QuickBooks for contractors: where job costing stops

QuickBooks for contractors can collect cost by job on QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced, and on QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise Contractor. As of November 2026, US Plus lists at USD 140 per month and Advanced at USD 340, while Canada Plus lists at CAD 110 and Advanced at CAD 220. Enterprise's job-costing page names a Committed costs by job report and a Work-in-progress report. Those pages do not describe cost-to-complete, percentage-of-completion revenue, retainage or holdback as its own liability, AIA-style pay apps, or certified payroll. Firms at 20 to 100 people then keep a second workbook or a second app beside the file.

What QuickBooks Online charges for project job costing

Intuit places construction job costing in Projects, and Projects are available to QuickBooks Online Plus and QuickBooks Online Advanced. On those plans you can tag time and expenses to a job and run job profitability and cost reports. The construction page states that scope. Simple Start and Essentials are cheaper, and the same construction guidance does not put Projects on them.

US list prices on the pricing page, seen November 2026, have no annual contract and can be cancelled anytime. The 50 percent discount runs for three months. After that, the list price is the number that belongs in a budget.

• Simple Start (List price: USD 38 per month · Promo shown: USD 19 per month for 3 months · Users: 1 · Job-cost items named: Projects not listed here)
• Essentials (List price: USD 85 per month · Promo shown: USD 42.50 per month for 3 months · Users: 3 · Job-cost items named: Projects not listed here)
• Plus (List price: USD 140 per month · Promo shown: USD 70 per month for 3 months · Users: 5 plus 2 accountants · Job-cost items named: Project profitability, budgets, inventory, purchase orders, classes and locations up to 40)
• Advanced (List price: USD 340 per month · Promo shown: USD 170 per month for 3 months · Users: 25 plus 3 accountants · Job-cost items named: Construction financials, advanced project financials, unlimited classes and locations, workflow automation, Excel sync, batch invoices and expenses, custom user permissions)

A 25-person contractor who needs Projects is already past Plus's five users. Advanced's 25-user cap matches that headcount on paper. Field supers, project managers, and AP clerks often share logins once the cap is tight, which is the moment the user count stops matching the payroll register.

Classes and locations are the Online tools people use when a job needs a cost split. Plus stops at 40 combined classes and locations. Advanced removes that cap. A specialty contractor with one class per cost code can burn through 40 codes on a handful of active jobs. That limit is a plan fact, from the same US pricing page, and it arrives before any conversation about percentage of completion.

Canada uses different plan names and CAD list prices on the Canada pricing page, also seen November 2026. Checkout says taxes are extra, there is no annual contract, and the buyer can cancel anytime. The promotion shown is 90 percent off for six months.

• EasyStart (List price: CAD 30 per month · Promo shown: CAD 3 per month for 6 months · Users: 1 · Job-cost items named: Project profitability not listed on this tier)
• Plus (List price: CAD 110 per month · Promo shown: CAD 11 per month for 6 months · Users: Up to 5 · Job-cost items named: Project profitability, budgets, inventory, multi-currency, classes and locations up to 40)
• Advanced (List price: CAD 220 per month · Promo shown: CAD 22 per month for 6 months · Users: Up to 25 · Job-cost items named: Unlimited classes and locations, workflow automation, Excel sync, revenue recognition, backup and restore)

Canada Plus at CAD 110 a month is the first plan that includes project profitability. A firm that bills in USD and CAD already needs that multi-currency line, which the Canada Plus feature list includes. Advanced at CAD 220 adds revenue recognition to the feature list. The page does not say that revenue recognition produces a percentage-of-completion schedule for a construction contract. Have Intuit show that report on a sample of your own jobs before you treat the line as a WIP method.

QuickBooks Canada payroll, on that same pricing page, lists a base of CAD 30 per month plus CAD 5 per employee per month, with the base shown at CAD 3 during the 90 percent promotion. It can pay and file payroll taxes online to the CRA or Revenu Québec and calculates T4 and RL-1 forms. Workers' compensation tracking on that page is listed for Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia. For a crew in Alberta or another province, confirm the payroll screen before you rely on that feature card.

What Enterprise Contractor edition names, and what it prices

QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise is sold in industry editions, including Construction. Each industry edition has the same key features as the standard edition, plus reports and tools such as a chart of accounts and menu items for that business type. The contractor edition page is the product page for that positioning, including cloud hosting and one free Field Service Management user.

The Enterprise job-costing page says Desktop Enterprise has the fullest job-costing toolset of any QuickBooks product. The tools it lists include a Job Costing Center, change orders, a Committed costs by job report, a Work-in-progress report, Job costs by job, and employee time tracking. Those two report names are real. The page does not describe what either report calculates, and it does not describe percentage-of-completion revenue recognition, retainage or holdback liability, or AIA G702/G703 billing. Treat the report names as report names. Ask for a walkthrough on one open job: committed cost against the budget, cost left to complete, and revenue earned to date. Before you enter a change in QuickBooks, a free construction change order form can price it with markups and tax and keep the log for the job.

The US Enterprise pricing page, seen November 2026, shows Gold, Platinum, and Diamond each with a struck price of USD 38 and a promotional starting price of USD 19 per month. Gold and Platinum are labeled annual subscription. Diamond is labeled monthly subscription, is only available on a monthly payment plan, and is sold in increments of 1 to 10, 20, 30, and 40 users. The page does not publish a full price table by user count. Cloud hosting is extra. Budget the starting figure as a display price, then get a written quote for your user count before you compare it with Online Advanced at USD 340 a month.

Add-ons on those cards change the labour bill. Enhanced Payroll is listed as up to USD 3 per employee per month. Diamond Assisted Payroll is listed as USD 2.50 per employee per pay period, and the US subscriptions FAQ lists an extra USD 12 per month for an additional state. Diamond Time Elite is USD 5 per employee per month. Assume 40 hourly employees, paid weekly, on Diamond: Time Elite is 40 times USD 5, or USD 200 per month, and Assisted Payroll is 40 times USD 2.50 times 52 pay periods, or USD 5,200 per year, before any extra state fee. That arithmetic uses the published unit rates. It is not a quote for your file.

Intercompany transactions are only available in Enterprise Platinum and Diamond. Consolidating reports from multiple company files require every file to be on the same Enterprise version and Microsoft Office 2013 to 2019 or Microsoft 365. A general contractor with a separate company file for a related equipment company cannot treat "multi-company reporting" on the marketing page as one ledger. The consolidation rules are version matching plus an Office requirement, from the contractor edition page.

Intuit's own pricing FAQ separates three products: QuickBooks Online Advanced (up to 25 users, cloud), QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise (up to 40 users), and Intuit Enterprise Suite, which Intuit positions for multi-entity organizations that need heavy project costing for construction or service industries. Enterprise is still the desktop product. Intuit Enterprise Suite is Intuit's cloud path when the story becomes multi-entity project costing. That is Intuit's routing, published on the US pricing page.

Where the published job-costing screens stop

Page-one guides show how to tag a bill to a project. A controller at 20 to 100 people needs a different list: which construction accounting steps the vendor's own pages describe, and which steps those pages leave off the page. Treat a missing description as a demo item. Have each shortlisted product open your jobs and produce the schedule.

• Cost by job and cost split (What Intuit's pages state: Online Plus and Advanced: Projects, job profitability, classes and locations. Enterprise: Job costs by job, Job Costing Center, employee time tracking · What to have demonstrated on your jobs: Time and vendor bills landing on the job and the cost code you use in the field)
• Purchase commitments (What Intuit's pages state: Enterprise names a Committed costs by job report. Online Plus includes purchase orders · What to have demonstrated on your jobs: An open PO reducing remaining budget before the vendor invoice is entered)
• Change orders (What Intuit's pages state: Enterprise lists change orders among job-costing tools · What to have demonstrated on your jobs: An approved change updating both the contract amount and the cost budget)
• Work in progress (What Intuit's pages state: Enterprise names a Work-in-progress report. The page does not describe the calculation · What to have demonstrated on your jobs: Cost to complete, percent complete, and over/under billing that your CPA will sign)
• Percentage of completion (What Intuit's pages state: Not described on the Online construction page or the Enterprise job-costing page · What to have demonstrated on your jobs: Revenue earned this period from cost incurred over cost to complete, with the journal entry)
• Retainage or holdback (What Intuit's pages state: Not described on those pages · What to have demonstrated on your jobs: A liability that ages by job until the release, separate from the progress invoice)
• AIA-style pay apps (What Intuit's pages state: Not described on those pages · What to have demonstrated on your jobs: G702 and G703 continuation sheets that match the schedule of values)
• Certified payroll (What Intuit's pages state: Not described on those pages · What to have demonstrated on your jobs: A certified report your public-work jobs already have to file)
• More than one company (What Intuit's pages state: Intercompany only on Enterprise Platinum and Diamond, with version and Office rules for consolidating files · What to have demonstrated on your jobs: One close across the entities that share equipment, labour, or bonding)

A buyer comparing editions online will see a line such as "Compare the 2026 QuickBooks editions for construction. Find out which tier you need for job costing, AIA progress billing, and certified payroll." That sentence is from a third-party comparison. Use the table above when a page assigns AIA billing or certified payroll to a tier. If the tier claim is absent from an Intuit page, ask for the click-path inside your company file.

The same gap shows up in how owners talk about the product. One search result puts the question in plain language: "Can anyone suggest a good job costing construction accounting software?" The thread title is the request. Job profitability on Plus is a real report. A cost-to-complete forecast the surety or the CPA asks for at month-end is a separate schedule, and the construction page does not describe it.

What a construction add-on adds to the monthly bill

Intuit's construction page says QuickBooks integrates with Buildertrend, Knowify, Houzz Pro, and Housecall Pro, and that those integrations let data sync so the contractor can manage leads, projects, and financials without duplicate entries. That is Intuit's claim about the integration. It does not measure whether every cost code syncs.

Knowify's own pricing page, seen November 8, 2026, is the add-on with published figures in this set. The page shows a yearly and monthly toggle and displays two monthly amounts per tier. It does not label which figure is the yearly-billed rate, so both belong in the comparison and neither should be picked as the annual rate.

• Core (Amounts displayed: USD 99 and USD 149 per month · Users included: 1 · What Knowify says the plan includes: AIA pay applications (G702 and G703) and progress billing)
• Advanced (Amounts displayed: USD 329 and USD 399 per month · Users included: 10 · What Knowify says the plan includes: Job costing, project budgets, and real-time WIP reporting)
• Extra user (Amounts displayed: USD 29 per month · Users included: Each added user · What Knowify says the plan includes: Applies on top of the included users)
• Enterprise (Amounts displayed: Quote only · Users included: Not published · What Knowify says the plan includes: The plan Knowify names for the QuickBooks Desktop integration)

Knowify says its QuickBooks Online integration syncs customers, vendors, purchases, expenses, invoices, time, and projects, and that the Online integration is for Plus or Advanced. Knowify places job costing, project budgets, and real-time WIP on Advanced. Core is the tier that includes AIA pay applications. A firm that buys Core to get G702 and G703 still needs Advanced before it has Knowify's WIP reporting. On the same pricing page, Knowify describes the Desktop integration as push-to-sync and places that integration on the Enterprise plan. Knowify describes the Online sync as real-time. If your file is Desktop, put Intuit's sync claim next to that push-to-sync description and ask which fields move, and who pushes them.

Assume a US firm on QuickBooks Online Advanced at the USD 340 list price, plus Knowify Advanced for 10 users. The Knowify page displays USD 329 and USD 399 per month for that tier. The software stack on the table is USD 340 plus one of those two displayed amounts, so USD 669 or USD 739 per month before an eleventh user at USD 29. Add the eleventh and twelfth user and the Knowify side rises by USD 58. The three-month Online promo at USD 170 does not change the ongoing list. Taxes, payroll, and hosting are outside this pair of subscriptions.

Buildertrend and Procore appear by name on Intuit's construction page. Ask each vendor for a written quote, including extra users, and add that quote to the QuickBooks list price before you treat the combination as one budget.

The operational cost is the second entry, even when a sync exists. Someone still confirms that a cost code in the field app is the class or the item in QuickBooks. Someone still explains why the WIP report in the add-on and the Work-in-progress report in Enterprise do not match. That reconciliation hour is part of close. It does not appear on either invoice.

Which Desktop subscriptions you can still buy

The desktop story is a migration trigger, and the dates differ in the United States and in Canada. Use Intuit's own FAQ for the stop-sell and the service end in each country.

In the US, as of October 1, 2024, Intuit no longer sells new subscriptions for QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus, Premier Plus, Mac Plus, or Desktop Enhanced Payroll. Existing subscribers can still renew and still receive security updates, product updates, and support. New desktop buyers are pointed to QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise, which is still sold. Intuit says Enterprise includes industry-specific and job costing reports and can accommodate up to 40 simultaneous users. Enterprise is the desktop product still offered to new US subscribers. Its public page shows a promotional starting price and does not publish a full price by user count.

After a US QuickBooks Desktop Plus subscription is cancelled, Intuit says the customer has view-only access for 12 months and can export, and cannot edit with an inactive license during that period. View-only requires Windows Plus 2023 R3 or newer, or Mac Plus 2024 or newer. If a move slips, that 12-month window is the export deadline, from the same US subscriptions FAQ.

In Canada, starting on or after April 2025, Intuit planned to stop selling QuickBooks Desktop Pro, QuickBooks Desktop Premier, and QuickBooks Desktop Payroll to new Canadian subscribers. Purchases of Pro, Premier, or Desktop Enhanced Payroll before the cutoff had to be made by April 15, 2025. That is the Canada sale FAQ. A Canadian firm that missed that date is not buying a new Premier Contractor subscription.

Intuit Canada's Desktop 2023 discontinuation page says that after May 31, 2026, QuickBooks Desktop 2023 is discontinued, including QuickBooks Desktop Pro, Premier, and QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 23.0. After that date the 2023 products lose live technical support, Desktop Payroll, Desktop Payments, and online bank feeds, and they stop receiving critical security updates starting June 1, 2026. Existing Desktop Plus subscribers are told they can move to the 2024 version included in the subscription. A Canadian contractor still closing jobs in Enterprise Solutions 23.0 is working toward a published service end of May 31, 2026. This page does not state a Canadian dollar price for Enterprise. Get that quote from Intuit in CAD before you compare it with Canada Online Advanced at CAD 220 a month.

How a Canadian contractor should treat tax and holdback

The CRA says the GST/HST rate depends on the place of supply. On the page updated April 8, 2026, Nova Scotia HST is 14 percent after the provincial portion fell to 9 percent on April 1, 2025. The page's examples charge 13 percent HST when the place of supply is Ontario, and 5 percent GST plus 7 percent Manitoba PST when goods are picked up in Manitoba. Those three cases are the ones the CRA page supports here. A job supplied in another province needs the rate for that place of supply, checked on the same CRA guidance, then entered on the progress invoice. QuickBooks Canada checkout prices exclude tax, so the CAD 110 or CAD 220 software bill is not the tax on the draw.

Holdback is the amount the payer keeps back until the contract allows release. Provincial rates and prompt-payment deadlines differ, and a single national percent does not belong on an invoice template. Have your accountant apply the rate and the release timing for the province where the work is supplied. In the books, the amount withheld should sit where someone can age it by job. A credit note buried in accounts receivable, or a line in a workbook named holdback, will miss a release and can miss the lien timing your province sets. QuickBooks Canada's published plan pages do not describe that liability. Build the test into the demo: invoice a draw, withhold the holdback, release it on a later date, and show the balance sheet account.

Payroll filing and holdback land in the same month-end and stay separate on the books. Payroll Core files to the CRA or Revenu Québec. Holdback is a contract liability you should be able to age by job. A controller who wants both on one screen is looking at a construction ledger that can hold that liability beside the payroll filings.

Signs the workbook has become the accounting system

These signs follow from what the product pages withhold and from how contractors fill the gap. You can check them against last month's close without a software demo.

1. The Work-in-progress report in Enterprise, or the project profitability report in Online, is exported and then rebuilt before anyone sends it to the bank or the surety. The rebuild is the percentage-of-completion schedule the product page does not describe.
2. Retainage or holdback lives in a sheet, a second item, or a standing instruction to keep some back on every draw. Releases get missed, and the liability on the balance sheet does not tie to open jobs.
3. Purchase orders exist, and the job budget changes when the bill is entered. Committed cost, if you are on Enterprise, is a report name you do not use to stop an overrun while the PO is still open.
4. You have more than one company file, and intercompany is either unavailable on your edition or a monthly journal someone types. Platinum and Diamond are the editions that include intercompany transactions, and consolidating files still have to match versions.
5. In Canada, the live file is QuickBooks Desktop 2023, including Enterprise Solutions 23.0, and May 31, 2026 is the service end Intuit has already published.
6. A construction app holds the schedule of values, and QuickBooks holds the invoice, and a person re-keys or pushes the batch. Knowify's Desktop path is push-to-sync and sits on a quote-only plan. Online sync still needs Plus or Advanced underneath it.
7. User count, classes, or company files have been redesigned to fit a cap: shared logins above 25 on Advanced, cost codes collapsed to stay under 40 classes on Plus, or a related company kept in its own file to avoid a second set of classes.

Any one of these can be a cleanup inside QuickBooks. Several at once are the patchwork. The subscription you are already paying, USD 140 or USD 340 in the US, or CAD 110 or CAD 220 in Canada, plus a Knowify Advanced display of USD 329 or USD 399, is the cost of keeping both systems current. The close still waits on the workbook.

What to move to once job cost leaves the QuickBooks file

Dynamics 365 Business Central and Odoo are the two platforms that can hold commitments, cost to complete, and milestone billing on the job for a contractor of this size. Flectic is an independent consultancy that implements Odoo and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Business Central list prices, on Microsoft's pricing page as of November 2026, are USD 80.00 per user per month for Essentials, USD 110.00 for Premium, and USD 8.00 for Team Members, paid yearly. Microsoft says to contact a partner to purchase, and that prices shown may not be the actual list price because of currency, country, and region. A 30-day trial is free. Assume 25 people, of whom 8 need a full license and 17 only need to look up jobs, enter time, or approve a bill. On Essentials that is 8 times USD 80.00 plus 17 times USD 8.00, or USD 640 plus USD 136, or USD 776 per month before tax and before any country adjustment. Premium for those same 8 full users would be 8 times USD 110.00, or USD 880, plus the same USD 136 of Team Members, or USD 1,016 per month. Set that figure beside Online Advanced at USD 340 for 25 users, then list the job-cost steps you still need shown: commitments, cost to complete, and billing on the job.

Odoo is the path we use when the contractor wants quotations, job budgets, procurement, labour, and milestone billing on one database, with licenses billed apart from the implementation. The Odoo Construction package is the fixed-scope offer for that move: Core for one legal entity, and Growth for estimating and wider controls across up to 2 legal entities. A firm choosing between that package and Business Central should start with a written comparison of budget, entities, and who will run the system. That comparison is the work on our ERP selection page. Flectic is an independent consultancy that implements Odoo and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

What moves, in practical order:

1. Open jobs, the chart of accounts, customers, vendors, and employees, with opening balances reconciled before anyone posts a draw in the new system.
2. Cost codes and the schedule of values, so committed purchase orders and recorded cost hit the same codes the superintendents already use.
3. Active retainage or holdback balances, aged by job, so the first month in the new system does not drop the withheld amounts.
4. Payroll stays where filing already works until the construction ledger is stable. Canada payroll that files to the CRA or Revenu Québec does not have to move in the same week as job cost. US certified payroll is a demonstration item on the new system if your public-work jobs require it, because the QuickBooks pages cited here do not describe it.
5. Historical jobs can stay in QuickBooks for lookup. A cancelled US Desktop Plus file is view-only for 12 months with export rights. A Canadian Desktop 2023 file should be exported before security updates stop on June 1, 2026.

Intuit's own FAQ already points multi-entity construction project costing at Intuit Enterprise Suite. That stay-with-Intuit choice is priced and scoped by Intuit. Odoo or Business Central is the independent alternative, chosen after the gaps in the table above are written down for your jobs. For a wider software list, see our construction accounting software compared guide. The generic timing question sits in when to move from QuickBooks to an ERP. The cutover sequence, once the platform is chosen, is in QuickBooks to Odoo or Business Central migration steps. This page stays on the contractor's job-cost decision.

How Flectic can help

When the job budget, the purchase commitment and the draw need to sit on the same job, Flectic sets that up in Odoo for contractors of 20 to 100 people in the US and Canada who run tenders, site crews, procurement and milestone billing. We set up job budgets by cost code, purchase commitments, labour time and milestone billing, so recorded costs can be checked against the budget while the job runs. Core includes up to 48 hours of customization, 1 source system with up to 8 data objects, and 1 named standard connector. Read the scope on the Odoo Construction package for tenders, job budgets and milestone billing, then Book a free discovery call.

Sources

• QuickBooks Online Pricing & Free Trial, Intuit, November 2026
• Plans & Pricing | QuickBooks Canada, Intuit, November 2026
• Best Construction Accounting Software, Intuit, November 2026
• Enterprise Construction & Contractor Software, Intuit, November 2026
• QuickBooks Enterprise job costing, Intuit, November 2026
• QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise Pricing, Intuit, November 2026
• Common QuickBooks Desktop questions on subscriptions and support, Intuit, November 2026
• QuickBooks Desktop sale discontinuation frequently asked questions, Intuit, November 2026
• QuickBooks Desktop 2023 service discontinuation policy, Intuit, November 2026
• Knowify pricing, Knowify, November 2026
• Dynamics 365 Business Central pricing, Microsoft, November 2026
• Charge and collect the GST/HST, Canada Revenue Agency, April 2026
• QuickBooks for Construction Contractors: Compare 2026 Editions, Construction Coverage, November 2026
• Construction accounting software thread, Reddit, November 2026