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Construction accounting software is a key tool in the construction industry. It helps project managers keep track of budgets, provide employee records and more. As the field continues to grow expect new developments that make these programs even better for contractors and workers alike..
The “best small construction accounting software” is a type of software that helps businesses to manage their finances. A contractor’s budget is the most important part of the business, and it can be difficult to keep track of this without the right software.
Depending on your company’s demands, the finest construction accounting software for general contractors and subcontractors might differ substantially. Some contractors just need simple accounting software to determine profit and loss for each work. Others choose accounting software that is just a part of a full-fledged enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. We chose a variety of software to meet various company demands, ranging from basic accounting software for small contractors to ERP software for midsized construction firms.
- When combined with QuickBooks Online, Buildertrend offers the best overall construction ERP capabilities and accounting software (4.32 out of 5 points)
- Contractor Sage 100 is the best single software that combines basic construction ERP capabilities with good accounting capability (3.71 out of 5 points)
- QuickBooks Online Plus is an add-on to QuickBooks Online. is the best all-around accounting software for keeping track of project expenditures (3.55 out of 5 points)
- JobPower: The best ERP solution for monitoring employee location (3.36 out of 5 points)
- QuickBooks Premier Contractor Edition is the best low-cost choice for tracking work expenses and reporting (3.24 out of 5 points)
You may get a personalized suggestion for the best software for your company by answering a few simple questions below. After that, read the rest of the article for further information about each software application.
When it comes to construction accounting software, there are a few options to consider.
We’ll offer you a tailored product match once you answer a few questions about your company.
When combined with QuickBooks Online Plus is an add-on to QuickBooks Online., Buildertrend is the best overall construction accounting software.
Buildertrend
4.32 OUT OF 5 STARS FOR THE OVERALL PERFORMANCE
| CRITERIA FOR RATING | Pricing | 3.10 | OUT OF | 5 |
| User-friendliness | 3.88 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Features in general | 5.00 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Features of the contractor | 4.29 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Expert opinion | 4.75 | OUT OF | 5 |
What We Enjoy
- A customer portal and automated surveys are part of customer relationship management (CRM).
- The employee’s position on a map is tracked by the time clock function.
- Use communication and reporting tools to organize and manage projects.
- For strong accounting functionality, it integrates with QuickBooks or Xero.
What Isn’t There
- Your QuickBooks or Xero subscription must be paid separately.
- Incapable of managing equipment
- Telephone customer assistance is not accessible.
- The Pro membership is required to process change orders.
Read the whole Buildertrend review.
Pricing for Buildertrend
- $299 per month for Buildertrend Core
- $499 per month for Buildertrend Pro
Features
- Estimates and proposals are simple to create using Buildertrend. You may edit your proposal and pick which columns will show in the final proposal using a worksheet-based interface. You also won’t have to worry about the layout since Buildertrend will do it for you with a clean and professional design.
- Project management and online storage: Use daily logs to keep track of vital information with your team, subcontractors, and customers. You may quickly create notes and provide updates to concerned persons using daily logs. Buildertrend also provides Gantt chart and calendar synchronization tools for scheduling. Furthermore, you and your team may access files from anywhere through their online storage, saving time and resources.
- Budgeting: Budgeting is a must for work pricing for contractors like you. With a budget, you can work with your team to establish sales objectives and implement cost-cutting strategies to optimize profit margins. You may build budgets, analyze expected and real costs, and link Buildertrend with other financial tools using Buildertrend.
Expert Recommendation
Buildertrend interacts with your QuickBooks or Xero account rather than having its own accounting software. While all of these accounting solutions will monitor project expenses, Buildertrend can help you take your company to the next level by integrating cost accounting with management capabilities.
To assist your managers remain on budget, you may connect with project managers, schedule workers, and give real-time cost information. Crew members may save time by logging in and out on their mobile devices, which will save time for your office personnel. You may even follow their position while they’re on the clock, giving you piece of mind.
Overall, Buildertrend is an excellent construction accounting software tool for budgeting, work pricing, and project management. Buildertrend, on the other hand, lacks double-entry accounting, ledgers, and a chart of accounts when it comes to bookkeeping. That’s why you should make sure it’s compatible with QuickBooks or Xero.
Construction Accounting Software With Basic ERP Features Contractor Sage 100 is the best construction accounting software available.
Contractor Sage 100
3.71 OUT OF 5 STARS FOR THE OVERALL PERFORMANCE
| CRITERIA FOR RATING | Pricing | 2.50 | OUT OF | 5 |
| User-friendliness | 4.25 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Features in general | 4.55 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Features of the contractor | 3.00 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Expert opinion | 4.00 | OUT OF | 5 |
What We Enjoy
- Project management, employee time monitoring from a distance, and equipment management are all components of ERP.
- Help with moving funds from QuickBooks
- Use the Sage Construction Anywhere App to get project details.
- An easy-to-understand employment income statement is included in excellent reports.
What Isn’t There
- Accounting operations do not have a mobile app.
- Employee location is not tracked by the remote time tracking system.
- There is no customer portal.
- The project management capabilities must be used by the whole team, which will need training.
Read Contractor Sage 100 Full Review
Contractor Sage 100 Pricing
To acquire a firm quote, you’ll need to contact Sage through their website. Although there is no free trial available for Sage, you may “test drive” the full edition of the program by visiting their website.
Features
- Full bookkeeping software: Sage is a famous accounting software program, and Contractor Sage 100 still offers the accounting features needed by construction companies. Unlike other construction accounting software, Contractor Sage 100 didn’t skip an accounting software feature. You get the chart of accounts, financial reports, journals, banking, ledgers, inventory, payroll, and others.
- Job costing: The job costing features of Contractor Sage 100 are integrated into their modules, and you can review job costs by generating cost reports and checking job cost journals, labor journals, and billing summaries.
- Project management: Contractor Sage 100 includes project management, even with their full-featured accounting software. You can create task lists, operation statuses, generate daily field reports, and create correspondence.
Expert Recommendation
Contractor Sage 100 has been producing reliable bookkeeping software for 40 years. Sage 100 Construction is a solid choice for small contractors looking for an affordable solution with basic ERP features to avoid duplicate systems. Contractor Sage 100 allows you to manage project activities and record worker hours in the same system that produces employee payroll.
This ensures that all expenses are attributed to your tasks. It lacks some of the more complex capabilities of a more full ERP system, but it fills a gap between simple accounting software and expensive ERP systems at a fraction of the cost.
However, we recommend choosing Buildertrend over Contractor Sage 100 if you’re an existing QuickBooks user who’s happy with your software. It’s better and easier that way since there’s no need to migrate your QuickBooks data into Contractor Sage 100. To avoid the hassle of data migration, it’s best to get Buildertrend and integrate with QuickBooks instead.
For construction companies, QuickBooks Online Plus is an add-on to QuickBooks Online. is the best general-purpose accounting software.
QuickBooks Online Plus is an add-on to QuickBooks Online.
3.55 OUT OF 5 STARS FOR THE OVERALL PERFORMANCE
| CRITERIA FOR RATING | Pricing | 3.70 | OUT OF | 5 |
| User-friendliness | 3.88 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Features in general | 5.00 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Features of the contractor | 1.50 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Expert opinion | 4.75 | OUT OF | 5 |
What We Enjoy
- Keep track of your earnings and outgoings by class, location, employment, and custom tags.
- Estimates are created and sent.
- Employees may submit timesheets while on the job.
- Five users plus two external accountants are included in the Plus version.
What Isn’t There
- Budgets for individual jobs cannot be created.
- There are no project or tool management capabilities in the ERP.
- You are unable to contact customer care directly.
Read the Complete Review of QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online Plus is an add-on to QuickBooks Online. Pricing
There are four versions of QuickBooks Online, but to manage income and spending per project, you’ll need Plus or Advanced. Unless you require more than five users, we suggest Plus for most contractors.
- Simple Start with QuickBooks Online costs $25 per month for one user.
- $50 per month for three users using QuickBooks Online Essentials
- QuickBooks Online Plus is an add-on to QuickBooks Online.: $80 per month for five users (recommended for most contractors)
- QuickBooks Online Advanced costs $180 per month for a group of 25 people.
QuickBooks Online provides a three-month discount if purchased immediately, or a 30-day free trial with no credit card necessary.
Features
- Class and location tracking: QuickBooks Online allows you to categorize your transactions using classes. Classes may be a profit center, such as the roofing division, or an operational feature, such as the assembly department. You may also create locations to track revenue and spending by location, which is very useful for branches.
- Access to a third-party accountant: Construction accounting may be tricky. With QuickBooks Online, you may hire an outside certified public accountant (CPA) to manage your accounts and correct your records so that you can meet IRS or other government agency reporting requirements.
- Invoice tracking: Invoicing is a crucial aspect of construction accounting. You can quickly monitor client bills and add billable hours to invoices using QuickBooks Online. The invoicing tracking function in QuickBooks Online may help you keep track of invoice status, collection reminders, and payments.
Expert Recommendation
QuickBooks Online is our choice for best overall Small Business Accounting Software and will do a sufficient job for contractors even without the Buildertrend integration recommended above. Employees can submit their time from the field, and you track income and expenses by job. The biggest shortcoming is that estimates cannot be converted to budgets for comparison to actual job expenses. You’ll probably want to save the estimates in Excel and then compare them to the actual job costs report, which can also be exported to Excel. If comparing actual to estimated costs is important to you, consider Contractor Sage 100 instead of QuickBooks Online.
JOBPOWER: The Most Affordably Priced ERP Software With Employee GPS Tracking
JOBPOWER
3.36 OUT OF 5 STARS FOR THE OVERALL PERFORMANCE
| CRITERIA FOR RATING | Pricing | 2.50 | OUT OF | 5 |
| User-friendliness | 3.63 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Features in general | 4.30 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Features of the contractor | 2.50 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Expert opinion | 3.88 | OUT OF | 5 |
What We Enjoy
- On-premises or cloud-based software options
- Comparable items are more expensive.
- Job costing and accounting are integrated.
- JOBPOWER Mobile allows you to enter time and monitor employees from anywhere.
What Isn’t There
- Estimating necessitates the use of additional software.
- Scheduling necessitates the use of third-party applications.
- Employee time and location monitoring are the only features of the mobile app.
- There is no bid management.
Read the whole JOBPOWER review.
Pricing at JOBPOWER
You’ll need to request a free trial on the company’s website to get specific price, although users say the on-premise version starts at $3,000 and the cloud version at $200 per month.
Features
- Job costing and budgeting: JOBPOWER is a single platform that includes job costing and budgeting. You may use the program to construct budgets or import data from Excel. You may also use variance analysis to compare planned and actual budgets to assess performance. You may also keep track of individual work specifics like progress and expense.
- JOBPOWER cloud access: Whether you’re in the field, in the office, or working from home, you can use the software thanks to JOBPOWER cloud. This functionality is great for construction accounting since it can be accessed even while on the job.
- JOBPOWER provides extended accounts receivable (A/R) and accounts payable (A/P) management tools to assist your construction firm in keeping track of client invoices and vendor billings. You may charge customers using American Institute of Architects (AIA) billing, unit billing, or time and material billing for A/R. They provide a subcontract module for A/P that allows you to keep track of retainage, modification orders, and payments.
Expert Recommendation
JOBPOWER provides contractor location monitoring and tool management, both of which are incredibly valuable tools. You may utilize the tool management function to charge hourly rates to tasks when owned equipment is used, as well as monitor tool repairs and upkeep. JOBPOWER also includes comprehensive construction accounting features such as work budgeting, change orders, lien waiver processing, and detailed job cost reporting.
Without an add-on, you’ll need to import your estimates from Excel into JOBPOWER. If you do a lot of estimates, Contractor Sage 100 has an estimating module wherein you can create job budgets within the software.
Premier Edition of QuickBooks Desktop: The Most Economical Way to Track Job Costs
Premier Edition of QuickBooks Desktop
3.24 OUT OF 5 STARS FOR THE OVERALL PERFORMANCE
| CRITERIA FOR RATING | Pricing | 2.37 | OUT OF | 5 |
| User-friendliness | 2.50 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Features in general | 4.75 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Features of the contractor | 2.25 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Expert opinion | 4.38 | OUT OF | 5 |
What We Enjoy
- For one continuous user, it’s really inexpensive.
- Job cost reports are excellent.
- Estimates should be made and then converted into task budgets.
- Employees may submit timesheets while on the job.
What Isn’t There
- For each concurrent user, a new license must be purchased at full price.
- The software must be installed and maintained on the company’s PC or server.
- Direct contact with customer care is not possible.
- There is no mobile app available.
Read the Complete Review of QuickBooks Contractor
Premier Edition of QuickBooks Desktop Pricing
- Premier Plus 2022 costs $549.99 a year for a single user.
- For one user, Premier Plus 2022 + Payroll is $1,049.99 per year.
- For one user, Enterprise 22.0 costs $1,275 per year.
Each plan’s pricing may be changed by choosing the number of users, up to a maximum of five per plan. Only the Enterprise 22.0 plan, which is subject to a bespoke price option defined by QuickBooks, may grow up to 40 people.
Features
- Estimates: You can create and send estimates to clients. With Premier Edition of QuickBooks Desktop, you can include details in your proposals to show the client the breakdown of costs for the job.
- Construction accounting reporting is robust thanks to QuickBooks’ industry-specific reports. Reports may be created to assess work profitability, actual against budget reports, job progress billings, and much more.
- Job costing center: If you handle many jobs in your company, Premier Edition of QuickBooks Desktop’s Job Costing Center provides an overview of the top three most profitable jobs and the bottom three least profitable jobs. However, you can see the profitability of all jobs as well. It even has job costing highlights that present actual costs variances, unassigned expenses, and outstanding bills.
Expert Recommendation
Before QuickBooks Online, Premier Edition of QuickBooks Desktop was the dominant small business accounting software. It continues to be updated and supported and provides exceptional value for a business that doesn’t require mobile accounting software. The Features of the contractor of Desktop Premier offer exceptional job cost reporting. You can create estimates and convert them to job budgets, which can then be compared to real-time costs as they are entered. Payroll software is integrated―for a separate fee―and can charge jobs for direct labor as well as the associated payroll taxes.
To use Premier Edition of QuickBooks Desktop anywhere, you need a hosting service, which entails additional costs. An easier alternative for Premier would be QuickBooks Online. QuickBooks Online is cloud-based and accessible through a web browser or mobile app. We recommend going with QuickBooks Online if you need mobile accounting.
How to Select Accounting Software for Contractors
When it comes to accounting software for construction businesses, there are a variety of alternatives available, ranging from general-purpose to major ERP software that combines accounting with project management, estimating, service management, and human resources (HR). Even if you’re a one-person operation, your accounting software should have certain features that every contractor’s accounting software should provide.
When General-Purpose Accounting Software Is All That’s Required
You may not require many of the complex features of ERP software if your construction firm is small enough that you can directly monitor day-to-day operations. In this scenario, a less costly general-purpose accounting software with at least the following characteristics could suffice:
- Good general accounting: Invoice clients, handle outstanding invoices, import and reconcile bank account transactions, and print checks using your accounting software.
- Integrated job costing: Understanding how much profit or loss you earn on certain projects is critical for discovering inefficiencies and determining how to bid on future assignments. When you combine task costing with accounting, you can guarantee that every spend on your books is attributed to a work or overhead.
- Reporting: Your accounting software should be able to produce a balance sheet, income statement, and profit or loss per task at the very least.
When Should You Use Construction Accounting Software to Save Time?
If your firm has two or more full-time office employees, you should start saving them time by using effective construction accounting software that enables data to flow from one procedure to the next without having to be reentered.
- Estimating: Good accounting software should generate estimates to give to clients and insurance providers, as well as reports that compare real and expected expenses.
- Integrated payroll: You can ensure that payroll expenses are accurately reflected in your job costing by integrating payroll with your accounting software.
- Remote time monitoring enables employees to keep track of their own time.
When Should You Upgrade Your ERP Software?
Accounting is integrated with other activities such as HR, subcontractor compliance and management, customer management, project management, sales, and scheduling in ERP construction software. These are beneficial traits, but they come at a significant cost. Before selecting if ERP software is best for you, ask yourself the following questions:
- Who is going to utilize the software? “Everyone” is the greatest response to this question. ERP connects all of your company’s activities, therefore everyone should have access to it. If your bookkeeper and/or project managers are the only ones who use ERP software, it isn’t attaining its full potential.
- Is the business owner or general manager prepared to use ERP? The program is quite sophisticated and delivers valuable real-time data for making decisions. Many of the advantages of ERP will be lost if higher management does not use it and merely looks at periodic reports.
- Is it possible for you to train everyone? Even if the software supplier offers free training, you’ll have to divert crews and project managers away from lucrative projects to train.
- Will you be able to maintain your ERP commitment? Companies purchase ERP software with the greatest of intentions, only to abandon it when employees become overworked and anxious. In the short term, learning new software will raise your workload and stress level, but to see benefits, you must remain dedicated to getting through the learning phase.
What We Looked For When We Were Evaluating Construction Accounting Software
We considered a range of construction accounting software and evaluated each based on pricing, User-friendliness, Features in general, Features of the contractor, and our own expert opinion. The Features of the contractor include some items that should be included in good construction accounting software, such as job costing and estimates, plus other items generally available in ERP software like project management, employee location tracking, and managing equipment.
10% of the overall score
Construction accounting software is complex, and it usually necessitates the most costly version of most programs. Because it’s more essential to concentrate on finding contractor accounting software that matches your company than it is to obsess on price, pricing accounts for just 10% of the score.
20% of the overall score
User-friendliness is an important factor, particularly if the owner or other nonaccountant will be keeping the books. In addition to our subjective evaluation, User-friendliness includes the availability of customer support and whether common integrations require third-party software.
20% of the overall score
Features in general are weighted to give more importance to features particularly important to contractors, such as tracking project income or loss, tracking employee time and assigning it to jobs, and integrated payroll.
30% of the overall score
Features of the contractor include accounting features like creating customer estimates and budgets for individual projects. They also include enterprise resource planning features like managing jobs and service departments, tracking employee locations, managing bid requests, and managing equipment.
20% of the overall score
Our Expert Evaluation is a subjective assessment of the features, mobile app, and reports of a software package.
*Percentages based on total score
Conclusion
A good ERP software that incorporates typical duties into your accounting system may be quite beneficial when managing a construction firm. While excellent ERP software is pricey, it’s usually worth it if you use even a percentage of its functions on a regular basis. We suggest Buildertrend combined with QuickBooks Online if you’re ready to commit to an ERP accounting system.
Building construction accounting software is a type of software that helps in the management and tracking of building projects. There are 5 best construction accounting software programs for 2022. Reference: building construction accounting software excel.
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