All accounting software is not equal, especially when it comes to meeting the needs of a construction company. Software that supports your business should simplify time-consuming workflows like monitoring fluctuating costs and making it easier for crews to track their time.

The best accounting software for construction companies allows you to work smarter, not harder. Automating processes or switching to digital accounting will help your business become more efficient and reduce costly mistakes.

Table of Contents

• What makes construction accounting software different
• Evaluating ease of use, scalability, and flexibility
• How Intuit QuickBooks supports construction businesses
• Build a more connected construction workflow with Intuit QuickBooks
• Frequently asked questions

What makes construction accounting software different

General business accounting software struggles to handle the complexity of the construction industry. Inventory costs fluctuate while projects are ongoing, and companies have to manage crews across different job sites.

Job costing and financial tracking

Job costing is the system of tracking direct material costs, indirect costs like equipment rentals, and labour expenses. Since costs can fluctuate over the course of a long project or across provinces, job costing allows you to see your company's overall financial picture.

Reporting and project visibility

Construction business owners need real-time reporting on overall profitability, not just profit-and-loss reports for individual projects. That's because losing money on one project could affect the whole company's ability to turn a profit.

Real-time reporting must also comply with local labour board requirements. The best construction software includes the necessary reporting forms.

Time tracking for field crews

Construction accounting software should include time tracking apps for field crews to give these benefits:

• GPS tracking allows you to see who is physically clocked in across multiple job sites.
• Mobile time tracking makes it easy for crews to comply with clocking in and out. Plus, it streamlines timesheet reporting and has offline capabilities that sync data when cell connectivity is restored.
• Job-based time tracking allows you to assign and track labour hours by project or job site for effective project management.

Evaluating ease of use, scalability, and flexibility

When you're trying to choose the best accounting software, determine if potential suppliers meet these criteria:

• Ease of onboarding: Can managers, contractors, and field crews quickly grasp the new software, so they're utilizing it effectively?
• Scalability: Can the software handle an increasing volume of simultaneous projects without slowing down?
• Flexibility: Does the software make it easy to manage multiple clients across provinces?

How Intuit QuickBooks supports construction businesses

Construction businesses have a lot to keep track of as business booms, but Intuit QuickBooks construction accounting makes it easier to support management and field teams.

Instead of manually tracking costs and labour hours, Intuit QuickBooks supports job costing by tracking all of the data for you, by project and overall. Use the software to run profitability reports and use the data to adjust estimates, so your projects generate profit.

Put your construction company's historic job costing data to use. Intuit QuickBooks analyzes past data to estimate the profitability of future projects, which makes it easier to decide which projects to take on and which to skip.

Integration with payroll and other tools

Whether you're just starting to build your construction company or it's growing and you're trying to keep up, integrating accounting software with tools like payroll can help you effectively scale up. Simply onboard new contractors and field crews, and automate processes so timesheets go directly to payroll for processing.

You can also set up payroll to accurately and automatically withdraw taxes, deduct union dues, and generate tax documents for your workers. If your construction company works in several provinces, the software also takes care of provincial taxes, so you don't have to worry about CRA compliance.

If you're not integrating systems like QuickBooks Payroll or QuickBooks Time and are entering data by hand, you could be costing your business in wasted time, expensive mistakes, and errors caused by duplicate data entry.

Build a more connected construction workflow with Intuit QuickBooks

If you're wondering how to choose accounting software, look no further than Intuit QuickBooks. With its centralized data and reporting capabilities, it's a valuable business management tool.

Integrate features you're already using and enjoy a tech stack that works harder for you. See for yourself how Intuit QuickBooks for construction can help your business grow.