With your CoConstruct account linked to QuickBooks, you can automatically pull in all of the actual costs for your projects where you are tracking the budget in CoConstruct. By letting your project management system and your accounting system work hand in hand, you can make this process a lot easier for your team and save time in tracking this information manually for your clients.
The video below is meant to give an overview of this powerful feature so that you can start tracking your budget actuals in CoConstruct. Additional details and related information is included in this Help Center article as well for reference.
What software is supported for this feature?
Please see the following notes on the software and versions that are supported for integration of budget actuals with CoConstruct:
- QuickBooks Desktop: Desktop versions of QuickBooks that are connected to CoConstruct via Web Connector.
- QuickBooks Online: QuickBooks Online Plus
- Other versions of QuickBooks Online can still take advantage of our other accounting integration features. However, integration of budget actuals is limited to the Plus version of QuickBooks Online, since it's the only version that supports entering your billable expenses for your projects in order to build your actuals.
Before getting started with syncing actuals
Before you can take advantage of the actual syncing feature in CoConstruct, you will need to do the following:
- If you haven't already, familiarize yourself with how CoConstruct handles budgeting, see the budget overview
- Link your CoConstruct account, accounting codes (aka cost codes), and projects with QuickBooks by following the relevant accounting integration setup article:
- If you are using QuickBooks Desktop, make sure that Web Connector is installed and running.
What will be pulled into CoConstruct as actuals with this feature?
When you enable "budget actuals" to pull from QuickBooks for a project, the following things will sync with CoConstruct as actuals.
Vendor bills, payments and credits
Line items on any bills, checks, credit card expense or vendor credits that you enter into your QuickBooks account will be pulled into CoConstruct if:
- The line item is associated with an item in QuickBooks Desktop or a product/service in QuickBooks Online. Remember, your CoConstruct accounting codes are linked to these items.
- CoConstruct pulls your actuals from your items or products/services. If you associate your project costs with an expense account instead, then it will not have an associated accounting code in CoConstruct and will not be pulled into your budget.
- If you are using QuickBooks Online Plus, you may need to configure a few settings in order to track your expenses with products and services. Configuring QuickBooks Online settings for budget actuals
- The line item is associated with the Customer or Customer:Job that you're using on your linked CoConstruct project.
Labor costs from your timesheets
Line items on your timesheets in QuickBooks will be pulled into CoConstruct if:
- The line item is associated with a service item in QuickBooks Desktop or QuickBooks Online. Remember, your CoConstruct accounting codes are linked to these items.
- The line item is associated with the Customer or Customer:Job that you're using on your linked CoConstruct project.
- In QuickBooks Online, you must also enter a "Billable" rate on the timesheet for each entry.
- Using QuickBooks Desktop? Enter any corresponding labor rates for your employees in CoConstruct by heading to Settings > Accounting > Labor Rates.
Markup and overhead for open book projects
While many of your project costs likely come from bills and payments/expenses with your vendors and trade partners, you may also be invoicing other non-bill or non-payment items to your clients on open book projects, such as line items for markup or overhead.
For a detailed description of how you can set your CoConstruct account to pull these invoice-only items as budget actuals, invoice items to include on the budget for open book projects
QuickBooks Online Markup
QuickBooks Online has a unique way of handling markup, and if you are using that markup feature in your accounting system, you can pull it into CoConstruct. For a more detailed description of this feature, Including markup amounts in budget actuals for QuickBooks Online
How do I start retrieving actuals from QuickBooks?
Simply connect the project to QuickBooks and select to sync "Budget Actuals." Connect individual projects from the Project Setup page then scroll to the section for QuickBooks Integration.
Where do my actuals show up in CoConstruct?
Your actuals will appear in your budget table in CoConstruct, which you can view by going to the Financials page and clicking on the "Budget" tab.
Note that your CoConstruct account may need to sync with QuickBooks first. We will keep everything in sync on a daily basis, but you can also run a manual sync at any time by clicking the "Sync" button at the top of the Budget page.
Your actuals on the budget table will be broken down by your different accounting codes, and if you need to see the details behind the amounts that were pulled from QuickBooks, simply click on the actual to see the itemized cost breakdown for that accounting code.
This breakdown of the additional budget details is also something that you can give your client permission to view. If, for example, you are regularly running reports for your clients on open book projects, you'll find that this will save you a ton of time in tracking this information down manually, plus, this option will get that info to your clients much quicker.