COMPARE / QUICKBOOKS
Keep QuickBooks for your books. Track your materials with InventoryHQ.
QuickBooks tracks the dollars. InventoryHQ tracks the physical material behind them, then hands the cost back. Most contractors run both.
Keep your accounting workflow in QuickBooks. Use InventoryHQ to record where materials go, what each job uses, and what comes back. A supplier bill tells you what you purchased; your team's records show what happened next.
Why material counts get out of sync
Materials move from the shop to a truck, from a truck to a job, and sometimes back again. When those movements go unrecorded, your stock records can fall behind what your team actually has. Recording deliveries, usage, and returns helps keep quantities and job costs current.
Purchases
Record what arrived, how much it cost, and where it was delivered.
Movement
Record transfers between the shop, trucks, and jobs, including unused materials coming back.
On hand
Use those records alongside physical counts to check what is available.
Compare the workflows
Two systems, two jobs. This is a division of labor, not a contest.
| InventoryHQ | QuickBooks inventory | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Where material is and what a job used | Valuation and financial reporting |
| Unit of record | A movement | A transaction |
| Multiple locations | Warehouses, trucks, and jobs | Limited, and by SKU |
| Truck stock | Standing stock per truck | Not modeled |
| Returns from a job | A transaction that puts stock back | Adjust a bill, if anyone remembers |
| Job material cost | By what was issued, used, and returned | By what was billed to the job |
| Who updates it | The crew, as material moves | The bookkeeper, from paperwork |
The number your accountant cannot produce.
Estimated against actual material on a single job, while the crew is still on site and somebody can still explain the difference. That comparison needs a record of movement, which is the one thing the accounting system does not hold.
Working with a bookkeeper? See how the month-end close changes.
- Estimated material
- $41,200
- Actual material
- $44,865
- Over estimate
- $3,665
On the QuickBooks Online connection.
A QuickBooks Online integration that pushes material cost against customers and jobs is in progress and is not live yet. We are not going to pretend otherwise on a comparison page. Leave your email on the homepage and you will hear when it ships.
Count what you have. Then decide what to buy.
Keep your accounting in QuickBooks. Give your team one place to record material movements and review costs by job.
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