Book keeping
- Thread starter nickelec
- Start date
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Coppersmith
Senior Member
- Location
- Tampa, FL, USA
- Occupation
- Electrical Contractor
Quickbooks is pretty much the standard for small operations. Most CPA and bookkeepers can access your books by you bringing just a data file.
In order to understand how much you are making, you are going to have to track lots more expenses that what you listed. Overhead will be bigger than you think.
I know I definitely need to track more I just listed the basics. But I tried QuickBooks I didn't think it was that easy
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ramsy
Roger Ruhle dba NoFixNoPay
- Location
- LA basin, CA
- Occupation
- Service Electrician 2020 NEC
Monthly Bank Statements can help when using a separate Deposit account, and Charge cards for business use
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
What did you find hard about it?
It can be set up to be rather simple, or if you know exactly what you want to track down to the most minor detail and know all the accounting terminology you can make it pretty complex.
ptonsparky
Tom
- Occupation
- EC - retired
Have an accountant familiar with QB help you set it up to get the level of detail you want. More detail will require more input and after a while you are either a bookkeeper or an electrician. Your choice.
GIGO, still applies.
GIGO, still applies.
goldstar
Senior Member
- Location
- New Jersey
- Occupation
- Electrical Contractor
The original version of Quickbooks was very easy to use. I'm still running a 1994 version and it does exactly what I want it to do, no more no less. I also have an advanced version on my computer (and still running Windows XP) and there are a lot of new bells and whistles that I have no use for. I would suggest that you load the program onto your computer and start loading job, customer, vendor, debt and payment information onto it but keep your current method of accounting running in case you decide Quickbooks is not for you. But, I would log onto Quickbooks on a daily basis so that you get a working knowledge of its capabilities.
Not sure how much of an accounting background you have but if you have none I would suggest that you get some basics under your belt at the very least. As far as tracking profit and loss on a per job basis, that could become rather laborious. I would focus in on basic things like "time and materials" until you get used to using the accounting program. After that you can fine tune the program to give you the information you're looking for.
Good luck.
Book Keeping
Book Keeping
If your ambitions are to grow in the future, it would be advantageous for you to take at least a one semester course in bookkeeping. It is essential that a business owner have some knowledge of bookkeeping.
If you don't have the time at least procure some accounting books explaining double entry accounting.
Quickbooks is probably the software of choice for most contractors. You can modify it for a very small company or a large company. It also is good for generating useful management reports such as "profit and loss".
The nice feature of Quickbooks is that you really don't need to understand double entry accounting, the software does it for you.
We do our books in house and simple email the quickbooks company data file to our accountant at year end for tax returns.
Book Keeping
If your ambitions are to grow in the future, it would be advantageous for you to take at least a one semester course in bookkeeping. It is essential that a business owner have some knowledge of bookkeeping.
If you don't have the time at least procure some accounting books explaining double entry accounting.
Quickbooks is probably the software of choice for most contractors. You can modify it for a very small company or a large company. It also is good for generating useful management reports such as "profit and loss".
The nice feature of Quickbooks is that you really don't need to understand double entry accounting, the software does it for you.
We do our books in house and simple email the quickbooks company data file to our accountant at year end for tax returns.
Coppersmith
Senior Member
- Location
- Tampa, FL, USA
- Occupation
- Electrical Contractor
Unbridled is correct about this. Strangely enough, I don't really like Quickbooks (even though I use it) because it tries so hard to hide the double entries from the user with all kinds of fancy interfaces which confuse me. I find the naked double entries to be very clear and concise.
Accounting Knowledge
Accounting Knowledge
As much as quickbooks hides the double entry accounting systems there are a few transactions that must be posted as a "journal entry" in which one must know both accounts to credit or debit. I just believe it to be necessary knowledge for any business owner to have bookkeeping knowledge, even if only taking an on-line class. The software is cheap and eventually will become easy to use.
I've had many ex-employee's venture on their own. My advice to them has always been: " It takes much more than being a good electrician to run a business"
Accounting Knowledge
As much as quickbooks hides the double entry accounting systems there are a few transactions that must be posted as a "journal entry" in which one must know both accounts to credit or debit. I just believe it to be necessary knowledge for any business owner to have bookkeeping knowledge, even if only taking an on-line class. The software is cheap and eventually will become easy to use.
I've had many ex-employee's venture on their own. My advice to them has always been: " It takes much more than being a good electrician to run a business"
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
I think if you wanted to you could make nearly all entries via the "journal entry" feature and manually enter both accounts associated with the transaction you are entering.
Otherwise it automatically enters them according to how you set things up. When you purchase items you assign an expense account to each item when you set it up, but you don't ordinarily see that expense account when you enter the purchase. You do the similar with income accounts for sales transactions.
Otherwise it automatically enters them according to how you set things up. When you purchase items you assign an expense account to each item when you set it up, but you don't ordinarily see that expense account when you enter the purchase. You do the similar with income accounts for sales transactions.
ramsy
Roger Ruhle dba NoFixNoPay
- Location
- LA basin, CA
- Occupation
- Service Electrician 2020 NEC
Got my Accounting degree in 1989, then setup a spreadsheet (Lotus 123) to post my receipts to each account, saving the CSV record to a real-time bank reconciliation, and separately exported to a text file.
When monthly bank statements show my entry errors, or vendor errors, accidental double charges, or missing charges, corrections can be made with the vendor, and/or the permanent CSV text file on record.
My spreadsheet has avoided Credit / Debit redundancy in the journal (CSV records), since it only needs to match bank statements, and perhaps verify IRS form 1040, Schedule-C business expenses.
I get away with this as a self-employed, individual Sole-Proprietor, but other business entities may be subject to standard bookkeeping practices, with Credit / Debit double-entry standards.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
But you have two things to keep track of with pretty much every transaction whether you realize you are doing it or not.
Purchase something, you track the expense, you also reduce your cash, checking balance, or whatever account you used to pay with.
Sell something, you track the income, you also increase cash, checking balance or whatever account you applied the value to.
Even if you bartered goods or services for other goods or services there is still similar activity that effects at least two different areas that you keep track of.
ramsy
Roger Ruhle dba NoFixNoPay
- Location
- LA basin, CA
- Occupation
- Service Electrician 2020 NEC
Yes, redundancy seems hard to avoid. Was a member of ITEX international bartering club for a few years. ITEX members use the ITEX bank & checkbook, or recent smartphone App.. With its own bank account, bookkeeping for bartering was just like any other checking, or credit card account with a running balance.
With the flexibility of a spreadsheet in my case, the journal entry amount is made directly to the withdrawal, or deposit section of the bank-account reconciliation. I eventually learned how to make macros post transactions to each account, and archive the transaction record to a data file. The hardest part remains clearing the journal records in the bank reconcile sheets each month, once bank statements are justified.
My reward is having each bank account current, overseeing a deposit column for receivables, a withdrawal column for Bill-Payment status, which requires action from me to make payments (No Dead Pheasants insurance to my lords), and having a simple cashflow based on monthly account values; which are charted with fancy graphs, and used to Ruhle my world.
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