Quickbooks 2003 Product Offerings

Quickbooks Contractor Edition 2003
Text from QuickBooks.com

Designed specifically for the business needs of construction contractors, QuickBooks Premier: Contractor Edition 2003 organizes all your business finances-checks, estimates, change orders, invoices and job costing information-so you're always in control. You can convert your existing data, 1 and it looks and feels just like other QuickBooks products, so you know its easy to learn and use. And it's faster and easier to use for Contractors than any other version of QuickBooks. It contains all the features in new QuickBooks Premier Edition 2003-and costs exactly the same-plus it contains additional features, tools and reports created just for contractors.

1 Automatically converts files from QuickBooks 5.0 through QuickBooks 2002 for Windows.

Improved job costing: see which jobs are making money-and which are not

Five New Job Cost Reports
Premier: Contractor edition includes 5 new reports designed specifically for contractors to help you see where you're making money and where you're not. The reports are already designed for you-no setup or customization needed! Just enter your bills as you normally do, assigning a job to each expense. Premier: Contractor Edition does the rest, showing you exactly where your money is going on each job.

  • Job Costs Detail: Instantly see where every dollar went on every job so you can bid more accurately, focus on profitable jobs, and avoid the money-losers. You can instantly drill down to see the "why" behind any expense, so you can learn from mistakes and work more efficiently.
  • Job Costs by Vendor - Summarize billings from all of your materials suppliers and subcontractors. See if you're relying too heavily on any one vendor.
  • Expenses Not Assigned to Jobs -No more unbilled job expenses! Before you invoice a customer, run this report to instantly see every expense you've incurred that hasn't been assigned to a job. You can easily drill down from this report and find the detail you need to assign the right costs to the right jobs.
  • Additional job costing reports, Unpaid Bills by Job and Unpaid Job Bills by Vendor, show you exactly where you stand on each job.

See estimated costs vs. actual costs
Track estimated versus actual job costs to see where you're making or losing money, and avoid overbidding or underbidding, or taking on unprofitable jobs in the future. You can evaluate profitability by item, job or activity to see exactly where your profits are coming from... and where they're going.

Custom help topics for more accurate, complete job costing
Wondering how to set up progress invoicing? Do a take-off? Create a change order? The answers are right at your fingertips! Just click on "Help & Info for Contractors" and you'll find answers, along with timesaving tips written specifically for contractors by Karen Mitchell, construction industry expert and author of The Contractor's Guide to QuickBooks. It's designed to help you use the Premier: Contractor Edition in the most powerful and effective way for your business.


Create more accurate and complete estimates

Track and print change orders on estimates
Finally, a quick, painless way to track and get customer buy-off on change orders! Make a change to any estimate, and Premier: Contractor Edition asks if you want to track the edits as a change order. Click "Yes" and QuickBooks adds a change order memo to the estimate, detailing each change, its cost, and it's impact on the total cost of the job. If you like, you can add a signature line and a text box for terms and conditions, and submit the printed form to your client for approval. No surprises, misunderstandings or billing disputes. QuickBooks tracks the changes through the entire billing process, so nothing falls through the cracks.

Easily create multiple estimates per job
Revising a bid? No need to create a new job in QuickBooks. Now, you can create another estimate for the same job-and decide later which estimate to use for invoicing. QuickBooks automatically reuses all the relevant customer and job information, so you don't have to waste time retyping it for each estimate. And QuickBooks tracks all your estimates for a single job in one place, so there's no confusion or lost estimates.

Duplicate estimates to save time
Doing a lot of similar jobs? Why spend time creating each estimate from scratch? Premier: Contractor Edition lets you duplicate any estimate, and just change the details, such as customer, materials, quantities, costs or terms. The result: a new estimate in seconds! It's a real timesaver and helps prevent errors.

Custom help topics and tips for estimating
Click on Help and get instruction and tips from construction industry expert Karen Mitchell on how to get the most out of your estimating and change order process.


Contractor-specific reports give you greater insight

Nine new contractor-specific reports
Tired of 'tweaking' generic business reports to give you the information you need for your contracting business? Premier: Contractor Edition comes with 9 new fully customizable reports designed by contractors for contractors. They'll give you instant insight into your job costs and profitability.

  • Reports include: Job Status
  • Time by Name with Billable Status
  • Certified Payroll – Box 1 Employee Information
  • Time by Name and Job with Billable Status
  • Time by Name and Item with Billable Status
  • Open Purchase Orders by Vendor
  • Open Purchase Orders by Vendor Detail
  • Vendor Account Information
  • Customer Account Information

Expert Analysis Tool shows where you stand in your industry, where to improve
Assess your company's performance and get expert recommendations to grow your contracting business. The Expert Analysis Tool interprets your QuickBooks financial data to give you an in-depth analysis in plain English. It charts of your company's financial performance and compares various time periods, revealing important trends in Profits, Sales, Borrowing, Liquidity, Assets and Employees. It even compares your company's performance against others in your specific segment of the construction contracting industry, based on current data for 2003. Most important, it provides practical suggestions to help you strengthen your company's financial position.

Note: Recommended use by 12/31/03. Based on time-sensitive industry comparison. Recommendations may not take into account all critical factors of specific businesses.


Faster and easier for contractors

Contractor Menu and Navigator
Work faster with the features you need at your fingertips! The customized Contractor Navigator gives you a desktop "picture" of your daily workflow, with one-click access to all the functions you use most. And you'll find all the same features in a new Contractor Menu you can pull down from anywhere in QuickBooks. Just click Estimates & Change Orders icon in the Navigator to create estimates and change orders. Click the Invoice icon to create invoices. Click other icons to record received payments, create Purchase Orders, enter bills, pay bills, track time, pay employees or pay liabilities. You get step-by-step guidance for each function. In addition, you get one-click desktop access to your memorized contractor reports and to contractor-specific Help.

More form customization options
Tired of "squeaking by" with forms that don't work the way your business does or don't project the right image? QuickBooks now gives you dozens of new ways to customize forms, so your estimates, proposals, contracts and invoices can support your business 100%. For instance, you can add and remove fields right from the layout designer. Include multiple instances of the same field. Add text boxes. Insert as many as 256 images into a form (in gif, jpeg, bitmap or other graphical formats). Add colored borders in a variety of styles, fill boxes with color, add lines in a variety of styles. You're in control!

More professionally designed forms
Win the respect of your prospects and customers with professional-looking, customized business forms. No design skills needed! Now, you can choose from more than 100 professionally designed forms-many created specifically for the construction industry. Premier: Contractor Edition gives you access to construction contracts, proposals, and more, on the software CD and via the Internet. 2

2 Requires Internet access.

Tips and tricks for contractors to set up QuickBooks right
Just getting started with QuickBooks? Want to learn the best way to use a new feature? Premier: Contractor Edition shows you the most effective ways to set up and use your software for your contracting business. Written by construction industry expert Karen Mitchell, author of The Contractor's Guide to QuickBooks, the onscreen "Help & Info for Contractors" covers everything from accounting to estimating to job costing. Want to add a signature line to your Change Orders or track billable and un-billable time for a job? Just click "Help & Info for Contractors" and type a question in your own words. You'll gain the comfort of knowing you're working at top efficiency and your financial data is relevant to your business.

Sample contractor company file with 3 years of realistic data
Experiment in QuickBooks without worry. QuickBooks Premier: Contractor Edition comes with a "practice" file containing three years of realistic data. Use it to try out ideas and tips from QuickBooks Help, or learn to use the contractor-specific features, while protecting the integrity of your company information. Create new jobs, estimates, change orders and invoices. Add employees, change pay scales. It's safe, it's fun, and it's enlightening.


All the features of QuickBooks Premier 2003

Create customized estimates and invoices
Create estimates quickly and more accurately. Just select the materials or service items you've previously entered into QuickBooks, enter quantities, and QuickBooks does the rest. Customize the look and content of your estimates, including discounts, special terms and layout. Turn any estimate into an invoice with a single click. Flexible invoicing options in Premier: Contractor Edition let you bill by fixed-price or time-and materials, and allow you to generate progress invoices.

Track employee time
Ever forget to bill a customer for labor you had to pay for? Never again! Track the hours you, your employees and your subcontractors spend on each phase of a project. QuickBooks can automatically send the information to invoices, payroll and job costing reports.

Easily print checks, pay bills and track expenses
Track expenses and job costs automatically while you pay bills! Fill in checks automatically by selecting vendors from dropdown lists. No typing! Edit as needed, then print a check with one click, or store several to print in a batch later. As you write checks, classify them by account and job, and QuickBooks automatically sends the information to job costing reports, invoices, tax reports-wherever it's needed! With QuickBooks, you never have to re-enter the same information in two places.

Manage payroll processing and direct deposit
Whether you want the control of "do-it-yourself" tools or the time-savings of a full-service, outsourced solution, there's an Intuit Payroll Service that's right for your construction business. Learn more

  • Never enter payroll data twice-our payroll services integrate with QuickBooks!
  • Intuit Payroll Services are easy to set up and use, brought to you from the small business leader you trust.
  • Avoid tax hassles and stay compliant with ever-changing payroll tax laws
  • Get peace of mind knowing your payroll is done right-backed by our "No Penalties" guarantee!  3 (Applies only to Assisted & Complete Payroll Services)

Note: Subscription and Federal Identification Number (EIN) required. Features vary according to level of service and Internet access may be required.

3 If the data you provide is accurate and on time, and your account is sufficiently funded, your payroll tax deposits and filings will be on time and accurate or we'll pay any resulting payroll tax penalty.

Integrates with Microsoft Excel®, Word®, Outlook®, ACT®, 20 contractor-specific applications and more
Save data entry time and errors. QuickBooks Premier: Contractor Edition can share information with 20 software applications popular in the construction industry, including estimating, time/material tracking and project management applications. It can even share data with handheld devices. It also shares data with Microsoft Excel, Word, Outlook and ACT, and with more than 100 other popular business applications. See supported applications.

Allows access by up to 5 users simultaneously 4
Get more done in less time! Let up to five networked users work on the same QuickBooks file at the same time.

4 Requires additional license for each user. All users must be connected on a Local Area Network (LAN) and must be using QuickBooks Premier: Contractor Edition 2003 or QuickBooks Pro.