From the Back Cover
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 2006 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 2006, 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 2006 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.
• 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.)
• 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.
• 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.

Excerpt from the Introduction
Contractor's Guide to QuickBooks Pro is a simple, hands-on guide for contractors, remodelers, subcontractors, and real estate developers who plan to use, or are now using, QuickBooks Pro accounting software. Think of this manual, like QuickBooks Pro, as a powerful new tool. Used correctly, it will get you results you never thought possible - in ways you never imagined.

This book was written for contactors by contractors. That's why it's low on "accounting speak" and high on practical examples. We're not going to talk about debits and credits. QuickBooks Pro doesn't use those terms, so we won't either. Instead, we'll use words we all understand, like checks, estimates, bills, timecards, purchase orders, and deposit slips.

We'll help you set up a good, effective, highly professional bookkeeping system as quickly and painlessly as possible. You'll know, at the click of a mouse button, who owes you money and whom you owe. You'll know if there's enough cash on hand to pay bills. When you need a current profit and loss statement, you'll have one in a minute or two - either for the month, the year, or just one job. When a lender or a bonding company needs a balance sheet, you'll get one in minutes.

Contractors have special payroll requirements. This book will show you how to get the most out of QuickBooks Pro's payroll system. No matter where you do business in the 50 states, QuickBooks Pro has a current tax table exactly right for your company. If QuickBooks Pro isn't doing your payroll now, we predict it will before long.

Since estimating is important to most construction contractors, we're going to cover estimating from three perspectives. In Chapter 12, you'll see how to enter the summary data from estimates you've already written into QuickBooks Pro. From here, you can do progress billing and job cost tracking. In Appendix A you'll learn how to use the estimating system built into QuickBooks Pro to create estimates. And for those who want still more estimating power, Appendix B has complete instructions for using Craftsman's estimating software, National Estimator, and Job Cost Wizard, a program that lets you turn estimates into invoices that will export to QuickBooks Pro. Both the National Estimator and Job Cost Wizard are included in the CD-ROM in the back of this book.

Table of Contents
Introduction. 1 Setting Up Your QuickBooks Pro Company. 2 How to Set QuickBooks Pro Preferences. 3 Chart of Accounts. 4 Items. 5 Payroll Items. 6 Classes. 7 Customers and Jobs. 8 Vendors and Subcontractors. 9 Employees. 10 Opening Balances. 11 Organizing Work Flow. 12 Estimating. 13 Receivables. 14 Payables. 15 Payroll. 16 Using QuickBooks Pro on a Cash Basis. 17 Reports. 18 End of Month and End of Year Procedures. 19 Real Estate Development. Appendix A Estimating with QuickBooks Pro. Appendix B Job Cost Tracking and Importing Estimates. Index.

About 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.