Managing payroll for construction businesses is complex. Between certified payroll reports, job costing, hourly field crews, and multi-state compliance requirements, accounting firms supporting construction clients often find themselves consumed by endless calculations, corrections, and reporting. QuickBooks Online Payroll is designed to tackle these complexities while helping firms manage payroll more efficiently.
Let’s explore how QuickBooks Payroll can support payroll for accounting firms with construction clients.
1. Job costing and payroll cost allocation**
Tracking labor costs by job or project is critical for construction businesses to understand profitability. QuickBooks Online Payroll integrates payroll data with job costing, allowing labor costs to be associated with specific projects. This ensures comprehensive payroll tracking, and allows accountants to provide insights regarding project profitability and margins.
Why this matters to accountants: Access to job-level labor costs allows you to move beyond payroll processing and offer advisory services, such as profitability analysis and margin optimization, helping your clients make better business decisions.
2. Mobile time tracking**
Field crews are often spread across various job sites, making accurate time tracking for hourly employees a challenge. QuickBooks Online Payroll solves this issue with mobile time tracking, enabling employees to clock in and out directly from their phones or tablets. This minimizes time-entry errors and helps ensure accurate payroll inputs.
Why this matters to accountants: Cleaner, more accurate time tracking means fewer errors upstream, simplifying payroll runs and reducing time spent on corrections or rework.
3. Payroll corrections (including closed quarters)
Errors can occur during payroll processing, especially for complex operations such as construction clients. QuickBooks Online Payroll allows accountants to make adjustments to paychecks, including editing, voiding, and recording transactions, even in closed quarters. This makes it easy to fix mistakes without manual interventions that disrupt compliance.
Why this matters to accountants: The ability to correct payroll without workarounds reduces disruption and helps maintain compliance across reporting periods, providing a seamless experience for accounting firms and their clients.
4. Employee cost rate calculator
Understanding total cost of labor is critical for construction budgeting and project analysis. QuickBooks Online Payroll includes an employee cost rate calculator, giving accountants and clients enhanced visibility into wages, taxes, benefits, and additional labor costs.
Why this matters to accountants: Clear labor cost data supports more accurate job costing, budgeting, and margin analysis for construction clients. This positions firms as trusted business advisors rather than simply payroll processors.
5. Certified payroll reports**—coming soon
Construction businesses frequently work on government contracts requiring compliance with prevailing-wage laws and certified payroll reporting. Preparing these reports manually is time-consuming and increases the risks of errors. Later this year, QuickBooks Online Payroll will automate certified payroll reporting, helping you stay compliant without the headache of manual documentation.
Why this matters to accountants: Certified payroll automation reduces compliance exposure, saves time, and increases accuracy. Accounting firms can focus on scaling their businesses rather than spending hours preparing reports for government contracts.
Value to your construction clients
Add QuickBooks Online Payroll today by calling sales at 877-781-4710 or login to QuickBooks Online Accountant to add Payroll for your construction clients.
