Maintaining consistent job costs between Buildertrend and QuickBooks Online (QBO) is essential for accurate financial management in construction. By leveraging QBO’s Bank Feed, you can streamline your job cost reconciliation process and ensure your accounting records are both accurate and up-to-date. Here’s a step-by-step guide to simplify and improve your workflow.
The QBO Bank Feed is a real-time feature that imports charges and deposits directly into QuickBooks, acting as a centralized processing hub for all your transactions. Each time you categorize, match, or add a transaction from the Bank Feed, it updates your accounting register. Since Buildertrend also imports job costs into QBO, it’s important to eliminate duplicates—this is where QBO’s “Match” feature becomes invaluable.
QBO’s Match bank-feed feature compares transactions in your QBO ledger accounts with those in your bank and credit card accounts. It removes friction in the reconciliation process, and serves as a sort of “pre-reconciliation”. When a transaction in the Bank Feed aligns with a transaction recorded in Buildertrend that has been pushed into Quickbooks, the system will suggest a match, simplifying your reconciliation.
To maintain job cost accuracy between Buildertrend and QBO, best practice is to record all job costs in Buildertrend first. When Buildertrend syncs with QBO, it imports these job costs as Bills, creating Accounts Payable (AP) items in QBO. To close these open Bills, you have two options:
1. Match Bills to Bank Feed Transactions: When job-related expenses appear in the Bank Feed, match them to their corresponding open Bills. This ensures charges are recognized as “paid” immediately.
2. Record Outbound Payments or Checks: When you issue a payment or cut a check for job costs, match it to the corresponding Bill once the payment clears in your checking account.
By regularly matching job costs to Bank Feed transactions, any items left unaccounted in the Bank Feed will fall into two categories:
Overhead Transactions: These can be categorized directly into the appropriate General Ledger (GL) accounts.
Job Costs Missing from Buildertrend: Identifying these transactions helps you pinpoint any job costs that may have been missed in Buildertrend.
To keep Buildertrend and QBO in sync, follow this workflow:
1. Process All Matches in the Bank Feed: Regularly reconcile job costs by matching all appropriate transactions.
2. Process Customer Payments Received Against Buildertrend Owner Invoices: Match payments received against invoices to keep AR current.
3. Process All Overhead Transactions: Categorize overhead expenses directly in QBO.
4. Identify Remaining Transactions in Suspense: Any transactions left in the Bank Feed fall into “Suspense”—these could be missing job costs from Buildertrend or transactions needing further detail for accurate categorization.
Consider using a shared Google Sheet or better yet, Capture by Monthend, to track Suspense items with your team, ensuring every cost is properly assigned to the correct job and cost code.
5. Repeat Daily: By processing the Bank Feed daily, you stay on top of each transaction, maintaining accurate AP and AR reporting and catching any missing job costs from Buildertrend.
While the QBO Match feature is powerful, there are times when it may not propose a match. Here’s what to check if a transaction doesn’t match as expected:
Date Range: The default date range may be too narrow. Use “Find Match” and adjust the date range to locate matching transactions.
Transaction Amounts: If the recorded Bill and the charge amounts differ, QBO may not suggest a match. For example, if a Bill is recorded as $51.50, but the credit card charge appears as two entries ($50 and $1.50 for a processing fee), manual adjustments may be needed.
Data Entry Errors: Small entry errors can prevent matches; check for accuracy in each entry.
For month-end closing, you may temporarily assign unmatched transactions to a “Suspense” or “Ask” account, where they can be reviewed and properly categorized before finalizing your records. Sign up for Capture by Monthend, to streamline and automate the Suspense items with your team, ensuring every cost is properly assigned to the correct job and cost code.
Maintaining consistency between Buildertrend and QuickBooks Online requires a proactive approach to job cost reconciliation. By using QBO’s Bank Feed and Match features, you’ll streamline the process, prevent duplicates, and ensure all job costs are accurately reflected. With this approach, you’ll improve financial transparency and have better control over your AP and AR.
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