ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Business Related Discussion Accounting Question

I use QuickBooks Pro, and would like to know what the proper way to
Track Owners time spent on jobs? If owner’s time is equity then how can I set
Up quick books so my time spent on jobs will hit the Profit & Loss Statement
Also is it aureate to set up employee’s wages as a COGS account?

Thank you,

Lk

I have always been told that owners time is equity and sole proprietors take a
Draw against the equity and the way you do this in QuickBooks
Is, set up a service item called Owners Time and fill in time sheets just
As you would an employee and then write yourself a check, this method works
Fine. I just wanted to know how other biz owners track time spent on jobs.
How does your company track owners time?

To all:

I just recieved, (a couple of days ago), an email from Quickbooks, that they are starting a contractors forum on the us of QB.

I haven't been there yet, but will by the end of this week. If anyone is interested, I can post the site link. Maybe someone there, other than an accountant, can answer these questions about sole prop. Accountants answers vary alot, as I have been through a couple already, due to bad advise.

Anyone tried the QB forum yet?

I tried Qick Books Contractor Edition. I'm not saying it does not work great for some. For me I can't handle it. I don't need a computer to help me mess up the books. If someones looking for that QB package I could hook them up with a deal.

Right now I pay the accountant $150 per month to deal with all the payrole, taxes, check book, and book keeping. I get monthly reports that have some creibility cuase it was done by a CPA. He'll answer all my questions. Theres a few other charges for end of year things but it's still a great deal.

Tom

Please post the link for the Quickbooks forum. I went to the website but couldn't find it. Would be interested to check it out myself.

Dave I have mine set up just like you said to owner's time to job. I added my name with middle initial to use as employee and track my time that way. I just do weekly check to that name and do a negative to owner's time to get it to show up as expense. When I take equity out i use my regular name.

A good site for help with quickbooks
http://www.quickbooksusers.com/.forums/

Here's a link to the QB message boards.
http://www.quickbooksgroups.com/boards/index.html

I haven't looked into it yet, so I can't say if you'll find any useful info there.

Active1,

With QB 2003 Pro edition, I pay my accountant $80/ quarter to do my books and quarterly taxes. Then an average of $400-$500 at the end of year for tax work. The $150/month you are paying seems a little rich. He should be teaching you how to run QB for that amount.

I had a differnt accountant when we started. Got him a disk with our messed up QB records. He said it would cost more to go back find and fix our QB then it would to start over. He had us use a leger book. The first guy didn't want to do the weekly payrole. So we were paying a payrole service $20-30 per week.

I don't think were getting ripped off. I beleave our accountant is doing more services. Were giving him a stack of papers not a disk. Anything from the goverment the accountant takes care of. He does the payrole taxes and unemployment. They reconsile the checking account every month. I keep an eye on it but don't ballance it. He would have to teach more than how to use QB. I would have to learn the goverment apphabit soup of forms.

Because I don't know all the tax rules I don't know the right way to do things. Every month are some expences that don't fit the day to day catigories. Like a Christmas dinner. Is that a gift or a business meal? If I pay a small doctor bill for a worker what catigory does that go in? What is the differance to the IRS between a tool and equipment? How do they get deprisiated? It might be nothing for some but for me it's not worth the agervation.

Tom

Gotcha,
When I started out, the accountant I had took care of all that stuff to, and charged me for it, of course.

I took me a long time to learn where to put what, under what account for this, how and why's, ect. Slowly the girls at the accountants office showed me that stuff, and now I just send him a disk every quarter. He also sent me every month, a profit and loss statement, and cash flow calculations, and charged me $100 a month for those. I didn't need them, as he stated to me the reports were only for my records, in case I wanted to do financing. I read my income and expense graphs and that tells me how I am doing now. Just by him not "providing" me those reports, I saved myself $100/month.

The other thing that seems to work out was the QB payroll service. I think it costs $125-$150 yr, and QB sends me all the payroll updates automatically, and that maid the payroll easier. Now if it could automatically make the 941 payments monthly for me, that would be cool. It probably does somewhere, but I am not that advanced on everything my QB can do yet.