# Quicken or QuickBooks Contractor Edition



## Panzer5 (Oct 21, 2008)

I'm setting up my business as a remodeler & would like advice regarding whether QuickBooks Contractor Edition is worth spending the money on at this point - or if I should just run off a combo of Quicken & Excel.

I won't have any full time employees at first, and will be subcontracting out jobs like plumbing, electrical & HVAC. I'm pretty good at Excel & can use it for estimating & other tasks - but want an accounting program for tax purposes & bookkeeping.

If business get's good enough, I hope to hire employees eventually, so I'll need to be prepared to handle payroll, etc.

Thoughts?


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## Jake Stevens (Dec 10, 2007)

I have been using Quick Books for over 6 years. I started with Basic and now I use Quick Book Pro. Good Luck


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## gury (Nov 21, 2008)

Try Quickbooks Online. It's really cost effective when you're trying to keep your starting overhead low. 

http://oe.quickbooks.com/index_control.cfm

I've been thinking about getting the Contractor edition.. looks like it's got some good features, but I'm not sure it's worth the extra $$$.


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## Panzer5 (Oct 21, 2008)

Jake Stevens said:


> I have been using Quick Books for over 6 years. I started with Basic and now I use Quick Book Pro. Good Luck


What type of features in Pro do you like, and would you have wanted / needed them when you were starting out?


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## CambridgeAl (Nov 23, 2008)

I have gotten buy with Quickbooks basic and have really liked it. I have used it for my lawn service for 5 years now and my remodel company for the past year. Contractor Pro has more reports and I believe its better for job costing and payroll etc. The stuff I can't do in basic I can do in excel and so far so good. So far the old adage has held up--if it aint broke dont fix it. But I think as I get bigger I'll upgrade.


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## drive55cat (Dec 1, 2008)

I used to use quickbooks, until they refused to support my program because it was a few years old, now, I just use spreadsheets that are provide with the computer package. Not only would they not support it but they had me put in a code which disabled the program I had. I would not now or ever again use a quickbooks/quicken program, even if they give it to me. You wanna play that way, play with some body else. d55c:furious:


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## Winchester (Jun 29, 2008)

I'm using quickbooks, but for me it's basically a waste of money. Only thing I use it for is payroll.

The rest just doesn't make sense right now for me. I can keep track of my stuff easier in MS Excel.


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## pcplumber (Oct 12, 2008)

Panzer5 said:


> I'm setting up my business as a remodeler & would like advice regarding whether QuickBooks Contractor Edition is worth spending the money on at this point - or if I should just run off a combo of Quicken & Excel.
> 
> I won't have any full time employees at first, and will be subcontracting out jobs like plumbing, electrical & HVAC. I'm pretty good at Excel & can use it for estimating & other tasks - but want an accounting program for tax purposes & bookkeeping.
> 
> ...


I used every popular canned accounting package and they are terrible. I would never use Quick Books and never use Excel. Excel is only good when you have a few records. Excel is a spread sheet and is not a database.

Try the free accounting software in the File Swap thread and read the instructions. This is simple, accurate, and foolproof system. The instructions show you the entire record keeping system. I would never try to report my own taxes. You should have an accountant, or CPA to keep you out of hot water.

We use QuickPayroll for writing payroll checks.
Quicken Home and Business for writing regular checks.
Our own software for record keeping and printing reports to send to our CPA.


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