How to Keep Track of Sub-contractor Bids in QuickBooks for Contractors |

How to Keep Track of Sub-contractor Bids in QuickBooks for Contractors

Published 10/13/2009 |

As a general contractor, I will bid on projects (estimates) and once awarded, I need to have various trades submit their bids to do the jobs needed. I will get at least three or four bids for every trade I use on the job. Once I have selected the trade whose bid falls into the budget I gave on my bid, I will need to process that bid. Right now I am doing this outside of QuickBooks, but I believe that I could be doing this in QuickBooks to better track my trades bids and to house all of the various information in one location for billing. What I am hoping to be able to do is have a place that I can list all of the trades ( I have set up separate items for each trade (24 Concrete, 24.1 Stem Work, 24.2 Flat Work, 24.3 Slab…) and I would like to be able to enter in estimates ( or bids ) from my trades and compare them to the budget amounts I estimated for the project. Once awarded I would like to be able to progress those estimates from the trades to invoices that I can pay. Is this something you think I can do in QuickBooks or am I not using the correct software for my needs? Thanks for your input on this.

You can use purchase orders for this.

First, turn them on in Edit > Preferences > Items & Inventory. If you are using QuickBooks Premier or QuickBooks Enterprise, you can easily turn your estimates into purchase orders by clicking the little arrow to the right of the Create Invoice button at the top of the estimate. You can create purchase orders for the entire estimate or only for certain items on the estimate. Unfortunately, this feature isn’t available in QuickBooks Pro and it’s actually one of the top reason our job costing clients upgrade. You can, however, manually create purchase orders in QuickBooks Pro in Vendors > Create Purchase Orders.

If you make progress payments to your sub-contractors, you may want to reverse the Quantity and Rate fields on your purchase orders. For instance, instead of entering a quantity of 1 with a rate of $5000 enter a quantity of 5000 with a rate of $1.

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Ruth Perryman - QuickBooks Specialist Written by +Ruth Perryman, CMA, CFE, CFM, MBA

Ruth has provided QuickBooks help to thousands of businesses around the world since 1996. She is an Intuit Solutions Provider, an Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor, and a member of the Intuit Trainer/Writer Network. She is also certified in QuickBooks Point of Sale and QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions.

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