Construction Budgets in QuickBooks

If you are a general contractor using both QuickBooks and Excel to track your clients’ construction budgets, there is a more efficient way! QuickBooks (Desktop) by itself is a powerful database, which has multiple data fields related to accounting.  Thus, you can create a customized Budget vs. Actual report in QB Desktop that looks almost identical to Excel, modeled after a standard construction AIA spreadsheet. Banking entities are typically excited to accept these reports, and clients can easily understand them. Note that QB Online will generate summary reports, but they are not as slick and useful as Desktop. This article discusses the spreadsheet type of report in QuickBooks Desktop.

The database fields in QuickBooks can be utilized to organize reports in limitless ways for creating custom reports. Click on “Reports”, drop down to “Customized Reports” then “Summary Reports. I typically use “Classes” for the columns and a different pre-defined field for rows (click the dropdown to see what fits best for you. For example, I use the “Class Tracking” field for each general phase of construction (pre-structure, substructure, structure) then use sub-classes for the more specific phases, such as architectural, excavation, foundation, rough plumbing, etc. (up to 10,000 classes!) In this example, I use project phases for rows, and invoice numbers for the columns.