be about the simplest thing in the world to do with a contractors addition accounting program that's been on the market for 20 years.

Try it and tell me how that one works out for you.

You'll get something but it won't be anything you could actually send to your insurance company, instead you'll be dumping it in excel and manipulating the data into something you can give them.

Timberline = crystal reports module. Quickbooks = some jerk ass antiquated report system built around what I have no idea.

There is lots and lots more, I won't even go into how crazy trying to estimate jobs is, anything beyond hours and a few standard materials and forget it. Items? Yeah right!

Report: Expenses by vendor summary

rbsremodeling · 06-14-2009, 08:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Finley

In a growing business, one of the most imporant things to know is job costing as you grow, as you grow you need to be able to see if profitability is remaining stable, going down, going up... as you grow and expand you change your business dramatically.

Let's say for instance I want to query quick books and see how we did this first quarter of the year compared to last quarter. Sounds simple, but this simple report shows you the fatal flaw to quickbooks in that it queries by date in most reports. So I pull up all the jobs we did between Jan 1,2009 and the end of march 2009 and it pulls it together and you get your percentage and you look and see holy sh*t my labor number for instance lets say it's usually 21% of gross sales is saying it's 15%! Well holy crap that's awesome isn't it? Unfortunately all you are seeing is the inaccuracy of how quick books reports, there is no such thing as closed jobs in quickbooks that I know of. When you query over a date range say starting Jan 1st, you might have a job included in this report that you started in Dec and maybe you didn't record payments until Jan 4th. So this report is inaccurate since it will show for instance $20,000 of income and no offsets against it of expenses since in this example most of them were recorded in Dec. At the other end of the query, lets say at the end of March you recorded $15,000 worth of labor on another job that didn't end for 2 more months and you have payments showing up in May.

Because quickbooks is only pulling up transactions based on date ranges to create it's reports and not doing anything in regard to whole jobs, the numbers are worthless. You have to do about a dozen work arounds just to get anything accurate and meaningful.

Like I said, it's great for simple accounting, beats the hell out of a shoe box and a bag of reciepts, but it's far from robust and the contractors addition is nothing more than a name taped on the box.

You have to use the customize report feature and tell it what you want the report to list and save the report for future use

Mike Finley · 06-14-2009, 08:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rbsremodeling

You have to use the customize report feature and tell it what you want the report to list and save the report for future use

You can't create this report because the features aren't there to customize.

I'll make it even simpler to understand. Pull up a report job profits in detail, for all the jobs you FINISHED in the last 6 months of 2008, use this report to show you all your totals and percentages for your costs associated with these jobs, materials, permits, subs, labor ect... This report should only have information in it for those jobs only and nothing else.

Try it. Then tell me how you don't have transactions from jobs that over lapped from before July 1st 2008 and after Dec 31st 2008 in that report.

Mike Finley · 06-14-2009, 08:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rbsremodeling

Report: Expenses by vendor summary

I wrote $250,000 to vendors who aren't subs last year. Vendors aren't subs in quick book land.

rbsremodeling · 06-14-2009, 08:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Finley

I wrote $250,000 to vendors who aren't subs last year. Vendors aren't subs in quick book land.

all subs should be listed as vendors in quickbooks

Mike Finley · 06-14-2009, 10:49 PM

Yes, but all vendors are not subs, hence the problem of pulling up a vendor report, it pulls up all the other vendors and your subs at the same time. Do you already see where this is going...? Kind of goofy ain't it? A contractor based quickbooks version would.... sort of think it would have some sub-contractor based functions???

Now of course you can filter and dig down in your vendor report and get those subs if your accounts are set up a certain way, but again it won't yield a simple report you can print and submit to your insurance company even if you do that, I still have to export it to excel and manipulate it to get that.

RayContracting · 06-15-2009, 07:15 AM

Mike +1. To summarize what Mike said about job costing. Proper job costing should list all jobs (within the specified Job /dates), but must include ALL of the Income and Costs related to that job, regardless of the date of those transactions and should NOT filter transactions related to that job as well, unless you specifically put in that filter.
One of the main issues for me that makes QB Job Costing so useless, is the fact that a new sub-Job under ever single job for each customer. What if you have a big commercial customer, with several locations, you will be adding a sub-job for each location. Then lets assume we do 4 jobs a month in each location. You would need to add a new sub-job, under that sub job, and after a years you would have nearly 50 sub-jobs under that job-address alone. Simply insane.
Here is another fun task to do in QB: Go into the Receive Customer Payments screen, and enter a payment greater than what it owed. You will be prompted to enter a credit back to the customer, or write a check. Select Enter Credit for the difference, then save. Now go try to find that Credit you just created. Good Luck (QB 2006 and before, not sure about later versions.)

Please do not be fooled by the 'Contractor' version of QB, as this is just the same old crap in a new box, and a few added reports. If they really cared, they would add a brand new thing in the contracting industry called a 'Work Order' QB used to be a decent accounting software, but its time is due.

QB is the McDonald's of Software. Great marketing crap product.

MOTB · 06-16-2009, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Finley

There are many, many, many more things quick books refuses to do. Over the last few years I've posted many times on quick books forums thinking I'm just too dumb to figure out how to do it, and usually almost every time is the answer that gets replied is: You can't do it.

Mike,
I have to admit that, while being a competitor of theirs, they do a good job at the accounting side. I agree with your comment above and I have gone to enough trade shows over the years to hear how others perceive that all roads lead to the Income Statement and Balance Sheet. This is true is some situations, but there are tons of issues (i.e. dealing with cash that some of the industry may not want to report

). Many of the people I meet are more concerned about getting more jobs, managing them effectively and ensuring they get paid quickly. Unfortunately the vast majority of the industry has a negative stigma when it comes to the adoption of technology and the suits at larger corporations see themselves differently than us smaller folk. Many software companies will be polite in their responses but they will make a determination based on the perception that they can just force you to work around limitations, and sometimes indefinetely. Thanks for referencing your topic since my instinct is that they do not realize you are a good Beta for new ideas.
Brian

Mike Finley · 06-16-2009, 09:28 PM

I have to agree.

Quick books is the Behr paint of accounting software.

beautiful · 06-17-2009, 09:14 AM

I'm new to the business.
Can any one contribute the pro & con of each one?
Why do you chose QB or Peachtree over the other one?
Thanks.

wirenut1110 · 06-18-2009, 08:51 AM

I think the main issue with most software programs is the user and how things are set up.
For example, in your chart of accounts, you should have just have subcontractors as an account name. If you pay electrical, plumbing, drywall, paint, etc., subs, then set them up as the account name but list them as a sub category of subcontractors.

When you go to pay these people, go to enter bills or write checks, in the expense tab, select subcontractors, electrical, painting, etc.> the amount>description if you wish>the job your charging it to>and whether or not it's billable>and the class

When you need this expense for an audit, go to Reports>Company & financial> P & L standard or detail > Modify report > filters tab > account >from the drop list, select subcontractors then select OK. Then select your date range from the drop down list or change the dates yourself.

Mike Finley · 06-18-2009, 09:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wirenut1110

When you go to pay these people, go to enter bills or write checks, in the expense tab, select subcontractors, electrical, painting, etc.> the amount>description if you wish>the job your charging it to>and whether or not it's billable>and the class

Actually you've describe exactly how my chart of accounts is set up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wirenut1110

When you need this expense for an audit, go to Reports>Company & financial> P & L standard or detail > Modify report > filters tab > account >from the drop list, select subcontractors then select OK. Then select your date range from the drop down list or change the dates yourself.

However, unfortunatley that does not produce the desired report.

We have the type of sub (elec, plumbing etc) as sub accounts of "sub-contractors" so you get a report with those categories and a list of CHECKS amounts written, you don't get what you need for an insurance audit which is childlishly simple -

Jim Joe Bob's Plumbing company -- $25,000
Frank's Plumbing ----------------- $10,000
Bill's Plumbing -------------------- $15,000

Even if you didn't break subs into sub categories the resultant report would still just be a list of checks written in the Sub Contractor category all mixed together.

wirenut1110 · 06-18-2009, 09:18 AM

You can have multiple filters. After you select the filter for the account, then select the filter for the name, ie., Jim Joe Bob's plumbing or multiple names

Mike Finley · 06-18-2009, 09:31 AM

Unfortunatly, again that just lists out all the checks you wrote to the sub. You also have to manually do this for every sub, making damn sure you don't ever forget one, which means you have to print out something else and then manually cross reference it and add up all the totals to check to see they match or you left one out.

Sure seems since we are contractors and lots of use contractors subs and lots of contractors have annual insurance audits and Quickbooks contractors addition is just for contractors and not airline pilots, that it would make sense to be able to print out a simple report with the information every insurance company requires. Print it, include it with the audit, done. Maybe when they release a special "school teachers" addition or maybe the much awaited "bee keepers" addition they will include this feature? Or maybe just a report writing system that actually makes sense and works?

Quickbooks answer to this is the "export" button at the top of the reports page. Export it to excel and manipulate it to a report you can actually use.

Jeff Knutson · 06-30-2009, 10:01 PM

Mike Finley you should be selling construction software. I think you would make tons of money as a dealer of our products.

MOTB · 07-01-2009, 07:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Knutson

Mike Finley you should be selling construction software.

Hey Jeff,
I would like to offer an option, Mike can also promote software-as-a-service and look at our option. Happy July 4th from the competition.
Brian

MOTB · 07-01-2009, 07:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by beautiful

Can any one contribute the pro & con of each one? Why do you chose QB or Peachtree over the other one?

You have two separate questions. The most important is that both products are not designed to run the majority of the front operations of a remodeling business as labeled in your title. They both do a good job for the back end (AP payments, Income Statement, etc.). You are new to the business and I think you should spend more time building the business and just choose Quickbooks for the backend, it will provide you the same result as opposed to spending countless hours searching for some small differences that will not make an impact on the business. Brian

stevensonjames8 · 12-25-2009, 10:17 PM

For me Quickbooks is the best option out there.

Buildology · 01-19-2010, 04:36 PM

The best option is different for different contractor types. QuickBooks is simple and user friendly, and affordable. Quickbooks Job Costing Reports are terrible. I really meant to say very bad.
Spend some money and get some value.

06-14-2009, 08:08 PM	#21
Mike Finley View Profile Mike Finley Chief Toilet Mover Send Message Follow Blogs (0) Threads (14,078) Photos (0) Reviews (0) Projects (0) Toolbox (0) View All Activity Chief Toilet Mover Trade: Bathroom Remodeling Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Littleton, Colorado Posts: 14,078	Re: Accounting Software Recommendations? Here's another one I just had to deal with. Insurance audit. Insurance audit requires you give them all your subs and gross dollar amounts paid to them. Now this should be about the simplest thing in the world to do with a contractors addition accounting program that's been on the market for 20 years. Try it and tell me how that one works out for you. You'll get something but it won't be anything you could actually send to your insurance company, instead you'll be dumping it in excel and manipulating the data into something you can give them. Timberline = crystal reports module. Quickbooks = some jerk ass antiquated report system built around what I have no idea. There is lots and lots more, I won't even go into how crazy trying to estimate jobs is, anything beyond hours and a few standard materials and forget it. Items? Yeah right!

06-14-2009, 10:49 PM	#27
Mike Finley View Profile Mike Finley Chief Toilet Mover Send Message Follow Blogs (0) Threads (14,078) Photos (0) Reviews (0) Projects (0) Toolbox (0) View All Activity Chief Toilet Mover Trade: Bathroom Remodeling Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Littleton, Colorado Posts: 14,078	Re: Accounting Software Recommendations? Yes, but all vendors are not subs, hence the problem of pulling up a vendor report, it pulls up all the other vendors and your subs at the same time. Do you already see where this is going...? Kind of goofy ain't it? A contractor based quickbooks version would.... sort of think it would have some sub-contractor based functions??? Now of course you can filter and dig down in your vendor report and get those subs if your accounts are set up a certain way, but again it won't yield a simple report you can print and submit to your insurance company even if you do that, I still have to export it to excel and manipulate it to get that.

06-15-2009, 07:15 AM	#28
RayContracting View Profile RayContracting New Guy Send Message Follow Blogs (0) Threads (21) Photos (0) Reviews (0) Projects (0) Toolbox (0) View All Activity New Guy Trade: General Contractor Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 21	Re: Accounting Software Recommendations? Mike +1. To summarize what Mike said about job costing. Proper job costing should list all jobs (within the specified Job /dates), but must include ALL of the Income and Costs related to that job, regardless of the date of those transactions and should NOT filter transactions related to that job as well, unless you specifically put in that filter. One of the main issues for me that makes QB Job Costing so useless, is the fact that a new sub-Job under ever single job for each customer. What if you have a big commercial customer, with several locations, you will be adding a sub-job for each location. Then lets assume we do 4 jobs a month in each location. You would need to add a new sub-job, under that sub job, and after a years you would have nearly 50 sub-jobs under that job-address alone. Simply insane. Here is another fun task to do in QB: Go into the Receive Customer Payments screen, and enter a payment greater than what it owed. You will be prompted to enter a credit back to the customer, or write a check. Select Enter Credit for the difference, then save. Now go try to find that Credit you just created. Good Luck (QB 2006 and before, not sure about later versions.) Please do not be fooled by the 'Contractor' version of QB, as this is just the same old crap in a new box, and a few added reports. If they really cared, they would add a brand new thing in the contracting industry called a 'Work Order' QB used to be a decent accounting software, but its time is due. QB is the McDonald's of Software. Great marketing crap product. Last edited by RayContracting; 06-15-2009 at 12:00 PM.

06-16-2009, 09:28 PM	#30
Mike Finley View Profile Mike Finley Chief Toilet Mover Send Message Follow Blogs (0) Threads (14,078) Photos (0) Reviews (0) Projects (0) Toolbox (0) View All Activity Chief Toilet Mover Trade: Bathroom Remodeling Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Littleton, Colorado Posts: 14,078	Re: Accounting Software Recommendations? I have to agree. Quick books is the Behr paint of accounting software.

06-17-2009, 09:14 AM	#31
beautiful View Profile beautiful Registered User Send Message Follow Blogs (0) Threads (8) Photos (0) Reviews (0) Projects (0) Toolbox (0) View All Activity Registered User Trade: Remodeling, General Construction Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 8	Re: Accounting Software Recommendations? I'm new to the business. Can any one contribute the pro & con of each one? Why do you chose QB or Peachtree over the other one? Thanks.

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06-18-2009, 08:51 AM	#32
wirenut1110 View Profile wirenut1110 Electrical Contractor Send Message Follow Blogs (0) Threads (37) Photos (0) Reviews (0) Projects (0) Toolbox (0) View All Activity Electrical Contractor Trade: Electrical Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Chester, VA. Posts: 37	Re: Accounting Software Recommendations? I think the main issue with most software programs is the user and how things are set up. For example, in your chart of accounts, you should have just have subcontractors as an account name. If you pay electrical, plumbing, drywall, paint, etc., subs, then set them up as the account name but list them as a sub category of subcontractors. When you go to pay these people, go to enter bills or write checks, in the expense tab, select subcontractors, electrical, painting, etc.> the amount>description if you wish>the job your charging it to>and whether or not it's billable>and the class When you need this expense for an audit, go to Reports>Company & financial> P & L standard or detail > Modify report > filters tab > account >from the drop list, select subcontractors then select OK. Then select your date range from the drop down list or change the dates yourself.

06-18-2009, 09:18 AM	#34
wirenut1110 View Profile wirenut1110 Electrical Contractor Send Message Follow Blogs (0) Threads (37) Photos (0) Reviews (0) Projects (0) Toolbox (0) View All Activity Electrical Contractor Trade: Electrical Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Chester, VA. Posts: 37	Re: Accounting Software Recommendations? You can have multiple filters. After you select the filter for the account, then select the filter for the name, ie., Jim Joe Bob's plumbing or multiple names

06-18-2009, 09:31 AM	#35
Mike Finley View Profile Mike Finley Chief Toilet Mover Send Message Follow Blogs (0) Threads (14,078) Photos (0) Reviews (0) Projects (0) Toolbox (0) View All Activity Chief Toilet Mover Trade: Bathroom Remodeling Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Littleton, Colorado Posts: 14,078	Re: Accounting Software Recommendations? Unfortunatly, again that just lists out all the checks you wrote to the sub. You also have to manually do this for every sub, making damn sure you don't ever forget one, which means you have to print out something else and then manually cross reference it and add up all the totals to check to see they match or you left one out. Sure seems since we are contractors and lots of use contractors subs and lots of contractors have annual insurance audits and Quickbooks contractors addition is just for contractors and not airline pilots, that it would make sense to be able to print out a simple report with the information every insurance company requires. Print it, include it with the audit, done. Maybe when they release a special "school teachers" addition or maybe the much awaited "bee keepers" addition they will include this feature? Or maybe just a report writing system that actually makes sense and works? Quickbooks answer to this is the "export" button at the top of the reports page. Export it to excel and manipulate it to a report you can actually use. Last edited by Mike Finley; 06-18-2009 at 09:49 AM.

06-30-2009, 10:01 PM	#36
Jeff Knutson View Profile Jeff Knutson New Guy Send Message Follow Blogs (0) Threads (20) Photos (0) Reviews (0) Projects (0) Toolbox (0) View All Activity New Guy Trade: Construction Software Developer Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: Minnesota Posts: 20	Re: Accounting Software Recommendations? Mike Finley you should be selling construction software. I think you would make tons of money as a dealer of our products. __________________ Jeff Knutson Last edited by Tinstaafl; 01-08-2011 at 03:58 PM. Reason: Remove self promotion

12-25-2009, 10:17 PM	#39
stevensonjames8 View Profile stevensonjames8 Registered User Send Message Follow Blogs (0) Threads (10) Photos (0) Reviews (0) Projects (0) Toolbox (0) View All Activity Registered User Trade: later Join Date: Dec 2009 Posts: 10	Re: Accounting Software Recommendations? For me Quickbooks is the best option out there. __________________ Home Mold Removal

01-19-2010, 04:36 PM	#40
Buildology View Profile Buildology New Guy Send Message Follow Blogs (0) Threads (21) Photos (0) Reviews (0) Projects (0) Toolbox (0) View All Activity New Guy Trade: Custom Building & Renovations Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Boston Posts: 21	Re: Accounting Software Recommendations? The best option is different for different contractor types. QuickBooks is simple and user friendly, and affordable. Quickbooks Job Costing Reports are terrible. I really meant to say very bad. Spend some money and get some value.

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