QuickBooks Integration

How Do I... Implement QuickBooks Integration?

Smart Contractor requires some Accounts to be set up in QuickBooks in order to write data to it. You must set up your QuickBooks Accounts (general ledger chart of accounts) in QuickBooks before you connect Smart Contractor to QuickBooks.

If you are not familiar with construction accounting, you may want to consult with a QuickBooks accountant who is experienced in construction for advice on how to do this.

Smart Contractor requires the following accounts in QuickBooks:

Cost of Goods Sold Accounts

Cost of Materials account
Cost of Labor account
Cost of Equipment Rental account
Cost of Subcontractors account
Other Costs account

Income Account(s)

Most construction businesses use only one account to track income from construction projects (typically called something like "Construction Income"), but if you want to track income separately by cost category, you can do that with Smart Contractor. In order to do that, you will need the following accounts:

Income from Materials account
Income from Labor account
Income from Equipment Rental account
Income from Subcontractors account
Income from Other Costs account

Customer Deposit Account

A customer deposit is an amount of money that you accept from your customer before beginning work on a construction job. You can apply parts of the customer's deposit to invoices as the job progresses, but the idea is to hold some of the customer's money until the job is completed and you issue the final invoice in case of any disputes.

Customer Deposits are recorded in an "Other Current Liability" account in QuickBooks. When you generate invoices in Smart Contractor, you can apply some or all of the customer deposit to the invoice. When you do, Smart Contractor will reduce the invoice amount by the amount of the deposit applied, and automatically generate the journal entries to transfer the amount of the deposit applied from the Customer Deposit account to the Income Account in QuickBooks.

Accounts Receivable Account

Where customer invoices are recorded in QuickBooks.

Sales Tax Payable Account

If you set Smart Contractor up to calculate sales taxes on charges to customers, this is the account where the sales taxes payable is recorded in QuickBooks.

Payment Receipts Account

The account were payment receipts are recorded in QuickBooks. This can be either "Undeposited Funds", or a bank account where customer payment receipts are deposited.

Accounts Payable Account

The account(s) where vendor and subcontractor bills are recorded in QuickBooks. You can have more than one accounts payable account; you can set up one of them as the default, but this can be overridden when you enter purchase transactions.

Checking Account

The bank account(s) where check purchase transactions are recorded in QuickBooks. You can have more than one checking account; you can set up one of them as the default, but this can be overridden when you enter check purchase transactions.

Credit Card Account

The credit card account(s) where credit cardpurchase transactions are recorded in QuickBooks. You can have more than one credit card account; you can set up one of them as the default, but this can be overridden when you enter credit card purchase transactions.

Once you have set up your QuickBooks Accounts, you can proceed with the process of integrating Smart Contractor with QuickBooks. The following are some suggestions for how to do that...

Merge Reference Data First

To integrate Smart Contractor with QuickBooks:

Save a backup copy of your QuickBooks company file (run the backup utility in QuickBooks).
Follow steps in the QuickBooks Integration Setup form to connect Smart Contractor to QuickBooks.
Run the Update QuickBooks Data utility. (Click Yes in response to the prompt that appears when you save the setup information in the QuickBooks Integration Setup form, or click Update Reference Data in the Utilities menu .

This will merge all of your reference data, such as Customers, Vendors, Employees, Accounts, and Items. It will not merge any job transaction data.

Note: Job data is written to QuickBooks on an individual job basis; each job that is integrated with QuickBooks must selected individually and no job data will be written to QuickBooks until individual job(s) are selected for QuickBooks integration.

Connect Jobs To QuickBooks

To integrate a job with QuickBooks, go to the Job Info tab of the Edit Estimate form, and:

Check "Create This Job In QuickBooks:"
Select an active job status in the prompt for Job Status. Active job statuses include anything from "Contract Signed" to, and including "Completed".

Important: When Smart Contractor is integrated with QuickBooks, job cost data should only be entered in Smart Contractor - never in QuickBooks. If any job transaction data (purchases, labor hours, invoices, or payment receipts) is entered in QuickBooks, SmartContractor and QuickBooks will be out of synch. The only way to fix this is to delete all transaction data (purchases or labor hours) for that job in QuickBooks, and re-run the Update QuickBooks Data utility.

Remember, you can always reconcile all transaction data that has been merged from Smart Contractor to QuickBooks by looking at the Transaction Audit report in Smart Contractor.

To Summarize...

To integrate Smart Contractor with QuickBooks, follow these steps:

Before integrating with QuickBooks, save a copy of the QuickBooks company file (do a backup).
Use the QuickBooks Integration Setup form to set up Smart Contractor for QuickBooks integration.
Always start with a new job! You must always integrate jobs starting when they are new. You cannot start integrating a job once you have already entered data in QuickBooks because transactions entered in Smart Contractor will duplicate what is already in QuickBooks.
Select a job to integrate with QuickBooks by checking the Copy Job To QuickBooks box in the General tab of the Edit Job form. The job must be set to status between "Contract Signed" and "Completed" in order for data to be copied into QuickBooks.
Enter the all data for that job in Smart Contractor (not in QuickBooks). Run the "Update QB Data" utility.
Use the Transaction Audit report in Smart Contractor to verify data between QuickBooks and Smart Contractor.
Continue as above, one job at a time, always with new jobs. If there are discrepancies between data in Smart Contractor and QuickBooks that you cannot resolve, you can always disconnect the integration for an individual job by un-checking the Copy Job To QuickBooks box in the General tab of the Edit Job form. Contact Smart Contractor technical support for assistance with any questions or problems.