The same numbers get typed in three places
Every second entry is a chance for the two copies to disagree. Enter once and send it everywhere.
The time clock has the hours, the estimate has the budget, the CRM has the contract value and QuickBooks has the bills. Someone in the office types each of them into the next system, usually on Friday. The copies drift apart, and at month end no one can say which one is right. That time also takes the office away from billing and collections.
Three moves, in order
What CFOS does about it
A won bid becomes a job with its contract value, and your estimate becomes the budget by cost code. Time from your time clock app comes in as a draft time sheet for you to check, and bills go from the inbox through coding to the job. The same job exists once, in CFOS and in QuickBooks, with one set of numbers.
Who owns this: Office manager or bookkeeper.
At $5M, one person usually spends a day a week retyping between systems. Count the hours for one month and put a dollar figure on them. At $15M, the retyping spreads across several people and no one has added it up.
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Step 05: Software and bookkeeping alignment
Live job costs inside thirty seconds, with the bookkeeping cadence that keeps them current.
Other problems step 05 solves
Other things that go wrong
What owners ask
Double entry between construction software and QuickBooks?
Every second entry is a chance for the two copies to disagree. Enter once and send it everywhere. The time clock has the hours, the estimate has the budget, the CRM has the contract value and QuickBooks has the bills. Someone in the office types each of them into the next system, usually on Friday. The copies drift apart, and at month end no one can say which one is right. That time also takes the office away from billing and collections.
Which part of the system fixes this?
The step is number 05, software and bookkeeping alignment. Live job costs inside thirty seconds, with the bookkeeping cadence that keeps them current. It's drawn from chapter 5 of CONTROL: C.F.O.S. Construction Financial Operating System.
Is this normal for my trade?
Across the 48 trades that publish a figure, net profit at $1M to $5M averages 7% before taxes. If you're well under that and this page describes your month, the two are usually the same story. The published average tells you where the pack is, and your own job costing tells you where you are, which is the number that pays payroll.
Where do I start?
List every number that gets typed into a second place, with who types it and how often.
How do I stop entering the same data twice in construction software?
Pick the one place each number starts, and send it from there to every other system. Hours start at the time clock, the budget starts at the estimate and the bills start in QuickBooks. Then connect or import each one so no one retypes it.
Can my time clock app send hours to QuickBooks job costing?
Yes. With CFOS, finished time entries come in as a draft weekly time sheet you check and submit. The labor dollars with burden then go on the job.
How long does it take to connect my software so it stops being retyped?
Most software connects in 5 business days or less. The time depends on the tool, and we agree in writing what moves where. We test with a sample before anything real goes through.
Can I fix this without touching anything else?
You can try, and it doesn't hold. Step 05 depends on step 01, job cost structure. Install it ahead of that and it produces numbers the field won't trust, which is worse than the problem you started with.
Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.