Lesson 35-- More Expenses

This lesson shows you how to use the Goldenseal construction accounting software to enter Equipment Hours, Inventory Used, Subcontractor Costs and Other Costs. They'll help with time tracking, time billing, job costing and accounts payable.

Equipment Hours

Each time you use a piece of equipment, create an Equipment Hours record to describe the work that was done.

To do so, follow these steps:

Choose Equipment Hours from the Costs menu.
Click the New button.
Enter the equipment account that was used for this work.
Enter the amount of time that the equipment was used, and choose a time unit from the popup menu.
Goldenseal fills in rates for time and materials bills when you choose an equipment item. Change the rates if this work will be billed at a different rate.
Enter the job to which this transaction applies for job costing.
Click the More Info button to enter more details for billing and job costing.
Enter any special conditions that apply to this transaction.
You can use the Breakdown popup to break the work down by category or cost item.

When you complete the record, Goldenseal posts it to time and materials billing and job costs, the same as a material purchase.

For more about Equipment Hours in the reference manual, click here.

Inventory Used

Create an Inventory Used transaction each time that you take materials from inventory and use them on a project. To create an inventory used record, follow these steps:

Choose Inventory Used from the Costs menu.
Click the New button.
Enter the Inventory account from which these items were taken.
Enter the item used, or use a breakdown to list multiple items.
Enter job cost details.

Goldenseal uses Inventory Used transactions for job costs and time and materials billing, exactly the same as a material purchase. It also reduces the inventory quantities of any items listed in the Item breakdown, and adjusts the value of the Inventory account.

For more about inventory, see Lesson 47. For more about Inventory Used in the Reference Manual, click here.

Subcontractor Cost Transactions

Create a Subcontractor Cost record each time that you receive a bill from a subcontractor, or otherwise need to pay them. Subcontractor costs are very similar to material purchases (see Lesson 33).

To create a subcontractor cost record, follow these steps:

Choose Subcontractor Costs from the Costs menu.
Click the New button.
Enter the subcontractor who is being paid, and a brief description of the work that was done.
Click the More Info button to enter job costing and billing info.
Enter any special conditions that apply to this transaction, and the method used to pay for it.

For more about subcontractor costs in the reference manual, click here.

Subcontractor Billing Amount

Subcontractor cost records can handle simple bills (similar to a material invoice) and time bills (where you pay a fixed amount per hour or day).

When a subcontractor bills for a fixed amount, follow these steps:

Choose Dollar Billing from the Time Used popup menu.
Enter the billing amount into the Gross Price field.

When you pay a subcontractor by the hour or day, follow these steps:

Choose Hour or another time unit from the Time Used popup menu.
Enter the amount of time included in this billing.
Enter the subcontractor's billing rate into the Charge Rate field.
Goldenseal will calculate the Gross Price, based on the charge rate.

Billing Rates

A subcontractor cost record includes three different billing rates.

The Subcontractor Charge rate is the amount the subcontractor is paid per hour, day, week, or other time unit. This rate does not apply when the subcontractor bills for a simple dollar amount.
The T&M Billing Rate applies only for time and materials projects. This field determines that amount that is billed to the client when you create a bill. HINT: Goldenseal calculates the billing amount, and fills it into the T&M Amount field. To reduce the chance of errors, you can't change this field. If you'd like to make it editable, use the Custom Layouts command.
The Job Cost Rate determines the calculation method for job costs from this transaction.

Other Cost Transactions

The data that you put into an Other Cost transaction is almost identical to that in a material purchase. You identify the expense, and assign it to a job, cost category and location. You can also apply the cost to an allowance, bid, change order or other special conditions. Enter payment methods the same as in the other types of expense transactions.

When you receive a bill for a miscellaneous cost, follow these steps:

Choose Other Costs from the Costs menu.
Click the New button.
Enter information about the expense. The fields are almost identical to those in a Material Purchase transaction.
When you complete an Other Cost transaction, Goldenseal posts it to time and materials bills and job costs, the same as the other expense transactions. Goldenseal also handles its payment exactly the same as a material purchase.

When to Enter Expenses

It's a good idea to enter expenses as soon as you know about them. That way your job cost information will be as up-to-date as possible.

When you pay for an expense by cash, check or credit card, enter it as soon as you can after the payment was made.

When an expense will be billed later, enter it as soon as you have a delivery ticket or other indication of the amount owed.

Planned and Job Cost Only Status

You can pre-enter expenses before you know their exact cost. Use the best guess at the cost, and give them either Planned or Job Cost Only status (use the Status pop-up field in the left-center part of the window).

Transactions with Job Cost Only status will be included in job cost totals, but won't be used for time and materials billing or Accounts Payable.

HINT: You can also use Job Cost Only status to enter past expenses, so you'll have accurate totals for projects that were underway when you started with Goldenseal (see page 400).

Transactions with Planned status won't be included in job costs, billing or payables, but their total will appear in some reports that show planned costs. When you actually purchase planned items, change the status from Planned to Entered.

Finishing Up

This lesson has covered four more types of expense transactions used in the Goldenseal job costing software. You can use them to keep track of your equipment, subcontractor and miscellaneous expenses, and get ready to pay bills that you owe.

Before you move on, you may want to take a break and think about more expenses that you can add to your business, so you can enter transactions for them.

Wouldn't you rather have several more copies of your accounting software? How about our special autographed edition?

Remember, with just a bit of duct tape, you can turn the extra copies of this manual into chic silvery hats.