Hiring a bookkeeper for your construction business is a big step – make sure that you are hiring the right person by testing their skills with our Construction Bookkeeper Test.
As a busy owner of a construction company, your time is best spent in the field and staying on top of what’s going on with your various projects rather than spending hours in the office performing bookkeeping tasks.
There comes a time when it just makes sense to hire a bookkeeper to handle the day-to-day data entry tasks, but you also need to make sure that they are familiar with QuickBooks® and the construction industry and the only way to do this is by testing their skills. Hiring some one who seems to have a strong bookkeeping background from their resume, but has never worked for a contractor might not be the right choice – unless you have the time to teach them about job costing, AIA billing, certified payroll, weighted-average overtime, etc. We’ve developed a Construction Bookkeeper Test that will help you evaluate their skills.
Our Construction Bookkeepers test provide a total of 145 questions, covering:
- QuickBooks Basic Features
- QuickBooks Advanced Features
- Accounting Basics
- QuickBooks/Construction
- QuickBooks Payroll
and is probably one of the most comprehensive tests that is available anywhere. Choose to have applicants complete a single portion of the test or all 5 parts.
If you search the internet, you’ll find a lot of great articles and tips about hiring your first employee, including some questions to ask them during the interview, and the fact that you really should do a background check (after all they will have access to the company checking account) – I suggest taking that one step farther and actually provide them with a test that will give you insight about their actual bookkeeping knowledge.
The tests that are mentioned above, I think is going to be very helpful. In addition to that, you also need to know what kind of bookkeeper you are looking for before starting to accept applicants.
It is difficult to get a reliable help, especially on accounting. And even if you do find someone good, they are going to cost much more than $10 an hour. Personally, it’s better to outsource this kind of service because first, you need to have someone who majors on that field. Second, it’s expensive to hire an expert locally than hiring someone from a lower income country. And lastly, if you’re thinking of doing it yourself to save money, you’re just going to waste a lot of time while not having any assurance of having a high quality output.
You could try to look for your bookkeeper at Staff.com. There, there’s a 10 hour trial period that could give you assurance on whether that person is the bookkeeper for you.
Hi Angelo
Thanks for stopping by. I agree with you, it’s difficult for many small business owners to find experienced, reliable bookkeeping/accounting help. A bookkeeper who is familiar with the complexities of the construction industry is going to cost far more that $10.00 and a business owner should be aware that an experienced bookkeeper, who knows how to use QuickBooks in the construction industry will be worth every dollar that you pay them. However, I would not recommend that a contractor outsource or hire someone from a lower income country as a primary bookkeeper.
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