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QuickBooks 4 Contractors blog

QuickBooks for Contractors blog

  • There is so much news and information floating around the web – it’s difficult (at best) to keep up! I’ve added a WordPress plug-in that grabs information from my Twitter stream to help me (and hopefully you as well) keep up with everything. Look for the Weekly Wrap-Up: News You Can Use every Friday. See what caught my attention this week in these topics: Accounting & Taxes, eBooks/Webinars/Videos, Payroll/Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, QuickBooks, Small Business/Organization/Productivity, Construction, and Social Media/Marketing/Website Design.

  • Entering payroll for normal employee work hours and drive time and passing only the work hours through to client invoices is not only important but confusing. The following question was submitted by a reader who pays from the start of the first job till the end of the last job of the day (not including lunch break). I have my employees fill out a time tracker sheet each day that shows the time started at the first job till the end, drive time in between jobs, so on and so forth. I enter this into QuickBooks but I can't figure out where to enter in drive time to pay the girls their hourly wage on payroll but to not invoice anyone for drive time.

  • Can you deduct the cost of lost equipment from your employee’s pay? As a business owner I'm betting that on more than one occasion you have had an employee who has lost his company provided cell phone more than once and you've have to replace it. Perhaps you want to recover the cost of the phone via a payroll deduction - before you do, read the rest of this article, because the answer depends first on state and federal restrictions and second on how much you want to deduct.

  • There is so much news and information floating around the web – it’s difficult (at best) to keep up! I’ve added a WordPress plug-in that grabs information from my Twitter stream to help me (and hopefully you as well) keep up with everything. Look for the Weekly Wrap-Up: News You Can Use every Friday. See what's in store this week!

  • An important QuickBooks Payroll System Maintenance Announcement - a system-wide upgrade will start at 6 p.m. on Thursday 5/24/2012 and continue through 5 a.m. on Tuesday 5/29/2012 - Direct Deposit will also be effected and don't forget that this is also the Memorial Day holiday weekend! QuickBooks Payroll will not process direct deposit checks dated for Monday, May 28, 2012 due to the Memorial Day holiday. In order for your employees to receive their paychecks before Monday, May 28, you should change your paycheck date to Friday, May 25 and send your payroll by 5pm PT on Wednesday, May 23.

Certified Payroll Training

How To Fulfill Your Certified Payroll Reporting Requirements.  Live 2-hour training webinar - $89.00 per person.  Click here for more information.

certified payroll reporting training webinar


  

New QuickBooks Support & Training Website

We've launched a new website specifically for QuickBooks Support & Training.  Visit Learn to Use QuickBooks in your construction business.

Read more...

3/22/10 Massachusetts Division of Occupational Safety Certified Payroll Update & NEW Boston Housing Authority Weekly EEOC Report Available.

 This update includes a revised Massachusetts Division of Occupational Safety Certified Payroll Report and a NEW Boston Housing Authority Weekly EEOC/Work Utilization Report.

You should not attempt to install this update until you have performed the following:

  • Print this document (click the printer icon above).
  • Read the document through in its entirety - phone support is limited due tot he fact that these instructions have been fully documented.
  • Make a backup of your EXISTING Certified Payroll Solution data (which you should be doing on a regular basis anyway).

ABOUT THIS UPDATE:

The Division of Occupational Safety Certified Payroll Report has be updated to include the reporting of OSHA 10 Certification for each employee.  In addition to the changes to the Occupational Safety Report we have included the Boston Housing Authority Weekly EEOC/Work Utilization Report.

View full-sized samples of these reports:


STEP 1 - DOWNLOAD THE UPDATE

  • Close QuickBooks
  • Backup your CPS data by going to the Backup & Restore menu -> Enhanced Backup and click the Backup button (if you haven't been regularly backing up your CPS data YOU SHOULD BE - click the big ? in the lower right corner of this window and follow the instructions provided)
  • After you have made your backup, from the CPS Help menu -> choose Check for Updates -> in the Select an Update dropdown window choose Version 5.0.408 - this is currently an ALPHA release (this will become a higher version number at a later data - 5.0.409, 5.0.410, etc.)
  • Click the Download & Install button twice.  Be patient while the update is downloaded
  • After you have downloaded the program update, return to the Help menu -> Check for Updates -> this time selecting the State of Massachusetts forms

STEP 2 - SET THE OSHA 10 CERTIFICATION STATUS FOR EACH EXISTING EMPLOYEE

  • From the CPS Linked Data menu -> choose Employees
  • Starting with the first employee in this list, click the Edit button
  • IF the employee is OSHA 10 Certified - click into the OSHA 10 Certified box
  • IF the employee IS NOT OSHA 10 Certified - do nothing

MA-OSHA_10

  • When you have updated the employee's status, click the OK button, the next employee is automatically highlighted in the list -> click the Edit button
  • When you have updated the status of all of your employees don't forget to click the Ok button -> Done button -> Yes, to Save Changes.

STEP 4 - SET DEFAULT OSHA 10 CERTIFICATION STATUS FOR ALL NEW EMPLOYEES

  • From the CPS System Setup menu -> choose Defaults -> Employee
  • Check the Employee is OSHA 10 Certified field - any new employees that are brought into CPS will then have a "YES" status for OSHA 10 Certification

MA-Default-OSHA10


IMPLEMENTING THE NEW BOSTON HOUSING AUTHORITY WEEKLY EEOC/WORK UTILIZATION REPORT

This Weekly EEOC Report does not have a pre-defined list of work/trade classifications to be reported -- so you will need to select the parent categories that will show on the report.

  • Consult your prevailing wage decision to determine the "parent" classifications that your employees fall under, these will be the trade/work classifications that you want to use on the report.  For example if you have Work Classifications that print on your certified payroll reports of Crane Operator and/or Bulldozer Operator you would want the Equipment Operators Work Classification to print on this EEOC Report.
  • From the CPS Basic Info menu -> choose Work Classifications.  Edit the parent classifications (Equipment Operators as in our example) and check the option to "Use this name on EEOC Reports".
  • When you are finished making these changes to your Work Classifications, click the Ok button, the Done Button and Yes, to Save Changes

MA-BostonHousing

RUNNING THE BOSTON HOUSING AUTHORITY WEEKLY EEOC REPORT

  • From the CPS Run menu -> choose EEOC Reports -> Local Reports -> Boston Housing Authority MWPP5
  • Enter the report dates - this would be the first day of your work week date through the last day of your work week date

MA-MWPP5

  • Select your printer
  • Set the number of copies you wish to print
  • Click OK
  • CPS will now connect to QuickBooks and the box at the bottom will let you know what it is doing

MA-MWPP5-Status

  •  When the Back and Next buttons become active - click on the Next button
  • Print, Preview, Clear All Copies (set all copies to 0), etc.
MA-MWPP5-Print