WSW - Podcast Using QuickBooks Online for Job Costing
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[00:00:00]
Dan DeLong: WelcOme everybody to another workshop Wednesday, which is casual, conversations for serious workflows, brought to you by school bookkeeping.com, which is all about learning QuickBooks your way, however, way, however way you like to learn, right?
Meet Shauna Quinn: The Job Costing Ninja
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Dan DeLong: So we have a new [00:01:00] face in the workshop for our casual conversation. So Shauna Quinn titled. Job costing Ninja. Tell us about that.
Rachel Dauchy: I love a job costing Ninja.
Dan DeLong: That's right. You don't see it coming.
Rachel Dauchy: It just feels so powerful.
Shanna Quinn: I guess I'll introduce myself then. I'm Shana Quinn. Basically for the last 10 years I have owned my own bookkeeping firm.
That specializes working with construction trades, home builders, remodelers, subcontractors, interior designers. And so our main focus has been job costing. And hopefully after 10 years I feel like we have built a perfection around it. Our OCD comes out strong in those moments, and so that's why I'm the job costing ninja.
Shauna's Journey into Construction and Job Costing
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Dan DeLong: [00:02:00] Now you started, how does one get into construction and job costing? How, what was the beginning of your journey? In, in accounting,
Shanna Quinn: my dad would say I drew it, the short straw. Because it is not the easiest trade to support, no. I think because my dad was in construction that I saw him doing it.
Not the accounting side, but I grew a deep respect for that industry and what they do. And I just felt like it was it's like being an art retailer, you have that appreciation for the art, but you're not really good at the trade itself. I have a deep appreciation for what they do and making dreams come true and the beautiful stuff that they put together, but, not [00:03:00] as talented myself in doing it.
I figured I'd put my skills to use in the accounting world instead and support them.
Dan DeLong: So was there actually, straws for the family and, actually did draw the short one? Or did they come to you and say, Hey, I need help, or did you offer the, that help?
Shanna Quinn: I just ended up in the industry.
Initially I actually was going to school for massage therapy while I was waiting for my program for physical therapy to start at the university I got into after high school. And I was working with a small local company here started as a receptionist 'cause it was my first job and then the office manager quit and I was like, I'm actually really good at, I'm actually really good at accounting if you want my help while you look for someone else.
Got promoted and then [00:04:00] actually was the CFO for that company for off and on. I say off 'cause I left for a year but then came back, or four or five years. So I just ended up in that trade. And that was a
Rachel Dauchy: construction trade company?
Shanna Quinn: Yes. Yeah. Oh, okay. So they did a home, it was a installation, so it would be like the subcontractor side. Yeah. So they did electrical and security installations for home builders. Or the homeowners directly.
Rachel Dauchy: It just goes to show that the on the job training is so crucial and so valuable because when you really understand that industry, man you understand the operations.
It just makes doing the financial piece so much. Easier. Yeah.
Shanna Quinn: And when I would come home in the evenings or we would have family dinner, my dad was very immersed in his job, so a lot of our [00:05:00] conversations circled around the industry and how it was doing and where he thought it was going, and the ups and downs of the, all the individual trades.
So it just felt he was my, now I have to now I listen to other. Podcasts or read a bunch of articles that come out about it. But now back then it just immersed me into it. And so I just yeah, gained respect for it and gained perspective because of my dad.
Dan DeLong: Awesome.
Challenges in the Construction Industry
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Dan DeLong: Now, Rachel speaking of industries to get in that are. Oh, in the deep end of the pool you, manage in inventory and e-commerce and all that stuff. Do you, have any clients that are in the, job costing space that, that, that are, that need, that kind of
Rachel Dauchy: not really. I do have other service based clients.
I have. A [00:06:00] couple people that have some field services, but for the most part, no. We're dealing with a lot of cost gets sold.
Dan DeLong: Yeah.
Rachel Dauchy: But but I do know that's a tough industry and I was just gonna ask Shana or Shauna, sorry, and maybe you'll touch on this at some point, but my understanding of the industry is that, the payments go down the line and oftentimes.
They have a long delay and and I know that's a tough industry and I was curious to know if maybe there's gonna be any changes to that or if that's the norm and that's not really gonna change. And because that's much different than the point of sale industry that we're dealing with in moving goods.
Absolutely. It's really 90 day.
Shanna Quinn: Yeah, and we're constantly dealing with the struggle of, because the trade in itself has really [00:07:00] reduced the workforce wise. So our, we don't have. We don't have 50 options for, good plumbers. We may in that area have two or three. So you really wanna keep that trade happy and that relationship happy too.
So that's constantly a battle. It's constantly conversations that we have to have with our clients. I am seeing a big shift from back to. TNM and markup. So we're doing it based off of what we're receiving bills on and then adding our markup or margins at the end to send invoices out as opposed to fixed pricing especially for some of the custom home builders.
And I think that's made it difficult. More difficult and more challenging for the business owner because now we're constantly dealing with paying, needing to pay our vendors on a weekly basis, but maybe [00:08:00] they've set up on their schedules for payments that we're not invoicing, but every two weeks.
So there's a constant discussion about the right way to manage the relationship with the vendors and keep them happy, but also make sure that the owner of the company is not bank rolling these jobs. Yeah, you're talking about potentially a brand new home build. You might have a framing invoice or plumbing or roofing, and these could be 20, 40, 50, 60, 70 grand.
Dan DeLong: Yeah.
Shanna Quinn: So that's a big amount of money for a company to basically, pay before they've collected it. So timing of how everything processes and functions is always a very big conversation with all of our clients.
Understanding Job Costing
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Dan DeLong: So this segues very nicely into our, general topic of, just job costing in general.
And [00:09:00] what, is job costing Shauna and, what would, you know if somebody comes to you and say what is. Job costing. And, why is it important? What would you, say? You're, you trapped in an elevator with a contractor.
Shanna Quinn: Elevators. This is why I try to take this. I'm sorry.
Dan DeLong: I, no I threw a, trauma triggering, scenario.
Shanna Quinn: No. I think the easiest way to describe job costing is basically categorizing it against a proper cost code or an expense account. And a customer for which that expense belongs to for every transaction that comes through, except for obviously overhead expenses, but making sure that all of those expenses that come through for a job are categorized properly to that job.
And [00:10:00] then tracking it properly. That's the easiest way to describe it, and you could do it for all industries. We just support. Our construction industries, right?
Importance of Accurate Job Costing
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Dan DeLong: Because I guess in, in that industry, you tend to have the kinds of business owners, right? That either worked for somebody and then want to go out on their own, right?
And so they're not taught. In the trade schools or they're not taught in in their work experience. How to price these things, right? Like how to run their business. So a lot of times. And would you agree that by, by and large or in general, most of those business owners.
Operate off of their gut, like their gut feel as far as
Rachel Dauchy: yeah, I call it the yellow pad. I was just gonna say that too. I was [00:11:00] gonna say, there's probably some old timers that are like, this is the way I've always done it and
using-quickbooks-online-for-job-costing_-qbo-can-do-that_!_-Oct-08-2025-restream: that,
Shanna Quinn: yeah. They go estimate a job with the yellow pad and they write down this is about what I think we're at
Dan DeLong: And, why this is important is that.
If you're actually categorizing things appropriately in those you, basically mentioned three dimensions, right? To the, customer or the project, to the cost code, and then to the expense account so that all three of those are working in. Conjunction with each other to remove the gut from the equation.
Yes. And then they can actually see, yes, this was profitable. I I charged appropriately. Is that what you find that a lot of construction or contractors get, get themselves in trouble with?
Shanna Quinn: Yeah, [00:12:00] I think that's why it's been a good return of the t and m because it's more in their face.
When they receive a big bill, they wanna make sure they're seeing that big bill on the invoice to go out to the client. So the return of charging time material plus markup, has been a good shift for several of our clients.
Client Experiences and Common Issues
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Shanna Quinn: They were, I have one in particular who is terrible at estimating and we were just spending so much time on the phone with the clients constantly asking this is so over, and this is when it becomes an issue too, because then we're having to deal with clients that might be on the job site and they approach.
I might approach the plumber while he is there and they're like, I think I'd like to make this change. Can you add this out here? And that the, that adds another aspect of [00:13:00] AR, of areas of concern because now the contractor is not really a part of that conversation. The owner just approaches. The person on the job site and says, I need you to add this.
And so then we're out of the loop when those overages come out, and so then we can have that conversation with the clients and say, listen, when you need changes made, you need to be coming to the project manager. He may not be on the job. The entire time. But here's the contact information 'cause it needs to take the right channels, otherwise you are gonna see estimate versus actual reports that aren't accurate.
Because we weren't kept in the loop. But that's a good learning lesson for the owners to right to know which clients are doing that.
Rachel Dauchy: Can I ask you a question, Shauna? Just outta curiosity 'cause I don't really talk to a lot of these kind of business owners. What would this split be like? I don't know, 50 50?
Like businesses [00:14:00] that you see that. Maybe are not job costing or maybe just looking at their bottom line like okay, I know I am making this as job costing. Where really you're looking at the individual pro project. Is this project profitable? Is that project profitable? How many are looking at things like that versus how many are just walking around?
Clueless.
Shanna Quinn: I would actually say none of our, all of our clients job cost, comes
Rachel Dauchy: before that. But are you, even if
Shanna Quinn: have clients that aren't in this industry, we make them job cost. I jo cost. But for clients coming in, it is. Been actually the biggest pinpoint and pinpoint for them because the cost for us to go back and say, we've got a year's worth of data.
I need you to tell me how to categorize this so we can job cost for you. And [00:15:00] obviously there's a big expense added to that. So there's, I would say, probably 70% of the clients who have come to us to help have us take over. Were not job costing at all. And on top of that, I wanna say probably 20%. So very little leftover who did it, right?
20% said they were, but they. Didn't cap, they weren't capturing everything.
I get that stuff to cogs and to cost codes, but it never was assigned to a project. And so then you're like here's now this really big report of expenses that you had, but no jobs assigned, but you got it put to a cost code.
I have a lot of people who, who look at the bottom line number, which is why we do profit first. 'cause some of our owners are very much like this that they look at and go I've got money so it looks like I'm doing okay. Yeah, you have money. [00:16:00] But we could, these conversations could be around that, hey, you could be doing 20% better, you could be doing 10% better.
I just had a conversation with a client that I said last week that I said, you need to increase your markup. The conversations that we're having about him wanting an office, him wanting to start having some specs, bill his markup, does not support the extra income to cover those costs. Without, and he's not being competitive enough in the area that he is.
So that's what I'm working on now for him is an analysis of what I'm seeing markups from other contractors that are at the level he is in the market area that he's in. So I can go back to him and say, I understand that maybe the closing ratio became less when we did the initial increase of your, margins on [00:17:00] this job, but we're.
I don't think that you should look at, out of those five clients that walked away, those five potential clients because overall your, percentage is 7% less than what these other people are charging.
Dan DeLong: And.
Shanna Quinn: The conversation that the ev, the first question I always get, and this is exactly when I know, like I need to have more of a, more than a half hour call with a, an oncoming prospect as, so can you just tell me about what you charge?
That's always the first question and it's it's not as easy as that. It's not a one size fits all like actually might chart it. That might be more because it takes me so much longer. Yeah, tip the edge
Dan DeLong: And that, I think in that with, when that question comes up, it's I, don't wanna say it's easy, but [00:18:00] it's it's not a stretch to basically turn it back to them and say if you went out to a customer for whatever is your industry, your plumbing, and somebody Yeah.
And a customer asked you over the phone, what would you charge for this without Yeah. Sight on scene. They would and sign, the contract
Shanna Quinn: stating you're gonna stay to that. Yeah, exactly.
Dan DeLong: Just tell me how much this is gonna cost me. And they're then they can probably see the light of, okay, I guess you gotta, yeah, there's more to it because you, I gotta peel off.
You peel I call it strip mining like you peel something away and oh my goodness, there's elec, there's an electrical problem here that I need,
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah. Usually they are, sorry. I was gonna say in a prospecting call, I usually find that they're just. Making up numbers, I dunno
Shanna Quinn: [00:19:00] what
Rachel Dauchy: they're talking about.
Yeah,
Shanna Quinn: That's my proposals. I never actually provide a full proposal until they sign an NDA and give me access to the QuickBooks I'm gonna be working in. 'cause then I can give them a better estimate, a better realistic idea of what ongoing services plus project cost would be. But I could have the conversation with them as well to say, you're welcome to go elsewhere.
Sometimes less is not always like the better way to go. I've got a couple of reviews for, from clients over the last a handful over the last 10 years that we've been in business. And it's, they've said she's not the cheapest, but she's the most knowledgeable one that I've been able to connect with.
And now I fully understand entirely what I'm looking at, which makes me a more powerful business owner. Yeah,
Dan DeLong: I mean I had that
Rachel Dauchy: I had a plumber tell me one time that Jeep is expensive and I never forgot it. 'cause [00:20:00] it is,
Dan DeLong: Yeah I had some guy door knocked me and I, needed some handy work done and he ended up doing a cover semi covered patio and wouldn't, three years later it started to sag and all of that stuff.
I got what I paid for, sure. Yeah.
Shanna Quinn: Yeah. And an experienced person to your point, that's I've seen too many of those and and our position when we're managing someone's, we're managing someone's books. Their light of the livelihood that they're trying to create for themselves or their family.
We can make or break a situation like that because of the advice that we're giving or lack of advice that we're giving. Taking on the client when you don't even understand that industry could be very detrimental to the person you're trying to help. [00:21:00] Yeah.
QuickBooks for Job Costing
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Dan DeLong: So the this, segues into now QuickBooks to manage all of this job costing.
Now you like Rachel, are focused mostly on QuickBooks online. For, your clients and the. Conception or misconception. And that's what we're gonna talk about is this mindset that QuickBooks online doesn't do job costing, right? Like I, from the Intuit perspective when I worked there that was the common theme that I heard from accountants and bookkeepers, especially those coming from the desktop world.
And dipping their toes into QuickBooks Online. I don't like the way that QuickBooks online does job costing. But here you are 10 years working in this industry and you, most of your clients or, would you say all of your clients, I think there was one. One [00:22:00] last. Holdout on desktop that we work together on.
Yes. And now
Shanna Quinn: they're online and they're very happy. Yay. And they do 1 45 houses a year. And they are using QuickBooks online to do their job costing and to help them forecast for how to price these houses out upon completion for sale and profit. The, power of the, of. The Power of Beast, I don't know.
It's there. You just have to know how to use it correctly to make it work for what you're looking for.
Dan DeLong: Because as and as we're having this, conversation, from, the QuickBooks perspective of does it do job costing for me, my answer was yes it does. Billing by customer because if you have an expense or a bill or.
A [00:23:00] purchase transaction and you're able or time right? And being able to associate a customer with that. That's the. Key moment or key? Key aspect of job costing, at least what I thought job costing entailed. So you know, I would say yeah it does because you've got this billing by customer option, but as we are uncovering, it's a lot more to that because you have other things that the business does.
Like payroll, for example.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah. And there's a few different kinds of job costing, and as I'm getting my master's in accounting right now, and there's all different kinds of job costing, job order costing and process costing and different kinds of costing. You can't really do in QuickBooks online, but for.
Introduction to Job Costing in QuickBooks
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Rachel Dauchy: S I'm gonna just say simple, straightforward, specifically for [00:24:00] trades, you can use the project centers and it is amazing.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. So I guess, in when, we talk about job costing and, doing it in QuickBooks Online are those three things that you talked about with the cost codes, the, The customer job materials and then those expenses and then the, accounting the categories or, chart of accounts that you're, doing those things work in, concert. But do you need other aspects to be able to truly get, a, get an accurate. Job cost or what do you, what have you found?
Shanna Quinn: I wouldn't say to get an accurate job cost, because you're able to assign and split out one expense to a [00:25:00] hundred different cost codes or a hundred different accounts and assign it to a hundred different projects if that's necessary. But there's.
Different Types of Job Costing
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Shanna Quinn: There are different types of job costing. And there's different way, and there's different needs of job costing based off of the bill, even for our trades.
So the gentleman I was just talking about that does custom home builds, those are on client owned lots. So the way I job cost that from a mapping standpoint between that cost code and how it points to our financials. It is very different than when we're doing a spec build and it's on a lot that is owned by the company.
The mapping is different it's just no having that knowledge to make sure that you've got it set up properly in the system and that it's being utilized properly.
Using Classing and Third-Party Products
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Shanna Quinn: We also use, classing as a functionality differently for [00:26:00] some of my clients that wanna track jobs that are remodel versus like different rooms that they're remodeling.
You can even do different, use it for like size or project size, categorizing, we, there are a lot of clients that we have that use third party products, but that's mainly for the communication between them and their clients. And it's for proper tracking of what's true job costs versus what is a change order, versus what has to be a back charge.
Or a VPO of variance, PO that has to get produced. So that's more of an internal thing, but as those things get pushed over or as they're booked into QuickBooks it's the same functionality. They just use it for approval between the client and themselves, or internally [00:27:00] between owner, project manager and vendor.
Approval Processes and Legal Requirements
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Shanna Quinn: For approval in pro for the approval process for subcontractor agreements, stuff like that, which is a necessary tool to have because of the legal stuff that's required and because you wanna stay on the safe side and have that communication for backup. But from an accounting perspective, what we're doing, QuickBooks has the functionality for us to make.
That process work.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah. You can crunch the numbers. You can do it all. I love that. I love that you can do it in QuickBooks online. Yeah.
Payroll and Job Costing Integration
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Rachel Dauchy: So you guys, I have to go because I have an appointment with. Payroll, elite Onboarding. I love payroll. I never thought I would say it. QuickBooks Payroll, but Payroll Elite is different oh, he's calling me right now.
Dan DeLong: Okay. Okay. Hi
Rachel Dauchy: guys.
Dan DeLong: So actually
Shanna Quinn: to play [00:28:00] off, what we're, what she's saying is that the time functionality within payroll or within QuickBooks. We've got a lot of our clients, they have to have, they've got they've got carpenters on staff and and they're project managers. So they're, using QuickBooks time to track the cost.
And then when we run payroll, QuickBooks determines the cost associated for both wage and tax. Into that job costing scenario. Those are, all things that, that tools within QuickBooks that you can utilize for that. And then obviously when you said billable expenses out to clients, check the billable box, create your ha.
You could either have the markup already in your QuickBooks and predetermined plus your labor billable rates. Predetermined and entered in the proper areas of payroll or [00:29:00] vendor, wherever they sit, to be able to easily then generate invoices with that. The, capability is there. Like I said, you just have to have the knowledge and the experience.
To know how to use it properly.
Dan DeLong: Exactly.
Cost Codes vs. Chart of Accounts
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Dan DeLong: And then, we you've said it a couple times of cost codes and then the chart of accounts. What is the difference between those things? If again, you're trapped in that elevator with someone, and you have to explain the difference between allocating to a specific expense account or cost codes, because that.
That's something that gets me wrapped around the axle. When I hear that term being thrown out, it's like, how is that different than, a specific chart of account?
Shanna Quinn: So in QuickBooks they call it your product and service list. But it's co we call it a cost code and basically a lot of my clients.[00:30:00]
Actually none of them have the same cost code list. Do you think that at some point there would be a consistent uniform and I have a uniform suggestion report, but nobody has ever opted to use it. They all have their own that they wanna use the different coding, but. A big part of what that is.
Generating Invoices and Cost Codes
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Shanna Quinn: So I'll just use the, an example just because today was the day that we're generating invoices.
We invoice for this client every single week because he wants to be his vendors every week. To keep them from having to bank roll that job where we invoice the clients on a weekly basis for expenses truly incurred by them. Monday through Tuesday prior. It's billable time from his employees.
It is true expenses like Home Depot runs and stuff like that. That's always existing. And then your subcontractor material bills that come [00:31:00] through. So we are generating these invoices for, him, and each one of these line items has a different cost code. We've got our labor, which is a different cost code because I need that to point to a different account in our chart of accounts.
So that needs to be pointing. We actually have it for him. It actually rolls into. Cost of goods. So it's above the line in that cost of goods of labor for payroll expenses subcontractors and material. We split that out. For all of our clients, I will not allow any of them to combine it. And the main reason for that is from a workers' comp perspective.
When we're doing workers' comp audits, I need my subcontractors to be in a very separate account than our, or cost code than on any of our material expenses because I don't need a workers' comp for Lowe's [00:32:00] or, Ferguson bathroom stuff. That's why we are using cost codes from an accounting perspective.
They're using cost codes because when they go in, from a customer standpoint the business owner standpoint, when they're providing us an estimate, they wanna be able to break out and say, this is what your plumbing is gonna be. This is what your electrical is gonna cost you. We have drywall, we have paint tile materials.
And then, yeah, you've got sometimes allowances to be able to track to say, we budgeted for 25 grand for appliances in your kitchen. And so at this point, here's what we've purchased and here's what we spent. So this is the allowance essentially, that you, the owner and the builder set aside to say, here's what this is gonna cost.
So those are the reasons for that. And you don't I have, clients that have [00:33:00] 80 different cost codes. But out of all of those 80 cost codes my cost of goods account listings on the p and l, maybe only be five or six at most. So I've got my workers' comp, I've got labor material, subcontractor, and then sometimes miscellaneous.
That gets booked in there. It's so that your chart of accounts doesn't have to be a hundred long. Although I have had prospects come to me and they have set up a hundred different cost of good accounts instead of using, the cost of good codes, which is a lot.
Dan DeLong: So the product service list is where the cost codes li live, which then feeds into reports inside of QuickBooks.
So, that you can run reports based off of the product and service those cost codes and not necessarily need to see all that on their [00:34:00] profit and loss. Which could right from overall miles long by that
Shanna Quinn: having a hundred on accounts under your chart of accounts or under your clogs is not necessary.
'cause I could pull a by job report by cost code from QuickBooks and I can pull it either from the expense side or if we are doing t and m plus markup, I could bill it from the income side, which will tell me, here's by cost code how much we have billed out to our clients, plus that markup. You can get it from, see it from both sides, which is also how we internally double check to make sure that we're capturing everything properly as well to make sure that the our, line items are, totaling the same.
Dan DeLong: So you have, guardrails in place so that you, can spot the anomalies if they happen to, show up.
Shanna Quinn: Yeah. Whether it's $3 or a $7,000 charge, I wanna make sure my [00:35:00] clients are being profitable and the only way to do that is to make sure we're on our end capturing all of the expenses that should be getting filled out to their clients.
Dan DeLong: Yeah, the the reports are only as good as the data that's in them. Yes. Yeah, for sure.
Project Center in QuickBooks
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Dan DeLong: The project center in inside of QuickBooks I, I can't remember when it was actually introduced probably in 2016 or something like that, where I wanna say
Shanna Quinn: like the last year into it was in California.
Yes.
Dan DeLong: That's how I, when that first came out. At from my perspective, like all this is doing is just. Putting things in one place that you could access elsewhere. But. Since they did that, right? They put things in the project center inside of QuickBooks online. It's, evolved and added more [00:36:00] flexibilities and functionalities and being able to see now you can for you throw out a jargon term of TNM.
So that's time and materials for those. Yeah, those that don't know. But, you can go into the project center and see the, time cost, as a, as it relates to a. A project. But you can also flip that between the payroll cost and the hourly cost. So you can
Shanna Quinn: see different as long as you're utilizing and entering that data for QuickBooks to be able to calculate it.
'cause there's the cost and then the cost rate that you manually enter. So we calculate that for all of our clients and we basically take. The average amount as assume assumption of they work 40 hours, what those taxes related taxes would be. And for certain states they may have state income tax, they may not.
So you have to take [00:37:00] that into account. Unemployment always ends at a certain point because they only collect so much. So you have to take that into account. And then we basically use that and what their workers' comp rate is be is for that role being. Played, fulfilled right carpenter versus a project manager versus a roofer.
They're gonna have different costs associated per billable hour, per hour that they're on a job site. All of that gets calculated together to create what that cost rate is. And that's what we use constantly too, to make sure that we're, they're being profitable to where they were. This.
These specific clients wanna be from an internal labor perspective. If they wanna be a hundred percent profitable, then we're constantly monitoring that to make sure that we're at the right cost rate or right billable rate. And seeing on top of that. So the functionality, a lot of [00:38:00] stuff is there, but if you don't know how to set it up properly, then it's not user friendly.
'cause it's not gonna show you the data that you're hoping for it to show you.
Future Plans and Community Building
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Dan DeLong: So now that segues really nicely into the future for you Shauna, and and what's going on with with us working together is that you have, and you were on the, workshop a couple years ago and I think you had first had this thought or this idea of you've done all this hard work and it would be helpful if other.
Accounting professionals knew that you wanna teach others how to do the, do it do things the Shawna way, right?
Shanna Quinn: Yeah. I wanna empower the other accounting professionals to, be able to support these special trades that our firm, my firm is supporting. [00:39:00] I just have internally grown to a place where I'm happy with where we're at after 10 years.
And wanna shift my focus to making sure that we're, keeping the pool of wonderful accounting professionals full, right. For small business owners in the special trades to be able to work with. So that's my next journey. 10 plus years.
Dan DeLong: So you're, in the clone process of how can I clone myself?
Maybe
Shanna Quinn: my husband would say maybe something with more hair, but Yeah.
Dan DeLong: Exactly. So tell us about your new project that you're working on a community and how that how people might wanna work with you and on a if they find this [00:40:00] niche or this this industry appealing, but really don't know where to start. what, what's in store for them?
Shanna Quinn: So I created a play off of the bookkeeping firm that we have. So it's Bookkeeping for Contractors Group. Initially our initiative is to help mentor, coach, and provide resources to accounting professionals. Whether they are with a firm already or they're looking to go out on the firm and they wanna just get into this niche to be able to provide them that training to help them get there and feel confident in it.
And then down the line part of this program will also include being able to provide referrals small business owners of these special trades, looking for an experienced accounting professional to join their team. [00:41:00] Obviously I need to build the pool and then get our accounting professionals in it, and then I can start pulling them out.
And providing opportunities for client onboarding.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. 'cause, in this niche of general contracting, just to say that there is further sub-niches, right? That where you could do residential versus. Commercial or plumbing, like you trades, field service, those types of things, right?
Yeah.
Shanna Quinn: There's a lot and I've supported a lot of the different types. So I've supported the small subcontractor and electrician and a plumber. I have supported a large commercial builder that was doing, hotels as investments. So there's and I've supported a. A home builder [00:42:00] that did a hundred and thirty, a hundred forty, fifty units a year.
And I'm, I support clients that are doing home remodels small. We support interior designers. The need is there, and I just wanna be able to be to connect these two groups of people together to continue to help this industry be successful from both the accounting standpoint and from a contractor standpoint.
Dan DeLong: Yeah, like I, I was in I, when I first started my own business I joined A BNI group and, we this end, this particular chapter, ended up having, multiple lawyers, right? Like you would think, okay you got a category of a lawyer. Why would we have more than one lawyer?
It's because one focused on family law and the other one focused on injury, right? And so if they were to get [00:43:00] a a, prospective client, the injury lawyer that needed. Estate planning, right? There's the perfect referral. So yeah. You are essentially trying to do that in your, community Yes.
So that these practitioners who spec, maybe they specialize in one construction niche over another. Yeah. They'll be able to pass pass referrals back and forth or, it's all gonna go through Shauna first, right? No, it's
Shanna Quinn: for now it's, an internal community. Yeah. Part of my role in, in that part of it is going to be I call 'em my discovery calls.
So I'll manage it the way that I manage the onboarding, a client of my own. Or interviewing essentially a client of my own. I wanna make sure that I am collecting as much information as possible. 'cause just as I wanna be able to provide [00:44:00] them with a vetted accounting professional that's truly qualified to help 'em.
I also wanna be able to provide the accounting professional with a vetted small business owner that's not here to just waste time and try to get as much out of that person for free. So they're not, saying, you're
Dan DeLong: not gonna send them the, people that say how much do you cost?
Shanna Quinn: Tell me, what's your fee? No, they'll, both sides will be both sides will be vetted and I'll be able to provide as much information to both parties, about both parties as possible to ensure that it's a successful fit, for, both of them.
Upcoming Workshops and Conclusion
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Dan DeLong: And then how we are working together as far as School of Bookkeeping and bookkeepers for construction group.
Did I get it right?
Shanna Quinn: Bookkeeping for contractors. Contractors, but yeah.
Dan DeLong: Okay. I'll get it. But [00:45:00] how we are working together is, we've already got a course library for, QuickBooks. But what we don't have is. A job costing course. So that's where Shauna and I are gonna be working together in in November, beginning in November, we will start the workshop series and, go through the fundamentals of, job costing and job costing in QuickBooks.
So hopefully you'll join us for that. It will be, a series and it will be rapid fire. And then ultimately what we'll do is repurpose all that content for for a course that you can take at, any given time. And then what we're gonna be doing, working together in, in on top of that is.
School of bookkeeping will be, the, learning platform or the [00:46:00] learning course content where Shana and, her team will be doing the vetting, the community and really getting into the mentoring, of that community. Yep. Yeah, I'm, did I capture that right? You did.
Alright we've got the link. It's up here. You can take a QR code. It's also in the, comments there. Apropos the site is under construction.
Just have a
Shanna Quinn: few more tweaks to make. And then in the next couple of weeks we're waiting for some updated material for our partners that for the tech stacks that I've put together as part of our membership program. And so once we have all of that I didn't wanna release a half done website.
I wanted it to be fully ready to go. [00:47:00] Yeah, by, my goal was by the Intuit Conference. We had everything updated and live and starting that process.
Dan DeLong: So by the time we start our workshop series, you should, we should have a a, workable website. So if you're looking at this today and wondering when's this site gonna be ready?
It should be in, in November or so. But as, yeah, as we know with construction sometimes there are surprises. There might be electrical problems to, to figure out.
Shanna Quinn: I think on this side it's more like the number brain has to transition to a marketing brain, which is a hard shift to make.
Dan DeLong: Look forward to that moving forward. And Shauna, it'll be great to see you and, at, Intuit Connect. Yeah. And everybody that's joined us today we appreciate you joining us and we'll look forward to seeing you next time on [00:48:00] the workshop. Wednesday we'll be talking about the new changes in QuickBooks Online accountant the, new user interface that they're.
They, teed up last year at Intuit Connect, but now they're finally getting around to it. All right. So we'll see you next time on the workshop Wednesday. And thank you Jonna. Thank you again for, coming on today and we'll see you more in November.
Shanna Quinn: Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much.
Dan DeLong: All right.
Bye now.
Shanna Quinn: Bye.
[00:49:00]
