As you are well aware, construction companies have been slow to embrace QuickBooks Online. QBO’s job costing limitations and labor tracking shortcomings make QBO unworkable for all but the smallest players in the construction industry, right?
Well, no. QBO’s ecosystem of apps allows you to extend QBO in ways that will often make QBO + App far better than QBD for your construction clients.
But since we believe in approaching this from an "eyes-open" perspective (yes, there are tradeoffs), let’s look at the Pros and Cons of QBO + App:
The Pros
No. 1 – You can systematize more processes, since more users will be able to get involved
Let’s face it – in the QBD days, only the boss, office manager and bookkeeper touched QuickBooks. Everything else was done on spreadsheets or paper and entered at (mostly) regular intervals – weekly, biweekly, etc.
That approach inevitably led to poor visibility on project performance or things falling through the cracks. Have you ever had one of those awkward moments when, two or three weeks too late to do anything about it, you discovered a project was behind? Or that your guys completed something outside the scope of work, but didn’t have a signed change order? Not fun.
Using QBO +, a system like Knowify or BuilderTrend will enable you to have project managers, foremen, etc., enter things like time sheets or purchase orders in the app as they happen, ensuring that everything is up-to-date. And don’t worry: You still can limit QBO access to just you and the boss.
No. 2 – More features
QBD is a very robust accounting package, but there are many things that construction companies need to manage – scheduling, AIA billing, documents (plans, specs, RFIs, submittals, etc.), daily field reports, and more – that QBD can’t help them with. But with the QBO + App, you can often get it all, giving a real-time, 360-degree view on what’s going on at the company. (They’ll be more organized, and more efficient to boot.)
No. 3 True Cloud
I know you can use a vendor like RealNetworks to create a "QBD in the Cloud" experience. But let’s face it – it will never match the on-the-go flexibility of systems designed from Day 1 to be in the cloud. Further, getting apps to sync with a hosted QBD can sometimes be a pain.
The Cons
No. 1 – You’ll have less data in QuickBooks itself
Even though you potentially can get more job costing data overall in the app (vs. QBD), you have to be comfortable with the fact that much of the data won’t be coming back across to QBD. The same thing is true for things like estimates: The QBO estimate structure is limiting, so many apps won’t even push estimates.
That means you’ll have to go to the app to manage proposals, change orders, etc. That’s not a bad thing, but having the app take on a larger role in running that business than QuickBooks itself can take some getting used to.
No. 2 – Early bumps when integrating
We often have see little issues when clients are getting used to having two integrated software packages (QBO and Knowify) talking to one another. For example, if you want Knowify to create a sub-client for each Knowify job in QBO, you can’t create that same job in QBO first. The Knowify job will be rejected by QBO as a duplicate.
That can then create goofy sync issues for invoices from that job in the future. It’s easily fixed, and even more easily prevented by a tiny bit of training. But still, the fact remains: There are going to be growing pains as the company gets used to using two software packages.
And one more thing
I’m sure you’re wondering, “Why not just use these apps with their QB Desktop syncs?” The answer actually is fairly straightforward: QBO integrations almost always are better, and usually offer features you can’t find in QBD integrations.
For example, we at Knowify will let you pull expenses or bills from QBO for job costing in Knowify – it’s a pretty neat feature that allows you to leverage QBO’s strength in automation without losing the job costing power of Knowify. We do not offer this feature in our QBD sync.
Also, QBO is the future – it’s Intuit’s focus and the app community’s focus as well. If you want to take advantage of all the neat stuff being developed now, QBO probably is the better bet.
Dan de Roulet is co-founder and partner program manager for Knowify LLC. de Roulet, who has a long history as an entrepreneur and business developer, strongly believes in the potential of the Knowify software to significantly streamline construction company operations.