QuickBooks + Jobtable

QuickBooks for Contractors: What It Handles, and What It Doesn't

Last updated 1 September 2026. QuickBooks feature availability confirmed against Intuit's published documentation on that date.

This page is not an argument for replacing QuickBooks. We integrate with it, most of our customers use it, and their bookkeepers would riot if we suggested otherwise. It is an explanation of where the line sits between the two, because a lot of contractors spend years trying to run operations inside accounting software before realising that is the problem.

What QuickBooks does well for a construction business

QuickBooks is the default for contractor accounting for good reasons. Nearly every bookkeeper and accountant in North America already knows it, which matters more than any feature list when it is time to close the year.

• General ledger, chart of accounts, bank feeds and reconciliation
• Payroll and tax filings
• Vendor bills, subcontractor payments and 1099s
• Financial statements: profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow
• Sales tax handling and year-end reporting

None of that is something a job management tool should be trying to take over. If you are evaluating construction software and it suggests dropping QuickBooks, be sceptical.

Does QuickBooks do job costing?

Yes, with two conditions worth knowing before you rely on it.

Job costing in QuickBooks Online runs through the Projects feature. Intuit makes Projects available on the Plus and Advanced plans, so Simple Start and Essentials will not do it. If job costing is why you bought QuickBooks, check which plan you are actually on.

The second condition matters more. Projects tells you what a job cost after the information has been entered against it. Somebody has to code the supplier invoice to the right project, enter the hours, attach the receipt. Done consistently it works well and produces a real profitability picture. Done the way most small contractors actually operate, with receipts in the truck console and hours reconstructed on Sunday night, it produces a number nobody trusts.

That is the gap. It is not that QuickBooks cannot cost a job. It is that accounting software sees the job only after the paperwork catches up, and on a live site the paperwork never catches up on its own.

Closing it is a capture problem rather than an accounting one. Costs have to be recorded where the work happens, against the job, at the moment they are incurred. Once that is running, the numbers flow into QuickBooks as expenses on their own and your job costing stops depending on somebody's memory of a Home Depot run three weeks ago.

Where QuickBooks stops on a job site

These are the things contractors end up doing in a spreadsheet, a notes app or a group chat because the accounting system has nowhere to put them.

• Quoting on site, with options the client can approve and sign the same day
• Scheduling people and knowing who is where this week
• Change orders raised and signed while the work is happening, not reconstructed at invoice time
• Progress billing against a contract value, with what is billed, remaining and outstanding visible at a glance
• Daily logs, site photos and notes attached to the job rather than living in someone's phone
• Crew hours captured against the job as they happen
• Material receipts captured on the spot instead of at month end

Construction software that integrates with QuickBooks

The standard setup for a contractor is two systems doing what each is built for. Job management software runs the work and feeds the financial output into QuickBooks, which runs the books. Most contractor platforms support this, including Jobtable, Jobber, Housecall Pro and Buildertrend. What differs between them is what the sync covers and which plan it sits behind, so it is worth checking rather than assuming.

In Jobtable's case, QuickBooks Online sync is part of the single $59/month plan rather than a reason to upgrade to a higher tier.

How the Jobtable and QuickBooks integration works

1. Connect your QuickBooks Online account from Jobtable's integrations screen.
2. Quote, schedule and run the job in Jobtable, with costs, change orders and hours captured as the work happens.
3. Scan material receipts against the job as you buy, rather than emptying the truck console at month end.
4. Invoice from Jobtable and take payment on site or through a payment link.
5. Your bookkeeper reconciles bank feeds and closes the month in QuickBooks, working with the records they already expect.

What syncs to QuickBooks Online

• Clients
• Quotes
• Invoices
• Payments
• Expenses
• Taxes

Nobody enters an invoice twice, and the two systems do not disagree at month end. Because expenses cross over as well, a receipt captured against a job on Tuesday afternoon is in your books without anyone typing it in.

Who does what

QuickBooks for plumbers, electricians and HVAC contractors

The pattern is the same across the trades, and the pressure point shifts with how the work is shaped. Plumbers and HVAC contractors running service calls feel it first in scheduling and in getting an invoice out before leaving the driveway. Electricians and general contractors running longer installs feel it in change orders and progress draws, where a job quoted in March is still being billed in June and the contract value has moved twice.

In both cases QuickBooks stays exactly where it is. What changes is that the quoting, scheduling and cost capture stop living in a spreadsheet.

Who built it

Jobtable did not start life as a software product. It started as an internal tool inside a plumbing company that two of our co-founders still run today. They built it because what they were paying for did not match how the work actually happened, and they ran the business on it while it grew from two people to more than thirty. It only became something we sold after other contractors asked to use it.

That is why the feature list looks the way it does. Progress draws, change orders, job costing and daily logs are in the product because the people building it were dealing with those things on live jobs that same week. QuickBooks stayed where it was throughout, which is exactly the point of this page.

Getting set up

Connecting QuickBooks Online takes a couple of minutes from the integrations screen. If you are coming from another job management tool, we handle the migration for you at no charge: clients, quotes, jobs and invoices, including the line items inside them. You pull the exports, send them over, and we load everything in for you to check.

Worth doing in this order. Connect QuickBooks first, run a couple of real invoices through it, confirm they land where your bookkeeper expects, and then move the rest of your work across. Most contractors are set up inside an hour.

What contractors say

Frequently asked questions