Nancy Smyth, Author at Learn to use QuickBooks® in your construction business

11Jul 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Email Etiquette eBook

Email etiquette is vital to your success. We only get one chance to meet someone for the first time and “WOW” them with our products and/or services, so, it’s important to really put your best foot forward when composing an email to a customer, client, vendor or potential business partner. With advances in technology, we are no longer limited to meeting prospective customers, clients, or referral partners face-to-face like we used to. Technology now allows us to meet these same prospects via email, phone, or our websites. With these advances, and the ever increasing fast-paced world that we live in, are we sacrificing good old fashioned common sense etiquette protocols? Are we still making a good first impression? Are we identifying ourselves as professionals? Are we clearly stating the reason…

27Jun 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Live Monthly QuickBooks for Contractors Hangouts – Join Us

Announcements, Live Webinars

Live, monthly QuickBooks for Contractors hangout on Google+ come join us! Hangouts will be held live the 2nd Wednesday of each month from 5-6 p.m. EST beginning on Wednesday, July 11, 2012, recorded and hosted on YouTube to be watched later at your convenience. Do you wonder if your QuickBooks® job costing reports are providing you with accurate information? Perhaps: your bookkeeper says “I don’t know how to do this” or “QuickBooks® can’t do that” you are so frustrated and uncertain that you are spending hours updating complex Excel spreadsheets, or worse yet you are trying to keep it all in your head! you’ve been looking at high-end {costly} construction specific software that would provide better job costing, but know it’s just not in the budget right now Are…

20Jun 2012 by Nancy Smyth

eBook: Documenting Change Orders

eBooks

Documenting Change Orders and using a construction change order form when a customer asks you to do extra work on a construction project are very important. If you don't have some sort of procedure in place, you could end up not getting paid for that change order or extra work! While the start of a busy construction season may not be the time to do a full-scale revamp of your current construction contract documentation and job costing systems, it is certainly time to give it a thorough review for the upcoming season, and perhaps make some modifications to your existing system within QuickBooks. Many contractors (General Contractors, construction managers, trade and sub-contractors alike) often approach their projects being ill-prepared to guard against the financial impact of not being paid for…

06Jun 2012 by Nancy Smyth

VIDEO: How To Make Your QuickBooks Customer:Job List More Meaningful

Videos

The QuickBooks Customer:Job records hold a lot of important information, project information, customer types, job types, job descriptions, start dates, and many other things as well. The QuickBooks Customer Center provides you with the ability to track your Customers (project owners, awarding authorities, or general contractors) that you perform work for. For each Customer you can then track the various Jobs (projects) that you are working on for that specific customer. For each Job that you are working on you can also track Sub-Jobs (your Change Orders or Extra Work orders) that are specific to the original job. QuickBooks offers you two different ways in which to view your Customer:Job List. One view will allow you to look at the details (Estimates, Invoices, and Payments) for a specific job…

31May 2012 by Nancy Smyth

eBook: Payroll Mistakes. It’s Not As Easy as 1-2-3!

eBooks

Payroll is an essential part of your business – not just a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly annoyance. Payroll is the primary way that employees are rewarded for good job performance and retained. If you are issuing late or incorrect paychecks, it can lead to dissatisfied, unmotivated workers – or worse. It’s hard to keep good employees when a company gets the paychecks wrong. The relationship between employees and employers is highly regulated by the government and many of these regulations involve payroll. There are literally hundreds of things that you have to know, as well as, hundreds of mistakes that you can make. As a result, the process is much more complicated than anyone who has never done it can possibly know. The consequences of some mistakes can be…

24May 2012 by Nancy Smyth

VIDEO: Worker’s Comp & Payroll Tax Strategies for Public Works Contractors

Videos

Worker's Comp and payroll taxes take a huge bite out of a contractors profit when working on Public Works construction projects - especially if the contractor is paying the full fringe benefit rate of the prevailing wage to the employee in cash and not to the Union Hall or into bona-fide plans. Contractors in California will soon be faced with yet another increase in Worker's Compensation premiums. [caption id="attachment_112" align="alignright" width="164" caption="Money doesn't grow on trees!"][/caption] Public Works Construction and Prevailing Wage projects require advanced financial planning methods and tools along with an understanding of the ever-changing compliance requirements -- so that you can reduce your overhead and get paid on time. Join Tim Blackwell of InsuranceDude.com, Steve Kuzmack of Fringe Benefit Experts, Bruce McFarland of L & R…

16May 2012 by Nancy Smyth

ARTICLE: What to Look for in a Construction CPA

Business Productivity Tips & Training

Hiring a CPA or tax accountant for you construction business is as critical as hiring a supervisor on the job site. Not all CPA's or tax preparers understand construction and when they don't your books could be in as much of a mess as your job site would be if you hired a supervisor with no experience! In that perfect world, your company wouldn’t need a CPA. We would all just pack up our adding machines, green eyeshades, and armbands and move on to other professions. But, that isn’t going to happen, is it? In fact, the regulatory environment is headed in the other direction. States are looking for revenue, there are three or four new federal tax acts each year, and GAAP is going global. These current and…

09May 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Payroll, Bookkeeping & Accounting Task Checklist

Business Productivity Tips & Training

Payroll, bookkeeping and accounting tasks can feel like a never ending list of things to do and important due dates - download our checklist to help you stay on track! Timing is everything - especially in this fast paced world that we live in today - where every second counts! Whether you are a business owner, a bookkeeper, or even a new employee we all have probably more than we can handle on a daily basis. Our "normal" day-to-day routine includes a lot of things on our "To Do" list, including a lot of payroll, bookkeeping, and accounting tasks. Keeping track of it all isn't easy - I understand that one well. There are certain things, like payroll tax payments and forms, that MUST be submitted by a certain…

01May 2012 by Nancy Smyth

VIDEO: QuickBooks Integration 101

Videos

The integration between QuickBooks and a 3rd Party Application is often very transparent - and totally confusing to both QuickBooks ProAdvisors and end users. The communication between the two programs takes place behind the scenes leaving very little to be seen – often only the end result of a report or task done outside of QuickBooks OR a transaction created in the 3rd party program that is posted into the data file. Everyone says “I need to SEE how IT (the integration) works”. It’s becoming more apparent that people confuse “integration” (the developer’s code) with HOW (the end result) the program works with the data from QuickBooks; even after watching a video about what the program does and how it does it. Definitions from the Computing Dictionary at Dictionary.com Integration…

26Apr 2012 by Nancy Smyth

Project Information Worksheet-Keep Your Contract Info Organized

Business Productivity Tips & Training

A project information worksheet will help you keep your contract info organized. One of the best ways to stay organized is by using a Project Information sheet, it will help you to keep your project paperwork organized. We've developed a Project Information worksheet, with the help of several contractors; it summarizes important aspects of a particular job and keeps essential information handy, it's also a great thing to give to your key office staff. When you are working on multiple projects, you do not want to have to stop to re-read a lengthy contract in order to find a single piece of information. The simple practice of recording important detailed information for each contract will make everyone's life easier when you need to complete progress requisitions and/or make collection…

Author: Nancy Smyth