In March I attended a Foundation (accounting construction software) college in Orlando FL. I had someone ask me what I learned so here is a summary.  If you have read some of my blogs before I like their accounting software, but just like HCSS you have to look at the company and people behind the software. Foundation is not owned by another company (Fred Ode, CEO started the company) and companies that I know use Foundation like the software and its tech support.  (website: foundationsoft.com) If you are looking to move up from Quickbooks or tired of poor tech support schedule a demo today. If you use Foundation there really is no excuse for attending one of these “colleges”.

Here are a few things I learned at Foundation College

  1. If I were a construction company using Foundation I would definitely be sending someone from the accounting department to one of these College events. Even if just a few questions are answered it is worth it but also to be meeting other accounting professionals from other companies is invaluable.
  2. General Ledger and Job Costing should be balanced monthly.
  3. I got a better sense of the separation between job costing and the General Ledger. Job costing has many options depending on how job costs are calculated. Foundation users should be aware of these options.
  4. Project managers can do pending purchase orders so it can be finalized by someone in accounting.
  5. I could tell from the attendees that project managers can create havoc in Foundation. There needs to more discussion between the PM’s and the accounting department instead of a general distrust and a frustrating relationship.
  6. HeavyBid has Indirects and Foundation has Indirects. While the same word they are not referring to the same thing. Indirects in HeavyBid are job specific. Indirects to Foundation are company overhead costs. This is probably common to all accounting software.
  7. All costs should be assigned a job. For example the shop should be a job. Even a project manager can be a job. Warranty work should be a separate job. Setup a query at the end of the year to see how much warranty work was done.
  8. Keep job numbers numeric (I suggest the same for estimate codes)
  9. Put a close date when projects are finaled.
  10. Excel can query Foundation so a good tool for project managers. Foundation has a three day class on setting up and using this feature.
  11. The Phase code for Foundation is a much debated setup. I have been at companies that said their Foundation trainer told them never to use Phases. Once you start assigning a phase code all projects have to have a phase code. I suggest investigating using Phases as the sequential biditem code or use the HCSS bid item code. That way it ties the activity(s) to the owners item.
  12. There is a feature call “Cost Code Groups” that I think allows totals across jobs for different cost codes in the group.
  13. There are user defined codes in the employee setup that can be used for drug test date, OHSA licenses, badge number etc and other employee specific information.
  14. Income can be entered for each biditem so profit can be tracked per pay item.

I had a lot more items and also if you attend the course they give you a large bound manual. Highly recommend.