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Contractor billing format for Product Management

whether should be looking at the outline for the TNM introductory webinar we're doing here today we're gonna start with some things that you need to know about them to setup things that will kind of happen in the background but you need to address them pretty much right away so that you don't have to do things redo things after you get started we'll spend most the time showing you how do you input the material labor and create an actual invoice with the TNM billing program I'm gonna make several references during the webinar to the mobile version because we now have a mobile version we're all sitting and we're doing a webinar on that starting at 10 o'clock Pacific time kind of right after this one but the mobile version gives you the ability to collect the data the material and labor in the field so that you don't have to be totally paperless collect material labor in the field send it back to the office and the customer email with an invoice they can even sign off on the on the work order the work done in the field - just a brief explanation of what the TNM billing program can be used for there's actually kind of four scenarios that it's used for the most common by far the most typical use of the program is for service work you send electrician out they keep track of their hours and keep track to the material you send the customer bill for the time and material that's why we call it ten material billing that's not an unusual scenario also for a sir for a contract job where the the work the additional work is is done on a on a time of material basis not where you give them a an estimate for what it's gonna cost and get approval for it the work is just done and then you send the customer a bill for the type of material again very similar to a service job we also have a lot of people who use this program to do small estimates in the field absolutely practical thing to do but in the material put in the labor and there's your there's your estimate and finally we've got a number of people who use for doing their job costing especially the small jobs the give the service jobs and small TM jobs where if you do input the material and labor into the program it'll tell you you're not only what you're charging the tomber but what your cost is so it's a good report for internal purposes even if you don't need the job costing just to get a good quick look at what your cost is versus what you're charging the customer okay so let's keep going with the setup okay so this is the screen you will see when you open the program the setup is under settings under program setup on this first tab there are several tabs across the top here the only one that's typically going to make that's gonna be important is what you put in for the number of days you give them per payment so by setting it to zero I'm basically doing - I'm doing a due upon receipt set up the customer tab has some excuse me some tabs below it the price column is the price column that it's using from epoch all the pricing in the TM program is based on epoch the target price being the one that's close to your cost and the trade price being the one that's a list price so more of a suggested wholesale price now a lot of people use the trade price for tea minute QM work I kind of preferred the target price and then put a little bigger markup or a lot bigger markup on it because I think that gives you a more consistent pricing that goes to the customer so I'm gonna leave it on target on the markup discount tab I've set it up to give to put a 50% markup on the material so if the target price is a dollar we charge the customer dollar and a half it's the $10 we charge the customer $15 typically we don't need to put the markup on the other four categories because we're gonna put actual rates in for the hourly cost of labor or the hourly rate we charge the customer miscellaneous charges things like equipment rentals and tools and stuff like that so we can probably leave those to zero for most of you the sales tax it comes into play when you need to charge sales tax and use usually a material now you could again you can apply it to any of these five categories because sales taxes is often a unique situation and it might be even unique for you might have different situations for different customers different types of work but we're trying to set up a typical scenario here and for most people it's applying text to just material not to labor we're to skip over to terms here so on the invoice if you want to print the terms like net ten days or this case do upon receipt that'll print at the bottom of the invoice so now this top role we're gonna skip all the way over to logo so whatever you want it to print at the top of the invoice is what you fill in here on these fields in the middle if you prefer to use a graphic you can come up here and and and identify your graphic logo file it does need to be in a bitmap format those files have an extension to dot BMP if you need help with that that's something or our tech support can definitely help you with now the next tab the report format kind of gets mostly into how much detail you want on the invoice over here on the right for the report formats I'm gonna leave it on the default which is all prices and totals in other words it's going to show a description of every item three-quarter-inch GMT which show the quantity 60-feet the price and extended amount now you don't have to show that much detail you can detail the material not the labor detail the labor and not the material but we'll start with all the detail then we'll give you a couple of examples of not giving all the detail to the customer now down here you'll see it says report should include you definitely want to have the work performed included you probably only need the work ordered on situations where the work ordered is significantly different than what you actually did so I like to leave that unchecked and just do it on a case-by-case basis the job site comes into play when the location of the job is different than the billing address which is not unusual of course the logo is that logo the text or they had graphic from the previous screen and on the mobile version we can record a signature on the mobile device iPad Android it doesn't matter and then that that signature becomes part of the the invoice that you send to the customer on report labels these are the fields on the invoice if you want to change them the wording or the you know then you want to use them for something different for example for somebody that's gonna produce an estimate the field then just change the word invoice to estimate and that's what goes the heading of the of the report we're gonna leave it on invoice for now then finally on exporting gotta be at least 65 75 % of our customers use QuickBooks small medium large customers it's a good alternative it's a good option for accounting because it's relatively affordable and easy to use so with this option here the Intuit QuickBooks often what happens is you tell the program which jobs are completed it exports them to a file that you import into QuickBooks there's also an option here grayed out called the queue link that's a little more of an audit automated functions so you don't have to export an import you just do it on a job by job basis you click a button and it sends it into QuickBooks so what it sends into QuickBooks is basically just the totals so it does create an invoice and QuickBooks same thing with peachtree doesn't bring the details in it just creates an invoice so that when your customer pays you or you do receivables you'll have those invoices recorded with material and labor and sales tax - okay so that's that part of the setup the other part of the setup we need to look at is the labor rates you can get to them by going to databases up at the top or database down here at the bottom left so the labor rates are part of the database when I click here and on database in addition to all the material that's in the program you have a folder down here called labor so typically you charge hourly rates although you couldn't charge flat rates you know just X dollars to put in a particular item under hourly we've got four categories and those are just a suggestion you don't have to use our if you can change them add your own same thing when you open up the folder you can have different wording you can have additional items but this is pretty typical to have a a journeyman rate so what you put in for the rate is what you charge per hour for a journeyman again that's just the default individual customers can have different rates the cost would be your hourly cost per hour for a journeyman including the labor burden the payroll taxes workers comp general liability benefits not overhead usually is not included in that but just direct cost again that number is important when you do the job cost reports okay last but not least the other part of the setup you need to know about is a form built into the program called the work order now if you don't use the mobile version you can use this form to record the material and labor in the field it's also important because this form is is included in the program and it can be modified and it comes up on the mobile version too so there's a electronic version of this if you will that comes up on the mobile app you'll see that in the next webinar so just a quick little look here so what's on this form are some common items I like to call them the the truck stock the things that you typically keep on a truck so the idea here is the electrician writes in the quantity and the first two on the input just puts in the item number and the quantity and it's real easy to do the input it's even easier with the mobile version because they just put the quantity in and it's all done but again this form can be modified you can add things you can delete things at the end of this particular webinar I'll give you a quick example of how easy it is to add and delete items from the form okay so that pretty much wraps up the setup okay with the setup in place we can go in and create an invoice we're ready you just go up to this heading for job file for those of you that use the electrical bin manager kind of a similar format you hit new job so job needs a minimum of two things and it really needs a third I'm gonna maximize this it needs a name I'm just gonna call this TM demo it could be service call it could be a service upgrade it could be kitchen remodel conference room remodel whatever it is now the second thing we need is a customer now this is the program as it comes off the shelf so there's no customers in here yet when I go down to the bottom left and hit select customer it's empty so you just hit new maybe a quick little detour here you can import your customers from QuickBooks or Peachtree or you can just add them on the fly as they come up if you add a customer to the TNM program that isn't in QuickBooks when you export it it'll get added to QuickBooks so we're just gonna call this the generic ABC company our contact name is gonna be Derek and his addresses and a phone number okay so we got the basic contact information in here you can put cell phones and email addresses and as much of that information if you want to fill in if at this point you know that some of the any of the defaults don't apply to the customer likes it let's say for example that we charge them a different hourly rate you can set that up now so the customer the program will remember that and you won't have to override it every time you do the billing so I'm gonna come down here to labor rates and then go to hourly journeyman let's say we only charge him eighty two dollars an hour now when you hit OK it gives you a message telling you that you're not changing the default you're just applying that rate to this customer so the same thing would apply to markup if you give them a different markup if they have different sales tax different terms anything you do at the customer level now becomes a default for the customer and then when you create a job for that customer it applies that customer settings even when you're in the job you can still change them though that's the important thing to remember here I'm gonna save this customer and then I'm gonna hit select so at this point let's assume we've actually already done the work I'm going to paste what's in the work ordered to the work performed by hitting the paste button and then I can even added it further and we're ready to move on so the job has a name it has a customer and it has a description of what we gonna do or what we've already done or both then we'll hit save at the bottom so to input the material and labor if you have the form you just pop back there and get the item number so you know the person doing the input would have the form sitting next to their computer screen if the item number for three-quarter-inch EMP is 1001 so we just type that into the first field just put a hundred feet now we need the item number for 3/4 inch set screw steel connectors put in ten of those just gonna flip back to the form again a three quarter inch coupling is 1517 and I'm gonna look for a 3/4 inch one hole strap a little further down 21:24 and then we'll do some number twelve th H n now that's on a different page down here in the bottom right you'll see number twelve is twenty five ninety six so inputting from the form is super easy you just put in the item number put in the quantity and move to the next item now for items that aren't in that form we've got three more options like I mentioned earlier the TNM program has its own database for those of you that have used the estimating electrical management program it's pretty similar in the organization and content it's a little smaller database but it's very similar if we go to item database here and we're looking for a stainless steel plate because it's not in the work order form we just open up material you can either double click or hit the little plus sign come down here to plates and covers stainless steel will do one gang and we'll do a duplex receptacle plate so when you've build all the way to the last level and select the item it'll prompt us for the quantity we'll put in 5 and hit ok now you can also use the search function to find something here a pull box is kind of a routine ordinary item I use this example in our other webinars but it's a little bit difficult to find the search button in the TNM desktop version is this pathway buttons so you would just type in pull box it's not case-sensitive but it does have to be spelled exactly correct to hit to have a match so it's going to look through the whole program and find every pathway and every place it finds the word pull box if you're familiar with the EBM program is kind of a combination of the pathway and the description search now up here is a four by four by four now you don't double click here which might seem like the thing you should do you hit select at the bottom and then it prompts you for the quantity and then you just hit OK let's pick one more item for the database I think it's always a good idea to try to find it that way you learned your way around let's say we're looking for a cut in box those are under outlet boxes under switch boxes and there's a one gang steel cutting box I'll put in five of those so that's the second way to look up to put items into the to the invoices from the database if it's not the database you can always make up a temporary item down here at the bottom right is add temp item you always need a few widgets now the price on a temporary item should be plugged in this way go to the trade price field and put in the price that you're gonna mark up from in your case it would be the target price if you use in the target is C that's the benchmark or the base price so you notice that even though I put in $10 from the trade price the target price is the same unless I apply a discount now for job costing purposes if you know that you paid less for that you could put in the actual cost it's still going to mark up from the target price because that's what our setup says mark up the target price 50 it will hit save and it'll prompt us for the quantity put in five widgets okay last and certainly not least is the ability to pull items out of epics so on a very typical TM time material situation you buy materials just for the job maybe you have them shipped to the job site to your shop to pick them up on the way to the job we're always gonna have an invoice and or a packing slip for those of items and worst case scenario you've got the package that it comes in and the packages and the invoices the packing slips have catalog numbers if you have a catalog number it's a no-brainer to go in and look it up an epic so down here at the bottom right I'll hit add epic item so let's say we've used some humble receptacles under the little blue folder at the top we can go to the manufacturer and look up modes so that you can select humble come here to the little red tab 4-h and then come down here to humble wiring devices all the way down here and you double click to open up that product line now there's twelve thousand six hundred plus items if you look down here at the bottom left I don't want to scroll through those I'm just gonna go to the look up by catalog number here on the taskbar here and we'll type in fifty 362 typically with catalog number you don't need to type out the whole number you know if it's a fifty 362 I or 53 62 W or 53 62 any of the other letters we'll get there with just typing in 53 62 now to export this items you come up to the toolbar on the top right it's a little piece of paper with the red arrow and export it back to the job so it fills in everything pretty much so we need now this is a very good opportunity to check if you have the invoice the invoice price from your wholesaler make sure that he didn't charge you more than the target price for now we're just gonna hit save I'm gonna put in PI for the quantity and okay so those are the four ways to put material into an invoice pull them off the work order form look them up with the TNM database make up temporary items or pull them in from epic now labor is part of the database so if I come down here to the item database open up the labor folder hourly journeyman so I'm gonna bill him for 16 hours I'm gonna attach a note to that because I want to tell him who did the work in one day they did the work so that was Erin and Jim and they did the work yesterday and I want that note to print on the invoice I checked that box if you don't check it it's still saved with the job come back later you need to identify who did the work even if you didn't print it on the invoice you'd still have it in the job I'll just hit OK again you can bill them for things like a service call you can bill them for tools you can bill them for you can issue a credit if you need to but we're ready to look at this invoice I'm gonna hit the close button up here and hit the print button at the bottom left and we're going to preview and there's our invoice there's the work perform that we type in now this field can grow up to about 20 lines of text if it needs to so it's a good place to put details here's your material here's your labor there's your note there's your service charge and there's our total down there at the bottom so that's with what we call all prices and totals if you don't want that much detail this little red door here will lift when you say yes we'll bring you back to the screen where you can change the report format so the next less level of details would be totals with item quantities only we'll preview that gives you a materialist with quantities but no pricing sometimes that's a good way to go some people don't even give them that much detail if you say yes here and do the subtotals only all will do is get them a breakdown of the material and labor again a every customer every situation is a little bit different but the cut the program will let you tailor it to whichever way to need to do it and even if you send them this invoice they come back later and say I want to break out just go back and change the report format and you've got all the detail there it's still there whether you show it to them how much you showed of them of course that's your call now for job costing internal purposes there's a report called the price and cost comparisons so this shows you your cost over here on the far right 967 is the material and labor the 1728 is what we charge in the customer so our gross profit in dollars is the 761 that's the difference between the 1728 and our cost which is a 44% gross profit 761 divided into 17 28 and I don't think most people with a couple clicks could generate a cost report like that either for just for internal purposes or even for job costing in your accounting system the only other thing I want to cover before we wrap up is just real quickly how to change the work order form that's under reports down here at the bottom left under work order so the program comes with two sample templates the one I was looking with was the commercial one there's also a residential one which has more things like plastic boxes and romex and supposed to the commercial one which is more about conduit and stuff like that so the commercial one here if I go down a ways there's a folder for aluminum wire tha Chen I'm going to open it up now your your option here is to delete individual items or delete the whole folder if you've got the category the folder highlighted and yet delete it'll delete the whole group you're not deleting items from the database the database is over here on the right they're just deleting them from that form that they would use to record the material and labor on a hard copy or to use it on an electronic version of the work order on the mobile device now adding things is a little more pragmatic because you have to decide where to put it a good example right above it here is the copper wire we only have solid on number 12 right now if I want to add to that folder you need to click on it so the little flap comes down come over here to material come down to wire cable and pull line tha Chen's stranded and we'll highlights at number 12 now there's a couple ways to move it over to the left you can drag and drop it or it's real simple just to hit add to work order at the bottom and it puts it at the bottom of that folder and again if you want to move it you can either drag and drop it I kind of think it's just as easy to use these little arrows here and push it up to where you want it again you can delete the 12 solid if that's not something you is very often or to leave it there if you want when you're done making changes what I would do is hit save as and just save it under a different name just save it under my name so that in effect I didn't change the original template I just used it as a starting point made some changed it and saved it under a different name so now if I go down to print I want the logo on the work order form I don't want the job data for now I want to preview it so we didn't change anything on the first three pages but if you go down the previous page go back a page so the third page you'll see over here on the bottom right where we added the twelve stranded and there was a category the right above it below it for the aluminum thh Empire which we took out all together super easy to change those and again one more time that form will appear on the mobile device it's one of the way you can input material labor on the mobile device I want to thank everyone for attending the webinar here today have a good rest of your day and certainly check back with us if we can be of any help with training or using the programs