Can Quickbooks for construction industry help an electrician’s small subcontracting business? Running a construction business is a handful especially if you are taking care of almost everything. You go out in the field scouting for potential clients, come back to your office and evaluate a projects or deal with manual accounting, and whatnot. If you have a small team, you are likely still in charge of payroll.  

The accounting tasks alone are time-consuming, especially when you are in the construction industry. The cost of electrical supplies and tools can quickly and unpredictably change. Working out the Maths will probably exhaust you especially if you are short on proper accounting skills.  

Such issues are what make Quickbooks for contractor highly beneficial. Quickbooks is an accounting tool available online or as standalone application widely used by small and large construction companies. Being an electrician, you might also find it useful for your subcontracting business whether you run it alone or with a team. 

Can Quickbooks for Construction Industry Work for a Growing Small Business?   

Like many entrepreneurs, you aspire to expand your business. And growth means more projects and accounting work. That said, you need a credible and reliable accounting system. Enter Quickbooks for contractor that you can use for job costing and other accounting operations. You can use this to manage your financial records while keeping these things in mind: 

Is Quickbooks Set Up Correctly to Capture the Overhead and Cost by Job?  

Calculating and monitoring your business’ overhead expenses and project cost can be tricky especially for a growing business. Quickbooks for construction industry would indeed mitigate the challenges of accounting, but it needs to be set up correctly for these operations. If not, you may not make the most out of it. Basically, wrong input produces wrong output.  

But don’t be discouraged. While using Quickbooks poses a great challenge for non-accountants, let alone electricians, a CPA will be able to help you set it up according to your accounting needs. This way, it will efficiently perform the tasks required for every project.  

Are Your Projects Costed/Estimated Correctly to Sustain Your Business? 

Steven, a seasoned CPA, states that generic formulas can make estimating inconsistent. One day you may be overcharging your clients and then losing a lot of projects. The next day, you may have 20 yet you’re not making money at all. These inconsistencies may be the result of incorrect estimation. 

Setting up Quickbooks correctly is crucial for your business. Electricians, for example, would be able to track their revenue, spending, and other accounting tasks effectively. It doesn’t matter whether they are wiring houses per day or per week, they can track the expenses, look at jobs on an ongoing basis, and make sure you’re generating profit. And if your company continues to earn, you’ll be in the business for a long time. 

If you lack the accounting skills and Quickbooks know-how, a CPA can help you with accurate estimation or job costing. 

How Can Quickbooks Help a Subcontractor Business? 

If you have decided to use Quickbooks for construction to handle your company’s accounting, know which plan would work best before signing up. You have three plans to choose from: Simple Start, Essentials, and Plus.  

For no-frills small businesses with one or two members (such as electricians or contractors), the Simple Start may suffice. Quickbooks Essentials or Plus plan can help you manage and track your money more efficiently. Both plans also offer enhanced reporting, bill management and three-user feature, which allows you to add an accountant and other team members. Most importantly, these plans allow you to create job costings, which is essential for your construction company. 

Useful Features of Quickbooks Essentials Plan  

Accounting experts highly recommend the Essentials Plan to make the most out of Quickbooks. Here’s a rundown of what you can do with it.  

You can track your business’ income and expenses 

There is no need to record your transactions on ledgers as Quicksbooks for contractors Essentials plan can track them daily. Unique tagging makes browsing through your record easily as well. It can also import transactions by connecting your company’s bank account and e-wallet so that tallying the revenues and expenditures is automatic. Electricians and contractors that are handling large volume or high value projects will find this feature highly beneficial. 

It creates invoice and payments 

Digital or physical, you can send your clients their invoices and follow-up with them later. Quickbooks for contractor will compute the final cost if you determine the settings and complete the information in the tabs.  

Quickbooks also helps with tax preparation and deductions 

Whether you’re an electrician or in the construction contracting business, tax preparation can be handful. You may have to go through all your records to come up with accurate computations. Quickbooks can save you from such hard work. Through the banking dashboard, you can easily classify income and expenses into the appropriate areas for taxes. Although you may still need help from a CPA to verify the information, at least the job gets a lot easier.  

Get financial insights through automated reports and manage cash flow 

The ‘Reports’ dashboard gives you a glimpse of your financial situation. You can track profit and loss, spending and balance sheet data. You can also monitor your cashflow and transfer funds when needed. 

Quickbooks for construction job costing and estimates 

When doing estimates and job costing for construction, Quickbooks can help a great deal. By setting up the material and labor charges, you can provide your client’s estimates, bids, and job proposal with ease. You can even turn these estimates into invoices after. 

Construction accounting software Quickbooks lets you add three users 

With Quickbooks, you can add up to three users to your account, including your accountant. This feature allows other staff to have specific access so you can work together on projects.  

Quickbooks construction management helps keep track of your bills 

Construction subcontractors like electricians deal with lots of bills. Therefore, you’ll enjoy Quickbooks’ bill tracking feature. It helps ensure they are settled on time keep all payments properly documented.  

When Should You Outsource Your Payroll?  

Job costing and project estimation are complicated but with a properly set-up Quickbooks for construction industry, these tasks become easier. Combined with a CPA, you can expect all your finances to be in order no matter how small or big your projects are.  

Look no further as Steven J Wick and Associates, P.C. offers high level of accounting services to construction subcontractors who want to use Quickbooks for accounting tasks. We can help you set up and run Quickbooks based on your needs so you can grow your business. Give us a call today!