Don't Use a Napkin or the Back of an Envelope for an Estimate ?

Many small businesses give verbal estimates which may result in confusion to both the customer and the owner. Without writing the estimate down on paper or using your memory, to enter costs, there is a good chance you will either incorrectly estimate or underestimate the costs required to complete a job which may result in overruns, lower profit margins, labor overages and missing deadlines.

The benefits of using automated estimates system are:

• You can prepare a real time estimate and instantly send or share from your smartphone

• There is no confusion since estimates will agree to the invoice

• You can manage the project or job

• You can compare estimates to actual expenses in real time to measure profitability

• You will saves a huge amount of your time

What Is the Difference between an Estimate and a Quote?

A quote provides a fixed cost for a project while an estimate provides an approximate cost.

Summary

When using estimates from QuickBooks, the expenses are entered into QuickBooks, your estimates are saved and can be used to run Estimated Versus Actual and Cost to Complete reports. I strongly suggest you stop using envelopes, napkins and spreadsheets to develop estimates and use QuickBooks.

Getting new customers is hard and billing them should be easy. Using QuickBooks to prepare estimates, send invoices and collect $ will save your time and reduce errors and let you focus on running your business.