QuickBooks Group Items – Progress Billing Solution For Sub-Contractors and Lump Sum Draws
Posted on January 7, 2010 | No Comments
Penny Crull asked:
QuickBooks(TM) Premier Contractor Edition offers many options for invoicing and includes a pretty flexible Progress Invoicing feature. However, the Progress invoicing feature is definitely geared more toward line-item billing for General Contractors. Sub-contractors and many General Contractors run up against a customer billing issue when attempting to properly utilize detailed job-costing with QuickBooks(TM) Progress invoicing.
To get good Estimate vs. Actual Job costing, the Estimate will need to be entered in detailed format with estimated labor, material, subcontractor and other costs. The issue arises when the Contractor is billing the Customer in a Lump Sum Draw schedule rather than by line item. In other words, your contract states that you will collect 20% upon completion of rough-in, 40% at Top out and 40% upon completion.
Most often a Contractor in this situation would prefer to display on the invoice the Progress detail provided by QuickBooks(TM) progress invoicing such as the original contract amount as one lump sum, the current amount billing, and the previous amounts or percentage billed. However, they do not want to show several line item amounts like Labor, materials, etc. as detailed on the Estimate. Because the Progress invoice pulls it’s data directly from the Estimate, there is a conflict.
One solution is to create a custom Progress Invoice template that eliminates all columns except for the Description and manually typing in the detail, such as 20% Draw, etc. The disadvantage is of course is that you have eliminated one of the best features of Progress Billing, created manual entry, and the invoice just doesn’t look as professional. Another solution, more preferable in my opinion, is to create Group Items that include your detailed job-costing items yet allow you to create a separate description. When you use this item on your Customer’s Estimate, you will retain the Item’s Job-costing and Revenue reporting, yet the Invoice created from the Estimate will Group the items together on one line with one amount.
The main issue with this scenario is that it would seem that you will need to set up a new group item for every group of items you use. If you always use the same combination of items, like Labor, Materials, Subcontractor, it would seem reasonable to set up a group item containing these items to use on every job. But what if you are a remodel contractor and the items in a job vary? No problem, you can actually change the items within your group item directly on an estimate or invoice. This is accomplished by clicking inside the group item on the form (be sure you are inside the group item, not above or below), using the Edit – insert line, or edit delete line menu option to insert or remove the items you would like to change.
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QuickBooks(TM) Premier Contractor Edition offers many options for invoicing and includes a pretty flexible Progress Invoicing feature. However, the Progress invoicing feature is definitely geared more toward line-item billing for General Contractors. Sub-contractors and many General Contractors run up against a customer billing issue when attempting to properly utilize detailed job-costing with QuickBooks(TM) Progress invoicing.
To get good Estimate vs. Actual Job costing, the Estimate will need to be entered in detailed format with estimated labor, material, subcontractor and other costs. The issue arises when the Contractor is billing the Customer in a Lump Sum Draw schedule rather than by line item. In other words, your contract states that you will collect 20% upon completion of rough-in, 40% at Top out and 40% upon completion.
Most often a Contractor in this situation would prefer to display on the invoice the Progress detail provided by QuickBooks(TM) progress invoicing such as the original contract amount as one lump sum, the current amount billing, and the previous amounts or percentage billed. However, they do not want to show several line item amounts like Labor, materials, etc. as detailed on the Estimate. Because the Progress invoice pulls it’s data directly from the Estimate, there is a conflict.
One solution is to create a custom Progress Invoice template that eliminates all columns except for the Description and manually typing in the detail, such as 20% Draw, etc. The disadvantage is of course is that you have eliminated one of the best features of Progress Billing, created manual entry, and the invoice just doesn’t look as professional. Another solution, more preferable in my opinion, is to create Group Items that include your detailed job-costing items yet allow you to create a separate description. When you use this item on your Customer’s Estimate, you will retain the Item’s Job-costing and Revenue reporting, yet the Invoice created from the Estimate will Group the items together on one line with one amount.
The main issue with this scenario is that it would seem that you will need to set up a new group item for every group of items you use. If you always use the same combination of items, like Labor, Materials, Subcontractor, it would seem reasonable to set up a group item containing these items to use on every job. But what if you are a remodel contractor and the items in a job vary? No problem, you can actually change the items within your group item directly on an estimate or invoice. This is accomplished by clicking inside the group item on the form (be sure you are inside the group item, not above or below), using the Edit – insert line, or edit delete line menu option to insert or remove the items you would like to change.
Website content