Quickbooks and Peachtree Users

When you purchased QuickBooks or Peachtree, you were probably looking for software that was affordable and easy for your staff to use. Maybe your CPA recommended one of these starter packages because you thought a specialized program would be too complex for your staff. It may be that these starter systems introduced you to computerized bookkeeping.

But now that your contracting business has grown, you may realize that QuickBooks and Peachtree actually require a high level of manual work and data duplication from your staff. Today, your company’s performance numbers are continuously being transferred manually from these starter software packages to Excel spreadsheets just to get basic job costing reports. Worst of all, by the time your data has been compiled into the Excel spreadsheets, you find yourself basing today’s critical decisions on old data. This situation can only lead your growing company down a road to diminishing profits, budget overruns, and inefficient management.

In today’s competitive and demanding market, your margins have become tighter than ever. Knowing where your jobs and business stand right now is not a luxury - it’s an absolute necessity. Moreover, since everyone on your team from bookkeeping to project managers and owners needs instant access to real time, accurate details, waiting for the accounting department to divulge old data is simply no longer acceptable.

As if these facts weren’t enough of a reason to update your software’s capabilities, you may have been overlooking the multitude of basic processes in your contracting business that your bookkeeping staff is currently doing manually. The experts all agree, adding yet another 3rd party software package that has no job cost accounting integration is like adding fuel to the fire.

The following list represents just a few of the reasons why former QuickBooks and Peachtree users say they could no longer use those products:

• They aren't designed to meet the real needs of the contracting industry.
• They don't have true integrated job costing capability.
• They can't handle detailed job budgeting with multiple category cost management.
• They can't produce an integrated WIP (Work in Progress) Report.
• They can't accommodate reports required by banks, bonding, and surety institutions.
• They can't generate or manage job change orders.
• Change orders are not integrated with your accounts receivable billing.
• They lack the ability to track committed costs in addition to actual costs.
• They lack integration between job billings and job costs.
• They can't produce integrated AIA: G702 & G703, Unit Billing, Progress billing, T & M, etc.
• They can't manage or bill retention.
• They can't can't automatically forecast and alert you to potential job troubles.
• They can't perform the true percentage of completion methods of accounting needed in construction.
• They have no easy-to-use Job Center where everyone on your team can manage their jobs in real time.
• Payroll is not designed for the contracting industry.
• Payroll can't handle multi-state, multi-rate, multi-job distributions.
• Payroll can't handle prevailing wage jobs and certified payroll reporting.
• Payroll can't factor in true labor burden to your jobs: Employer FICA, FUTA, SUTA, Worker's Comp., Fringes, etc.
• Payroll can't distinguish between non-union and union reporting.
• They have no integrated subcontractor control module.
• They can't track subcontractor insurance status.
• They can't track lien waivers.
• They have no bid management capability.
• They lack a fully integrated purchase order and inventory control system designed for contractors.
• They have no built-in price controls.
• They have no integrated equipment costing and preventative maintenance control.
• They have no integrated service management and dispatch capability.
• They have no document controls for RFI's, Submittals, Transmittals, Meeting Minutes, etc.
• They have no integrated project management for Project scheduling, resource scheduling, document control, etc.
• They have no paperless office features like AP invoice scanning and electronic routing.
• They can't handle wireless data collection from the job site.

Your staff probably deals with these manual tasks every day - or worse, ignore them all together because the process of tracking them is just too daunting. Taken together with the poor quality and slow movement of data you need to make critical decisions, your accounting software becomes a key ingredient to profit loss in your contracting business. When you start seeing more and more manually maintained Excel worksheets, you know the time for a change has arrived.

With a construction software solution like ComputerEase, everything regarding your contracting business is handled for you in a single, easy-to-use, integrated solution. You enter data one time and all aspects of your business systems are updated instantly. For example, when a complicated construction payroll is run, all job cost information is updated automatically.

ComputerEase has spent the past 28 years developing software exclusively for the construction industry. In that time the list of contractors using ComputerEase nationwide has grown to over 6,000, and that number is constantly increasing. Building software for contractors is all we do.

Since ComputerEase Construction Management Software is so scalable, our most common customers range in annual sales from $1 million to $100 million, and we are used by all contracting disciplines. From the labor intensive specialty subcontractor to general contractors, ComputerEase accommodates every aspect of your business operations.

We are able to span this breadth of contractors because our system is the easiest to use on the market. Our name, ComputerEase, is the symbol for ease of use in construction software, which is why our software is consistently #1 for contractors. Whether you have just one bookkeeper or a staff of accountants and project managers, ComputerEase has the right tools to get the job done profitably and efficiently.

Please take a few minutes and see an online demonstration of the many strong features in our software package.