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 Contractor's
Guide to QuickBooks Pro 2003
by Karen Mitchell, Craig Savage & Jim
Erwin
According to a recent national survey, more
construction contractors use QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks than all other
accounting programs combined. And for good reason. QuickBooks Pro excels at all
the routine paperwork in a construction office: writing checks, keeping track of
your bank balance, sending out invoices and statements, creating
up-to-the-minute profit and loss statements for the month, year or by job,
writing payroll checks, paying suppliers and subcontractors, tracking job costs,
comparing estimated and actual costs for each job, and much more.
But there’s a lot to learn in QuickBooks Pro.
And converting to a new accounting system can be a complex and confusing task,
even if you have a strong background in accounting and plenty of time to install
the new system. That’s why this book was written—because most construction
pros aren’t accounting experts and have more important work to do at the job
site.
Contractor’s Guide to QuickBooks Pro 2003 will
walk you step-by-step through QuickBooks Pro’s detailed setup procedure and
then explain item-by-item how you should be using QuickBooks Pro every day. In
days, rather than weeks, you’ll create a first-rate accounting system that’s
an asset to your company.
Here you’ll find simple, well-illustrated
instructions for customizing the setup for QuickBooks Pro 2003, including what
each screen on your monitor should look like. This manual explains every choice
you need to make and every button you need to click on. And it tells you how to
get a trial version of QuickBooks Pro if you want to try it before buying, and
includes two other programs you’ll want to use when estimating costs with
QuickBooks Pro. Here’s what’s on the CD in the back of this manual:
- A QuickBooks Pro 2003 file
preconfigured for a construction company. The file has a chart of
accounts already entered, plus a complete set of memorized
reports. Just plug in your own company data—vendors, subs,
customers, etc. And at the click of a mouse, you have all the
information needed to run your jobs.
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- National Estimator—an easy-to-use
estimating program with more than 100 pages of construction cost
estimating data for general contractors. Dozens of other databases
are available. (QuickBooks Pro doesn’t come with any estimating
data.)
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 Job
Cost Wizard—converts your National Estimator estimates into
QuickBooks Pro estimates so you can create and send invoices,
track job costs (charge every check to a cost category in your
estimate) and compare actual and estimated costs. You’ll know
exactly where you made and lost money on every job.
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- Blank construction forms you can
open on your computer (with nearly any of the popular word
processing programs), customize, fill out, print and send to
customers and subcontractors.
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With this book, the other programs included in
this package, and QuickBooks Pro 2003, you have at your fingertips all the
financial tools needed to keep a company running strong and in the black. Just
add your own company data.
The Authors
Karen Mitchell, Craig Savage and
Jim Erwin are contractors, accountants and QuickBooks Pro experts.
They’ve spent years studying and simplifying the installation of QuickBooks
Pro in construction offices. Karen, Craig and Jim tour the country giving
accounting seminars to professional groups, consulting with individual
contractors and actually setting up QuickBooks Pro accounting systems for
builders. They’ll help you get excellent results with QuickBooks Pro the same
way they’ve helped hundreds of other construction professionals.
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