Quick Books For Proposals Or Agreements?

ultimatetouch

I always use a template in microsoft word. I wonder if Im missing out on something on quickbooks. I just find it to comlicated to give a proposal for remodeling and all the legal verbage in quickbooks. I am all for using quickbooks for everything else. What do you guys do?

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Ultimatetouch
Illinois Remodeling Company, Kitchen Remodeling Chicago, Room Additions Illinois

MattCoops

a step above quick books is Microsoft's Small Business Accounting software

and you can easily upload your quickbooks data to it

But I wouldn't use accounting software to create proposals

Although, once you grabbed the job, I would definitely use your accounting software for invoicing and expenses

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Matt with Cupan Custom Tile & Paint of Lowell, Massachusetts
Design and installation of ceramic tile and natural stone for floor, wall, and countertops
(978) 601-8774 | cupantile@gmail.com | view tile pictures and more

firemike

Quickbooks is fine for a plain jane looking proposal, but I use WordPerfect for all my proposals and agreements, it is much more flexible and professional than Quickbooks. I can quickly alter the look, content, colors, etc. in WordPerfect, someting that you can't do easily or can't do at all with QuiclBooks. Over the years I have created many templates for different types of projects so it only takes a few minutes to pop in the info and print them out.

The one thing that I started doing last year is creating a minimal estimate in Quickbooks referencing the WordPerfect proposal/estimate number so that I can track won or lost proposals. All I enter is the contact info, proposal number and brief description, and price, and status. That way if I am awarded the contract I can quikly create an invioce for the project and keep tract of job costs and any extra work.

If I lose the bid I change it to "not awarded" and I still have a record of the bid in the system.

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-Mike-

Danahy

I use quickbooks premier "contractor edition", and I can do everything I can possibly think of... My estimates/proposals look great, I have colours, changed the layout of all the screens (meaning you don't even know that it was done in quickbooks), as well as a ton of different forms that quickly convert to one another, that can easily link info in a flash... I can insert photos into quickbooks, like a before and after shot embedded right into an invoice...

Word to me is alot of work each time... plus I like the fact that quickbooks makes forms in .pdf format which a customer can't manually change on you...

Just my opinion.

I suppose I like quickbooks as this is my 6th year using it now. When I first used it, it seemed like a bit of a headache. Now, it calculates all my remittances, payroll (when needed), as well when I load the new quick tax every year, it pulls out all the info I need from quickbooks, meaning tax is done in about 1/2 hr.

John S

I just use a few custom template's I made with Microsoft Word, and all invoices and expense's with Quick Books. Defiantly going to upgrade my Quick books this year as I only got basic.

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John
www.ready4rent.ca

Tom M

Like you I have a 100 forms in templates for microsft word and use Quickbooks for money tracking only. I personally chose to keep it this way for the last 10 years because I got tired of updating Quickbooks with current editions and the forms were plain Jane.

Sarah9910

I think using any software program to its fullest potential is a good idea if you can handle it. They are made to work together and flow smoothly. I always tell people, think smarter not harder. Once it's set up right, it's a breeze to use, and everything is in one place. The cost to keep it upgraded is much less than any repair you probably have to make in a year to your truck or the cost of a valuable tool.

I have another question for you all. What services would you personally want to delegate to someone if you had the funds to do it. I'm working on creating some "packages" to offer and am thinking of what business owners would want to get out of their hands and let someone competent and someone they could trust do it. And on that same idea, what would make you trust someone to see your financial information and work with your employees?

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Sarah Keiser, Business Consultant for Contractors
Success In-Formation LLC
Leading the Way in Software Education
www.successif.biz

ebeing

Netsuite is far better then quickbook, its web based and can travel anywhere.

www netsuite com