We worked with a contractor had been in business for over ten years and hired a bookkeeper two years earlier that took over his QuickBooks For Contractors and turned it into one of the worst disasters I have ever seen. From the start of my career in construction accounting in the 1970's until today I have seen a lot of disasters!
Many Washington State Department of Revenue sales tax reports and payments, Federal 941 Payroll Tax returns and deposits were never filed and left unpaid, there was over $50,000 in jobs that were never invoiced, several bills had been paid twice and the contractor's bank was returning a lot of checks due to insufficient funds.
He was not aware of the extent of the problem because the bookkeeper hid the bounced check notices and intercepted the phone calls from the bank and the angry merchants and kept applying for new credit cards to finance the house of cards.
He would look at the bank balance in QuickBooks and since it always showed over $100,000 he thought life was grand! Look at me I am making all kinds of money, buying toys, enjoying fine dining, making charitable donations, and having fun!
It all came crashing down on him one sunny afternoon when his suppliers refused to sell him anything on credit and demanded cash or bank issued cashier’s checks. Later that day he tried using his credit cards to buy gas and they were all declined. At that point he knew something was very, very wrong
When I interviewed the contractor and it was obvious he had a bookkeeper who was not intentionally causing harm rather it was someone who was in over their head and had absolutely no construction accounting skills. This person meant well and their heart was in the right place but in way over their head.
Within a week I got invoices out to his customers and made some adjusting entries to match QuickBooks for contractors bank balance to the current bank statement and stabilize the majority of the QuickBooks for contractors issues.
Since I could only spend a few hours a week it took a little over four months to fix all of the QuickBooks setup errors and get the contractors bookkeeping services stable and running smoothly.
I am pleased to report this contractor's business and personal finances are stabile in the years since we have been actively involved in developing and improving the contractor' Business Process Management strategy.
We provide construction company owners and general managers with online access to the financial reports they need to operate and grow their company. And in some cases we provide strategic coaching to help them get on track to grow their company to provide them with $100,000 or more in take home pay.
There are Five Key Performance Indicators all contractors must have and understand in order to be successful and we provide 24/7 online access to all of them for all of our contractor clients. Premium members have access to personalized strategic Business Process Managementcoaching to help them find and implement ways to streamline their operations which can add a lot more money to your personal income.
About The Author: