Is there really any benefit to get Quickbooks Contractor over Pro? - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

SmithBuilt · 06-04-2009, 07:08 PM

It seems Pro will do the same things that Quickbooks advertises Contractor will.

Does anyone know of any benefit?

Just Bill · 06-07-2009, 07:59 AM

Not for me. I have used Pro for years and am always being solicited to upgrade. No payroll, rarely use estimate feature, so why bother.

**ProWallGuy** · 06-07-2009, 08:05 AM

I might be wrong, but I think the contractor version offers inventory control.

**Double-A** · 06-07-2009, 08:39 AM

You get some additional reports in the Premier version vs. the Pro version. How you set up QuickBooks decides how useful the software will be to you.

The items list and names list are two of the most important features and allow you to do more than just basic accounting when set up properly.

Next is the heart of the system, the Chart of Accounts.

How each of these is set up determines how sophisticated the system will be for your particular needs. The more thought and effort you put in before hand, the more you can get out of it during use.

Mike Finley · 06-07-2009, 09:17 AM

The only 3 differences that I know of is the reports, which are pre packaged with it are supposed to be "contractor" versions. If you know how to make a report, you can make the reports yourself in any version, since they are just made versions saved already. The chart of accounts which you can make yourself in any version. The only feature that I know of that is unique is the ability to enter your subs GL and WC expirations dates into their profiles and when you write them checks if their WC or GL is expired it will prompt you.

This is a good feature and in reality should be 1 of about a 1000 that quickbooks should program into their software. Quickbooks has just plain atrocious report writing abilities, it should be a crime what they are doing. Somebody should come on the market and kick their ass. They have such a great base product, but they don't seem to do anything to improve it.

Sarah9910 · 06-08-2009, 10:28 PM

and the ability to add change orders to estimates.

If you need progress billings based on a schedule of values, that is a really good feature too.

SmithBuilt · 06-09-2009, 09:48 AM

Thanks for the help.

I have downloaded the trial accountant edition so I can try both versions.

It appears the change order function only adds a note to an existing estimates. Am I missing something?

Is there a method to do progress payments in Pro?

StairJunkie · 06-10-2009, 04:43 PM

In terms of budgets and forecasting.... is it possible to create hypothetical situations in Pro... such as if business was down 20% and also up 20% from where you are now? Could expenses and revenues be tweaked as you want to see how you would be doing given different scenarios?

In the product comparison it doesn't say this is included in Pro but if it's just a report then I suppose I could create the same report myself, no?

Mike Finley · 06-10-2009, 05:39 PM

Hell no.

Report writing in quick books is horrible, cost analysis is non-existant.

To do anything like that you will be doing what everybody in the world does, which is exporting to Excel and manipulating your data there.

rbsremodeling · 06-10-2009, 05:42 PM

If it is set up right. and everything is assigned properly job costing and forcasting is not bad.

What don't you like about it Mike? as far as reports?

Mike Finley · 06-10-2009, 07:02 PM

I know of no way with quickbooks to run accurate job costing because there is no way to 'close' a job as finished.

Quick books pulls all reports by date queries and doesn't know if a job is finished in that date range.

The data is never accurate because you are pulling up jobs that spanned over your date range. Unless all your expenses and all your payments on every job are started on the 1st of a month and end on the end of the month there will always be entries in quick books that are left out of your quieried date range.

If there is a way I would really like to know it.

Sarah9910 · 06-11-2009, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by StairJunkie

In terms of budgets and forecasting.... is it possible to create hypothetical situations in Pro... such as if business was down 20% and also up 20% from where you are now? Could expenses and revenues be tweaked as you want to see how you would be doing given different scenarios?

In the product comparison it doesn't say this is included in Pro but if it's just a report then I suppose I could create the same report myself, no?

Budgets you can do in pro, for forecasting you need premier. in Budgets you can increase the budgets by percentage to set them up or fixed amount.

let me know if you need help, business is slow for consulting right now.