How Much Tracking Do You Do?

realpurty2

I was curious how much tracking everyone does on their business. I have been "accused" of going overboard, but I want to know where we stand on every item.

I use Quickbooks and Microsoft Business Money for accounting, then have an Excel sheets to break every detail down. There's sheets to track every dollar spent on a specific job, labor breakdowns for employee and sub costs, labor burden sheets, monthly utilities (grouped and individual), material expenses, profit and loss sheets, weekly ledgers, monthly ledgers, and general ledgers..etc. etc. The list is just too long to even describe.

My reasoning is that at any given moment I can pull a record and be able to tell at a glance if we are making money or losing money in a certain area. I can see exactly where we are on budget, over budget, or under. I know where profit is coming from, and where to cut losses.

Yeah, it's alot of paperwork. Every transaction gets recorded atleast 3 different places, often more, but in the long run, it's been well worth it in my opinion. (I do the paperwork so there is no labor expense because of it..lol)

Even though I don't see me making any changes anytime soon, I'm just curious to see exactly what and how others keep their books.

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Woman in a Man's World.

Kristina

We will be getting QuickBooks: Premier Contractor one of these days.

There's sheets to track every dollar spent on a specific job, labor breakdowns for employee and sub costs, labor burden sheets, monthly utilities (grouped and individual), material expenses, profit and loss sheets, weekly ledgers, monthly ledgers, and general ledgers..etc. etc.

I keep a folder for each job and keep track of our projected budget vs actual. Projected profit vs actual. I only keep them in the folders. It would probably help me to put all this info in a central location. I'm sure the software has some way to track that.

My reasoning is that at any given moment I can pull a record and be able to tell at a glance if we are making money or losing money in a certain area. I can see exactly where we are on budget, over budget, or under. I know where profit is coming from, and where to cut losses.

I agree that it's a good idea to know this stuff.

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PipeGuy

QB Pro. Every job cost item gets plugged into one of two dozen or so items by job. Every expense (job cost items and overhead costs) gets accounted for in one of 35 or 40 accounts.

denick

Master Builder. We track a lot of different tasks and equipment costs. My wife hands me reports on everything hours after she has the information. She's always asking WHY when she gives me the reports. We have had good luck with it.


Nick

Melissa

My husband always teases me about my spreadsheets. I've got one for just about everything. I love them. I have one for each job- receipts, labor hours, balances, profit. Then one for each job with the price breakdown. I used to keep an additional one for Michael's hours, but I finally let go of that one.

I'm really looking forward to setting up QuickBooks, so I won't have to enter everything in 2-3 places, but it sounds like you still have to???

Double-A

Old thread, but still pertinent, so...

Bump.

We use QB Premiere for Contractors 2006.
Used QB Pro 2003 before that. If you're still using Pro, and are more than 1-3 employees, I'd recommend going to Premiere Edition for Contractors.

I've been looking at the various versions of MYOB, and I'm very interested in talking with anyone that is currently using it.

Purty, I'm as obsessive as you are about keeping track of the business, but I do it all within Quickbooks and only export to Excel to run queries that QB can't do.

As for entering the same data in 2 or 3 places not costing you any labor, that is silly. Of course it costs you. If you make coffee on company time it costs you.

Accounting and controlling the money makes or breaks the business faster than anything you can do in the field short of physical assault, murder or acts of terrorism. Period.

Purty, what are you using Microsoft Money for Business for? I have found most Microsoft accounting software to be good at integrating with Microsoft office products well, but that's about it. I can't imagine what its doing for your that Quickbooks can't.

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"My clients’ wishes are the center of my attention." -- David Guido, a contractor in Woodstock, N.Y.
New York Times, July 20, 2006

Debookkeeper

I run everything through quickbooks as well. I use Quickbooks Pro 2005 for the plumber, the Hvac guy and the residential contractor. THe GC I work for, we use contractor edition. Never had any reason to track information anywhere elese, quickbooks does it all for me. It is especially helpful to use an accountant that knows quickbooks for year end. THe only times I use excel are for our preset forms we have in there... AIA docs, change orders, and proposals.

Deb

joasis

I do no tracking Robin....when I open the checkbook, and it has checks, I have money. Isn't that how it works?

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maj

That's because you're a schlump!!!!!!

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The views expressed in this post are merely opinions of named poster and in no way shall be deemed meaningful by members of the herd. By no means does anything posted by named poster mean a damn thing for anyone else partaking in this thread.

maj

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The views expressed in this post are merely opinions of named poster and in no way shall be deemed meaningful by members of the herd. By no means does anything posted by named poster mean a damn thing for anyone else partaking in this thread.

joasis

But maj, come January, at least i will be a REAL LEGAL schlump! Not a hack schlump!

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