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Author: Diane Gilson, Certified Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisor

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7 Reasons To Love QuickBooks Desktop Assisted Payroll

Fast easy payroll with QuickBooks Desktop Assisted Payroll-

QuickBooks Desktop Assisted Payroll is our payroll service of choice at Info Plus Accounting. Because we ‘eat our own (QuickBooks) dogfood,’ we know the quality of this product. And we nearly always recommend Assisted Payroll to our clients. Why do we typically recommend this product to our clients? Here are my top seven reasons: 1. …

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Accounting for Construction

Construction accounting is a unique type of accounting that requires specific financial management tools. Here’s what you need to know. Construction Accounting… As the owner of a remodeling or custom building company, you likely bring a huge list of abilities and talents to your daily work life! From the tangible job skills to the energy …

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How to Use QuickBooks Job Cost Features to Achieve Your Gross Profit Goals

QuickBooks is designed to help you to plan, measure, and monitor company and job results. You can even use QuickBooks Job – Cost Features to Achieve Your Gross Profit Goals! Use its management reporting tools to immediately SEE operating and financial results. Proactively correct problems – before they spin out of control – so that …

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QuickBooks Memorized Transactions + Pizza – Can They Really Improve Your Memory?

How do QuickBooks’ Memorized Transactions relate to pizza? Join Sheila as she experiences an eye-opening and rewarding “Pizza-Lunch-n-Learn” with her friend, Gail…  Overwhelmed With Bills and Emails and P.O.s and Invoicing… Sheila sat at her desk, staring at the stack of emails, Purchase Orders, and Bills she’d need to sort through and enter before she could …

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11 Ways to Take the Pain & Suffering Out of Tax Time

It’s that time of year again – TAX TIME! And guess what? I’ve been working with clients who have been turning in their numbers to their tax accountants starting the middle of January! If you’re someone who dreads January, February, March – and beyond – because those months seem to turn into “Franken-tax” time, you …

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Purchase Orders Are Critical – Here’s Why…

Sample Purchase Order

… My friend and colleague, Bryan Kaplan of Construction Consulting, recently sent an email about his experience with Purchase Orders that was so insightful, I asked him if I could share it with you. This quick read will provide you with a handful of Quick Wins! It was 11 pm on a random Saturday, and …

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5 Ways to Use Job Costing To Increase Your Gross Profits

Taking action to use a job costying system can increase your gross profits

Did you know that job costing can create an epic increase in your gross profits? Are you a business owner or financial manager who wonders if it’s worth your time to implement an internal job costing system? If so, you might be asking yourself… Why should I care about job costing? Why not just assign …

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How to Set (& Keep!) Your Hierarchical View in QuickBooks Lists

Do you have QuickBooks lists structured to show a Hierarchical View? (Think “outline” with headers and sub-elements.) For instance: In your Customer:Job list, do you have a “header” as a Customer, and sub-elements as Jobs? (If not, you may want to do so…) Open your Item List. Do you have multiple “layers” of Items arranged …

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The Many Faces of Construction Job Costing

happy with job costing system

Income minus expenses equals gross profit. Your gross profit is the amount you use to run your company and create profits. Job-costing is how you can track the income and the costs you incur to perform each of your jobs. It’s how you get to see the gross profit you earn on each of your projects. Your perception of what you want to see from a job-costing system may be very different than another business owner’s concepts. Why? Because there is no single prescription that fits everyone’s needs.

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Labor Profit Tip #5: The Secret to Making Better Hiring Decisions

Labor Burden Information Tip #5: Make Better Hiring Decisions by Thoroughly Understanding Potential Additional Costs Bad hiring decisions can have a devastating effect on your bottom line, so you want as much objective data at your fingertips as possible before you hire. You can use labor burden calculation information as a starting point when it’s …

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Labor Costs Profit Tip #4: How You Can Stop Over-Runs in Labor Costs

Labor Costs Are a Risky Part of Your Business. Make an Immediate Impact on Your Bottom Line by Heading off Costly Labor Over-runs Before They Get Out of Hand. 7 WAYS TO USE YOUR INFORMATION TO PREVENT LABOR COST OVER-RUNS Know and use your true, fully burdened labor costs when estimating. Increase estimating accuracy by using costs …

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Labor Profit Tip #3: Your Gross Profit numbers may be misleading

Labor Burden Information Tip #3: To See Accurate Job-Cost Reports, Assign Labor Burden Costs to Each Job. If you’re looking for ways to make your company more profitable, getting a handle on your fully burdened labor costs is a critical place to start because it can show you how to: Estimate labor costs more accurately, Price jobs to …

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12 Benefits of Running a More Profitable Company

Is your company profitable? It’s the time of year when hundreds of thousands of U.S. business owners are looking at their prior-year financial results to determine if their business was profitable… If you’re one of those business owners, it’s worth taking a moment to evaluate your success, and ask yourself: “Am I exuberantly happy? Somewhat …

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9 Ways to Take the Pain & Suffering Out of Tax Time

It’s That Time of Year Again – TAX TIME! And guess what? I’ve been working with clients who have been turning their numbers over to their tax accountants starting the middle of January! Do you dread January, February, March – and beyond – because those months seem to turn into “Franken-tax” time? Are you asking …

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QuickBooks Items: The Secret to Job-Costing with QuickBooks

This post about QuickBooks’ Items is based on our more extensive training video of the same title that’s included in our Construction Accounting & Management Program (CAMP). Why are QuickBooks’ Items Especially Important for Construction Companies? QuickBooks’ Items let you track, and report on, the financial detail underlying what’s REALLY going on within the financial …

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QuickBooks Online User Permissions and Choices

When it’s time to set your QuickBooks Online User Permissions, here are the choices you’ll see in the Plus version. You’ll need to decide what access and permissions you’re willing to grant to which users… Company Administrators have all access rights within QuickBooks Online Plus. They also have all access rights for any other service your company subscribes …

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It Just Doesn’t Make Sense!

“Why aren’t we making more money? We’re busier than ever, I’m working harder than ever, but things just aren’t coming together like they should!” If this story sounds or feels familiar, you may want to sit in on this meeting to pick up some ideas on how to create Estimate vs. Actual Reports… It Just …

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Why Nick Might NOT Get His Business Loan…

Ever wondered if you could receive more useful and meaningful reports from QuickBooks? Good financial information is not just a matter of convenience! Nick is finding out that what he DOESN’T know about his financial system could pose a major setback to his business… Nick’s “Unique” Profit & Loss Statement “Wow, this is about the longest …

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Top 5 Tips for QuickBooks Experts Know (and You Should Too)

New to QuickBooks? Feel like you’re all alone? Well, you’re not! Every new user could use tips to get them started in QuickBooks… You’ve started your new business from scratch and know you need to really get a handle on your numbers. Maybe you’ve been recruited by a family member – or hired by a business owner …

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Top 7 Reasons Business Owners Call a QuickBooks ProAdvisor

Assistance from a QuickBooks Prodvisor

Based on 20+ years of incoming requests for assistance from business owners, here are the top 7 reasons I’ve found that they call me as a QuickBooks ProAdvisor. See if any of these scenarios sound like what you may be facing in your company… As a business owner, you learn through trial and error what makes …

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5 Ways To Make Your Construction Business More Profitable With QuickBooks

COGS in the business machine

Finding clients and providing products and services – that’s just the beginning! Here’s how to be more profitable with QuickBooks… Successfully managing your own company means that you need to get profitable – and stay that way. Unfortunately, many business owners don’t realize how their day-to-day financial info impacts their profits. To achieve consistent profitability, …

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Markup Calculator & Gross Profit Guide (+ Quick Conversion Charts)

Gross profit percentage: In plain English, this is the percentage of money you’ve made from selling a good or service – after you subtract the cost of producing that good or service. You want that percentage to be as high as it can reasonably be. The higher your gross profit percentage, the healthier your business and the more profit you’ll …

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How to Squeeze More Profits Out of Every Construction Job

How to squeeze more profits out of every job

A version of this article first appeared in the Builder Partnerships newsletter. It just seems logical that every business owner would want to know exactly what each type of job costs, so they know how to price it. Right? And they’d want to monitor what’s going right and what’s going wrong (financially) as the job …

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QuickBooks Sunset on May 31 – What does it mean for your business?

Will the QuickBooks Sunset Impact My Accounting or QuickBooks Services? Until May 31, 2023, QuickBooks provides customer support and add-on services for Pro, Premier, and Enterprise Solutions 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. However, if you are still using a 2020 version of QuickBooks, your business may be affected on May 31st. Why? If you are …

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15-Months in Your Business Year? How & When Will You Invest Them?

Business Planning Group

January to December… Our calendar encourages us to divide our personal and business lives into those 12-month chunks of time.  But what could happen if we decided to break out of that traditional mind-set – especially when it comes to business planning?        My “15-Month-Year” Business Planning & Coaching Session I recently sat in …

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Underbilling Calculation for Employee Labor: Free Calculator

under billing calculation

How Much Could You Be Losing if You Under Charge for Employee Time? This Free Calculator Helps You Estimate!  Are You Losing a LOT of Money By Underbilling for Employee Labor? Let’s do the math: Here’s a free calculator. If you are under billing for employee labor, use it to discover how much revenue you …

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QuickBooks Payroll: 5 Major Benefits

QuickBooks Payroll

Yes, your initial QuickBooks payroll setup can take some time and requires attention to detail. BUT manual payroll-processing requires even more work – and you have to do it over, and over, and over. Which sounds like the better choice?    Ask 10 small business people which element of their accounting tasks they’d like to shed, …

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Employee Shadowing Teams: 9 Reasons To Create Them

What might you be able to accomplish for your company if you create employer or employee shadowing teams for a couple of hours? Or even a couple of days? Employer or Employee Shadowing – Could It Work For YOUR Company? A client recently told me that she wasn’t as pleased with the performance of a couple of …

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A Tale of 4 Companies: A Job Cost & Gross Profit Drama (Part V)

Investigate unusual numbers to track down problems

If you haven’t already read them, you’ll probably want to visit Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV of this “Tale of 4 Companies: A Job Cost & Gross Profit Drama” before beginning the following “Part V.” We’re joining Paul (owner of Paul’s Perfect Projects LLC), Walt (Production Supervisor at Paul’s), Jenn (Estimator …

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QuickBooks Payments: Easier, Faster ‘Money-in-the-Door’

QuickBooks Payments or Merchant Services - Get Paid from your desktop, a customer invoice, or mobile app

When you make it easier for your customers to buy from you – and pay you – two things typically happen: your sales increase, and you get Quickbooks payments faster. That means enhanced cash flow and fewer collection calls. Plus, a side benefit is that customer satisfaction is often higher when goods or services have been …

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Setting Up Payroll Schedules in QuickBooks

QuickBooks Payroll and Payroll Schedules

One of your early tasks as a payroll administrator will be to establish payroll schedules for your employees. Here’s how. Payroll administration can be complex and time-consuming. It requires precision and tremendous attention to detail. Because your employees are counting on you for their livelihood, and multiple taxing agencies expect you to submit your payments …

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A Tale of 4 Companies: Gross Profit & Job Cost (Part IV)

Communicating the Schedule Keeps Job Costs on Target to Hit Gross Profit Goals

Targeting Gross Profits: How Estimators and Project Managers Focus on Goals & Job Costs at Paul’s Perfect Projects If you haven’t already read them, you’ll probably want to visit Part I, Part II, and Part III of this “Tale of 4 Companies: A Job Cost & Gross Profit Drama” before beginning the following “Part IV”. As we …

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A Tale of 4 Companies: A Job Cost & Gross Profit Drama (Part III)

job-cost and gross profit percentage

How Bookkeeping Supports Job-Cost & Gross Profit Measurement at Paul’s Perfect Projects, LLC If you haven’t already read them, you’ll probably want to visit Part I and Part II of this “Tale of 4 Companies: A Job-Cost & Gross Profit Drama” before starting the following “Part III.” In Part III, Paul & Dave have just …

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9 Best Practices for QuickBooks Payments

These best practices for QuickBooks payments can improve your profitability as well as the speed and accuracy of your incoming and outgoing payments. In the case of best practices for QuickBooks payments, the rewards are clear. Pump up your cash flow. (More cash-on-hand means less-stressed owners + happier, more-responsive vendors.) Eliminate costly late fees and …

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Tale of 4 Companies: A Gross Profit & Job Cost Drama (Part II)

Paul (of Paul’s Perfect Projects, LLC) tackles the gross profit problem by showing Dave his Estimate vs. Actual variance reports. (If you haven’t already read it, you’ll want to visit Part 1 of this “Tale of 4 Companies: A Job Cost & Gross Profit Drama” before jumping into the following “Part II”…) Paul’s Approach to …

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A Tale of 4 Companies: A Job Cost & Gross Profit Drama (Part I)

Can you really affect your gross profit by setting up a job costing system? Is it worth the time, energy, and effort involved to measure and track your numbers? Let’s visit with the owners of four (hypothetical) companies; then decide for yourself which owner’s shoes you’d prefer to step into… As background to the story …

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Paying QuickBooks Bills with a Credit Card or Vendor Credits

Paying your QuickBooks Bills can be easier (even pain free!) – when you use your software to its fullest capacity. Paying QuickBooks Bills with a Credit Card Situation 1:  You’ve entered a bill into your QuickBooks, and it’s now listed as an outstanding payable.  You’ve just determined that some of these QuickBooks Bills were (or will be) paid with …

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Manufacturing Overhead: How to Calculate Labor Cost by Job

To calculate Manufacturing Overhead by Job, be sure to include these labor costs Manufacturing direct labor costs vs. manufacturing overhead labor:  what’s the difference?  And which should you include in your costing and pricing models? Direct production costs obviously include costs of inventory utilized, special-order materials, production facilities, high-dollar equipment usage, contracted services from outside …

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Labor Cost Calculator: How It Helps QuickBooks & Enterprise Users

Business owners who use QuickBooks or Enterprise accounting software can benefit greatly from the built-in job costing features such as its ability to assign payroll and payroll tax costs to jobs – but there is one major flaw built into those ‘normal’ job cost reports that you need to know about! This critical weakness means …

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Why You Need to Know Your True Cost of Labor

Calculating your true cost of labor seems straightforward: compensation plus benefits should equal how much you’re spending on labor, right? Wrong. Unfortunately, business owners don’t have it that easy. There’s much more to determining whether an employee’s time is being put to maximum benefit for a business, and without a true cost of labor that …

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Top Accounting Blogs

The accounting blogs listed below are some of the most reputable and informative online. I wanted to create a quality resource for people seeking any additional accounting advice, so below you’ll find what I believe to be some of the top accounting blogs. As an endorsement, I’ve created a badge for them to display so that …

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Choosing a QuickBooks ProAdvisor? 13 Crucial Questions to Ask

Download your Choosing a QuickBooks ProAdvisor eBook… Recently, a participant in one of the online forums that I like to ‘attend’ asked “What should I look for when I choose my next accountant?” As a QuickBooks ProAdvisor who’s worked with many different clients within the construction, manufacturing, and various other industries (and ‘in the wake’ …

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How Can You Benefit from a Training Program About QuickBooks?

Do you ever wonder if you’re using QuickBooks to its fullest potential? Check out a training program for QuickBooks to learn how to make it work for you. Are you one of the millions of businesses using QuickBooks for in-house accounting? Do you ever find the program frustrating? Do you ever wonder if you’re using …

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