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Month: May 2015

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Resources Uncategorized

Premier Team Hits the Field – Habitat For Humanity GTA

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On Tuesday May 19th, the Premier Team put on their hardhats, construction boots and gloves and made their way over to the Brimley Rd. Construction Site to partake in the “Adopt-a-Day Program”. This program offers volunteers the chance to adopt a “build” day and participate among many other volunteers across the GTA. With the combination of teamwork, optimism and dedication, by the end of the day the drywall component at the Brimley Rd. Construction Site was well on its way. Volunteering time and providing financial support can create a tremendous difference.

 

An impact study conducted on Habitat Toronto Partner Families in 2012 revealed how affordable home ownership strengthens communities and opens doors for low-income youth:

 

  • 76% of homeowners report an improvement in children’s school grades
  • 81% report an improvement in children’s social lives
  • 92% of respondents say they will remain in their HFHT home for a very long time or can’t imagine ever moving

 

Everyone on the Premier team can agree that this experience was very positive and provided them with an entirely different outlook on how important it is to help break down the cycle of poverty. This program also offers anyone the opportunity to continue to volunteer- simply sign up online using the volunteer scheduler.

 

Remember, a little bit goes a long way!

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WHAT IS HABITAT FOR HUMANITY ALL ABOUT? Habitat for Humanity Greater Toronto Area (Habitat GTA) is a non-profit housing organization that mobilizes volunteers and community partners to provide affordable housing and promote home ownership as a means to breaking the cycle of poverty. Founded on Christian principles, we welcome all people without discrimination to join us as we build simple, decent, and affordable homes in partnership with low-income families. By owning their own home, families are able to achieve greater stability, and improve their overall health, while building equity for their future.

Categories
Job Costing Resources

Importance of Job Cost Reporting

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Valuable job cost reports provide crucial information about the current status of a job and can help estimate how you will finish on each job from a cost and revenue perspective. If you have many jobs in progress it can be difficult to manage, which is why it’s important to understand the reports so you can quickly identify exceptions and job overruns before it’s too late and address them accordingly.

In order to ensure you have real-time reports, you will require a truly integrated construction accounting and job costing software solution. It’s important to map out electronic workflow processes to ensure accounts payable invoices, purchase order and subcontract commitments are entered in as quickly as possible and distributed to the proper job allocation. If there are many jobs in progress, there is a strong chance that costs will be incorrectly assigned, but the function of the job costing system makes that highly auditable.

Job costing provides discrete “buckets” of information about each job so that the accountant can allocate costs directly to the job and division code, commonly referred to as the cost item. Advanced software solutions such as Premier provide cost item grouping and up to five levels of job cost breakdown for greater transparency.

If a job is expected to run for a long period of time, then the cost accountant can periodically compare the costs accumulated in the bucket for that job to its budget, and give management advanced warning if costs appear to be running ahead of projections. This gives management time to get costs under control over the remainder of the project, or possibly to approach the customer about a billing increase to cover some or all of the cost overruns. A considerable amount of costing precision is required especially when dealing with cost plus contracts where the customer pays all costs incurred. In most companies, controllers may cost code a job incorrectly which can misrepresent the job cost breakdown. For situations such as that, electronic approval systems are becoming a must have when evaluating job cost accounting software solutions.

Another advantage of utilizing proper job cost tracking is that you can better ascertain whether specific jobs are desirable to pursue in the future or what changes should be made next time bidding on similar work. It can be time consuming to enter in all the costs to the proper cost items but the introduction of mobile apps and proper job cost accounting software allows for real time costing and makes it easier to capture the information, thus leading to greater efficiency in the long run. The lack of detailed job cost reporting is why companies end up moving away from smaller accounting focused programs such as QuickBooks.  Here are a few sample reports that you should be able to run directly out of your accounting job costing system to determine variances, work in progress, and if you are over or under billing. Click HERE to see how Jonas Premier can help your business!

 

Job Cost Reporting #1

Job Cost Reporting #2

Categories
Accounting Industry Insight

10 Reasons to Switch from QuickBooks to Premier

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When we designed Premier, we took the simplicity from QuickBooks and combined it with the power of traditional packages to create a simple, yet powerful solution on a modern user interface.

10 Reasons to switch from QuickBooks to Jonas Premier:

  1. Integration – One complete solution for accounting, detailed job costing, project & document management designed for automation and collaboration only for Construction. Using one software for all your needs can help you automate processes, save you valuable time and generate detailed financial and job cost reports.
  2. Data Security – Control what user or group can enter only versus post in key modules. Secure by company and by job. Every entry has a proper data trail which stores electronically in the document management system. This makes it easy for auditors to track so they are in and out of your office in no time.
  3. AP Batch Processing – AP Invoices for Jobs or GL can be saved individually or in a batch and routed for approval to multiple users. Easily run reports to see what is ‘pending’ and who you are waiting for approval on. When you approve or deny, you have the ability to enter in the proper allocation for each line item. This will automatically update in AP to help minimize double entry.
  4. Retainage/Holdback Processing – Designed specifically for construction, we understand the importance of tracking retainage/holdback by detailed job cost items. Premier can automatically release retainage/holdback and generate invoices.
  5. Subcontract Management – Tracks compliances and expiry dates. When approving a change order with subs, it automatically generates subcontractor change orders and updates billing. Enable the pay when paid feature and redesign your payment applications by vendor.
  6. Cheque Register – A record of cheques enables you to cancel a cheque at any date, without having to reopen a closed accounting period. You can easily deactivate and reactivate periods.
  7. Project Accounting – Jonas Premier provides up to 5 levels of detailed job costing which is useful for General Contractors working on condos, apartments, property, lots etc. Example: An AP invoice could be allocated as follows: Job 123 – Sub – Concrete Work – Building 1 – Bathroom
  8. Project Management – Manage estimates, est@completion, actual & committed costs, change orders, pending change orders, photos, RFIs, Submittals, Transmittals, Punch lists, and more.
  9. Document Management – Documents from Premier automatically store and tag to the job, customer, sub, employee etc., helping you become paperless instantly. Integrated with Word, Excel and Outlook makes it easy to tag documents. Upload any 3rd party and enable workflow approval for internal and external users such as subcontractors.
  10. Billing – Enter and manage fixed price Job Invoices, Schedule of Values, Progress Billing by %, amount, units, AIA billing and T&M Cost plus mark up with Construction Management Fees. Design your forms or easily copy from templates.