I need help finding software for a sole proprietorship contractor/carpenter that can record bids and estimates and do accounting. I google and get overwhelmed with stuff meant for large companies. I know many others on here are tradesmen and I'm hoping for their advice and wisdom.

You might look at QuickBooks for the accounting piece. There is a learning curve though

X2 but im lucky , my wife uses it for me ........i hear her in the other room cussing it now and then

I'll be watching this thread for good suggestions. I do it all myself with only Word and Excel and it is sometimes overwhelming.

You are very fortunate...does she have any sisters?

JK, I'm taken.

I use Quickbooks Pro and when I managed the Airport we used Quickbooks there too. You can back it up on a thumb drive and drop it off to your accountant and they can figure taxes or do whatever needs done.

When setting it up for your business if you are lost have someone come set it up for you, like your accountant that will be doing your taxes. You can always google a how to question if you get stuck at first or call whoever you had help you set it up. It makes it so easy to do sales receipts, invoices and everything. You can add your customers information and invoice with emails or print them and send them. Very nice software.

Thank you all for the advice. Quickbooks seems universally liked and Flipper your right I really need some accountant advice I also have a rental property and hiring an accountant would probably pay for itself and then some.

I was in the exact same business for awhile. I got lucky and have a wife who ran Quickbooks and a MIL who is a Quickbooks Pro/trainer and could help if we ever got stuck. But I will say that Quickbooks is intuitive enough I could usually figure out when I had to do something and wife was gone. But we only used Quickbooks for billing and taxes.

For my bids and estimates I think the best tool I ever used was Excel. Learn to make spread sheets with functions (formulas), then you just put in the numbers and it does the math for you. For example, for flooring jobs I have a spreadsheet built, where all I do is put in the square footage, doorways, transitions, demo etc and it calculates the quote instantly. I have the same thing for exterior housepainting (My other gig besides carpentry), just a formula for footage, window count, trim count, wall condition, etc and I can have a quote instantly. It took me a lot of cost tracking over the years to nail down these formulas, but it’s worth it.
Since spreadsheets don’t look very sexy on their own, you can insert a spreadsheet into a Word document with your letterhead, introduction, terms etc.

Now I use Google Docs and Google Sheets, which is a basically a clone of the Microsoft programs except it’s all cloud-stored and I can use it on my smartphone. So now I can go measure a client’s house, input the numbers in the spreadsheet on my phone and give them a quote on the spot. If they have a WiFi printer I could print it from my phone, or email it to them instantly. Modern people like modern contractors.

Anyway that’s what I use. I got out of the self-employment game last year but I still do a few side jobs. I’m not saying it’s the best system but it worked well for me. Anything to cut down on office/overhead time is worth it when you’re the boss and the secretary.

Good points KenaiKid. I use Excel spread sheets for my estimates as well. And same as you it took me years of tracking every penny and recording the profit or loss on every job to create accurate formulas. I don't use the spreadsheets in my contracts, I create them in Word and use the numbers Excel has indicated.

For bookkeeping I still use a standard monthly bookkeeping ledger and everything is entered by writing it down. The book costs $12.00 and the system works good. My accountant uses the monthly entries for my quarterlies and year-end taxes. Payroll is tracked in a separate ledger and added to the monthly bookkeeping.

It is time consuming but I've always hung up on whether or not Quickbooks would save me time or money. I'm still undecided.

I hate paperwork as much as anybody...



Two excellent points I've found to be very true.