QuickBooks Contractor Overview: Features and Pricing for 2022

One of the most popular accounting software applications used by SMBs to keep track of their financial activities in QuickBooks. When managing vast amounts of financial data, having the highest-quality software may make a significant difference. Clients of QuickBooks not only get the best software available, but also a great deal on it.

You might be wondering if this helpful software is useful for construction companies despite the fact that many businesses use it. Does QuickBooks consider these when calculating accounting efficiency, given that there are so many unique data and details to track? The desktop accounting programme QuickBooks Premier has a construction-specific edition called QuickBooks Contractor. It has unique features and information that help with planning and keeping track of the expenses related to significant jobs in this industry.

Online backup, unlimited customer support, and version updates are offered with either a one-time purchase or an annual subscription for QuickBooks Premier Contractor Edition. You can choose the Contractor Edition while downloading QuickBooks Premier after purchasing it. The QuickBooks software version that is most advantageous to you as a general contractor or subcontractor is called QuickBooks Premier Contractor Edition. This version is most appropriate for building projects because it provides initial estimates, expert quotes, and job cost tracking.

However, all of QuickBooks Premier’s advanced accounting features are also available in the Contractor Edition. One of the best alternatives to top construction accounting software is QuickBooks Contractor Edition, which is perfect for general contractors and subcontractors who have trouble controlling job spending or who spend too much time keeping track of job costs.

Additionally, only computers on which the software has been installed are eligible for the Contractor Edition.

Why QuickBooks Contractor Edition is Best?

1. Contractors Keeping a Separate Job Costs Record from Their Accounting

You may streamline your work by merging the activities of job costing and basic bookkeeping processes with QuickBooks Premier Contractor Edition. You might try to use an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of job costs, as many small contractors do. By merging duties, the Contractor Edition will not only save you time but also keep you from forgetting to pay as job costs are linked to total company expenses.

2. Contractors with Several Crews

Even if detailed task costing is not done, experienced owners are relatively good at forecasting profit on projects in which they are significantly involved. However, when your business grows and various crews’ forms, you begin to lose daily engagement in each work, which makes estimating job profitability much more challenging. As a result, having exact task costs to review and support your project managers in cost control with multiple crews is critical.

3. Contractors Looking to Save Money

The inventory features in QuickBooks Contractor are identical to those in QuickBooks Premier’s base edition. Your project managers can plan to reuse supplies that have been handed in from a job site by archiving them rather than ordering extra items for upcoming contracts.

QuickBooks Contractor Edition is not fit for

1. Cloud Accounting

Some accounting tasks might need to be completed on-site for your business. For instance, a construction company might require the services of a repair technician. It is commonplace for employees to be required to generate invoices for unpredictable expenditures while on the job. The better choice is QuickBooks Online if this is your top priority.

2. Inexperienced Bookkeepers

Your off-site certified public accountant (CPA) or bookkeeper won’t be able to view your accounts from their office computer, unlike with online software. Instead, while using QuickBooks Contractor, you must create an Accountant’s Copy and email it to your CPA.

3. Suitable for More Than Five Users

The number of concurrent users for QuickBooks Contractor Edition is limited to five. But let’s suppose your construction business has an extensive accounting department that needs constant access. In such a situation, QuickBooks Enterprise is the better option for you as it has a contractor-specific edition and supports up to 30 concurrent users.

Core Features of QuickBooks Contractor

Estimate Jobs

You can create and provide job estimates to prospective customers. The estimate must contain as much data as possible because it will be the basis for all subsequent change orders, invoices, and budget analyses.

Make Changes to Estimate Orders

Large projects rarely proceed according to schedule. If a change is necessary, you can make changes to your initial estimate, and QuickBooks will right away generate a change order to deliver to your customer.

Create Invoice

You can generate an invoice using the estimate. You can either invoice only specified items on the estimate or generate an in-progress invoice by selecting a predetermined preparation to bill for each item on the estimate. You might, for example, choose to invoice for the materials listed on the invoice. Return to the estimate when it’s time to invoice the remaining amount, click Create an invoice, and QuickBooks will remind you to do so.

Create Purchase Orders

The estimate screen allows you to rapidly generate purchase orders. This prevents your project managers from overlooking to order necessary supplies, which could lead to costly add-ons and lost time. Purchase orders might be used by your project managers to identify required sales but are not included in the estimate.

Set Aside Time for Each Task and Service Item

You can attach the cost of paying an employee with a specific piece of work and a service item that corresponds to the service items listed on your estimate. QuickBooks assigns any payroll taxes to particular tasks and services when earnings are assigned to them.

Reporting

There are many reports available to help you manage and assist your construction projects, including the following ones that are mentioned below:

Job Profitability

It describes the costs of the job and the actual revenue. For a specific project, revenue and expenses for all selected tasks may be summed or shown per service item.

Job Estimates vs. Actual

Compares actual revenue and expenses to estimates. The report can be divided into service items for specified work or summarized per job.

Estimates vs Job Progress Invoices

To detect any jobs that have not yet been fully invoiced, compare the total amount of progress invoices to the estimate for each job.

Item Profitability

Shows the actual revenue and expense for each service item across all jobs. This enables you to identify the most and least profitable service products.

Item Estimates vs. Actual

A comparison of actual vs. expected revenue and expenses for every job provided, broken down by each service item. This helps you identify the services that are overestimated.

Unpaid Bills by Job

It shows a list of outstanding bills broken down by job. This is critical to properly finish jobs and avoid any errors that can result in a customer warning and a claim from your vendor.

Expenses Not Assigned to Jobs

It will provide a list of expenses that should be double-checked to make sure they don’t include direct materials or any other costs that could be invoiced to work.

QuickBooks Contractor Pricing

The cost of QuickBooks Premier’s contractor edition is the same as that of the base edition. A yearly subscription to QuickBooks Premier Contractor Edition is now offered.

	QuickBooks Premier Plus	QuickBooks Premier Plus + Payroll
Number of Users	One to Five	One to Five
Pricing	Annual	Annual
One User	$549.99	$1,049.99
Tow Users	$849.99	$1,349.99
Three Users	$1,149.99	$1,649.99
Four Users	$1,449.99	$1,949.99
Five Users	$1,749.99	$2,249
Contractor Edition	✓	✓
Other Industry-specific Features	✓	✓
Accessibility	Desktop	Desktop
Software Upgrades	Unlimited	Unlimited
Free Maintenance Updates	✓	✓
Free Upgrade to New Edition Each Year	✓	✓
Unlimited Customer Support	✓	✓
Online Data Backups	✓	✓
Mobile App	N/A	N/A
Payroll	Separately Billed	Included in the Price

Intuit QuickBooks Payroll Pricing

The Contractor Edition of QuickBooks Premier includes integrated payroll features for a charge, just like the base edition. Beginning monthly fees for Intuit QuickBooks Payroll are $50 plus $2 for each employee.

QuickBooks Contractor vs Competitors

Compared Builder trend with QuickBooks Online Plus and Sage 100 Contractor, two of QuickBooks Premier Contractor Edition’s direct competitors. An industry-specific version of QuickBooks Premier is called QuickBooks Contractor.

With QuickBooks Online Plus, QuickBooks Contractor is a more inexpensive option than Builder trend. For one user, the cost of QuickBooks Premier Contractor Edition is $549.99 per year, but the monthly cost of Builder trend with QuickBooks Online Plus is $429. The strongest construction accounting and ERP tools are provided by Builder trend with QuickBooks Online, whereas QuickBooks Contractor focuses primarily on the accounting aspects. In terms of compromises between price and features, Sage 100 Contractor sits in the middle.

What is New Features in QuickBooks Contractor 2022?

The QuickBooks Contractor 2022 edition has unquestionably presented that it is an improvement over the QuickBooks Premier Contractor Edition 2021. Below are the mentioned points of the new and improvements that this contracting software has to offer:

Untrained Bookkeepers

Your CPA or bookkeeper who works remotely cannot access your QuickBooks Contractor books from their office computer. A copy of the QuickBooks Contractor signed by an accountant and your CPA must be submitted. Even though it’s not a great method, you shouldn’t use it every day or monthly.

Separating Job Costs from Bookkeeping

QuickBooks Premier Contractor Edition combines general bookkeeping and job costs. Like many small contractors, you might keep track of job costs in Excel. The Contractor Edition reduces missing expenditures by connecting job charges to corporate expenses and lowers effort by consolidating duties.

Limitless Security Patches and Feature Updates

You can download as many security updates and feature updates as you’d like with the new QuickBooks Premier Contractor edition subscription-based plan as long as you’re a subscriber.

New and Improved Performance

The slower performance of earlier versions with only 32 bits of memory will be addressed by the new 64-bit operating system.

Pros and Cons of QuickBooks Contractor

Pricing Plans for QuickBooks Premier Contractor Edition 2022 or QuickBooks Contractor Edition 2022

Below are the mentioned pricing plans of QuickBooks contractor edition:

Number of Users	QuickBooks Premier Plus	QuickBooks Premier Plus + Payroll
Pricing	Annual	Annual
One User	$549.99	$1,049.99
Tow Users	$849.99	$1,349.99
Three Users	$1,149.99	$1,649.99
Four Users	$1,449.99	$1,949.99
Five Users	$1,749.99	$2,249

What are the Alternatives to QuickBooks Contractor

The following list includes some effective QuickBooks Contractor edition that is mentioned below:

• Sage 100 Contractor
• Dynamics GP
• Spectrum
• ProContractor
• Bluegrass
• Sage 300 CRE
• TimeSuite Toolbox
• Infor Service Management
• Sage Intacct
• Sage 300 ERP

The QuickBooks Premier Contractor Edition combines the powerful bookkeeping features of QuickBooks Premier with tools that help general and construction workers track costs, assess performance, and reduce errors.

The programme is comprehensive and complicated, and hiring a full-time accountant will most likely be necessary. However, this is the nature of cost accounting for large-scale projects.

Before purchasing QuickBooks Premier Contractor Edition, you must first purchase QuickBooks Premier. You will be asked to choose whether you want a free industry-specific edition before downloading the software. You can use the Contractor Edition to get more accurate work costing.

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