How to Use QuickBooks For Job Costing – Setting Up Payroll

Many companies believe that setting up payroll in QuickBooks for job costing is frustrating and difficult. It’s true that there are several steps that need to be taken in order for payroll to flow properly to the job costing reports, especially if you want to include payroll taxes and benefits, but the step-by-step instructions below will help guide you through the setup.

Since labor is usually the biggest expense for most companies who are doing job costing, it is vitally important that it be included in your job cost reports. If you don’t, then jobs will look more profitable than they really are. Even worse, some of them might even be losing money without you even knowing it. This not only affects your present situation, but can lead you to create inaccurate estimates for future jobs.

So here are the steps for setting up payroll for job costing in QuickBooks:

Set up Preferences:

1. Go to Edit > Preferences > Company Preferences and select Payroll & Employees

2. Select “Full Payroll” or “Complete Payroll Customers”

3. Check “Job Costing, Class and Item tracking for paycheck expenses”

4. Go to Time & Expenses

5. Select Yes under “Do you track time?”

6. May also want to check “Create invoices from a list of time & expenses”

Set up Payroll Items:

1. Go to Lists > Payroll Items

2. Edit every Addition and Company Contribution item to ensure that “Track expenses by job” is checked

3. Payroll items can only map to one expense account, so you may want to setup separate ones for COGS and overhead payroll expense

Set up Employee Records:

1. Go to the Employee Center and double-click on employee name

2. Change Tab to Payroll & Compensation Info

3. Check “Use time data to create paychecks”

Set up Default for New Employees:

1. Go to the Employee Center and select Manage Employee Information > Change Employee Default Settings

2. Check “Use time data to create paychecks

Set up Workers Comp:

1. Setup workers comp at Employees > Workers Compensation > Setup Workers Comp

2. Setup your workers comp codes at Employees > Workers Compensation > Workers Comp List

3. Go to Lists > Payroll Items to double-check that the Workers Comp payroll item has “Track expenses by job” checked

Using Timesheets

1. Go to Employees > Enter Time > Use Weekly Timesheet

2. Complete all information including both a payroll item & a service item (these are different) – mark as billable if you do time & material billing

3. You may want to add a customer:job for overhead

4. Consider using Time Tracker or WorkTrack Time Card so employees can enter their own time…

Solar Power – Solving the Land Use Problem

Solar power has a ton of momentum these days even taking into account the Great Recession. While it is going gang busters in the residential market, the commercial application always seems to run into one problem – land use. New efforts are being made to get around this and they might just work.

Solar farms have been shown to be highly effective energy producers. They work in different ways, but most focus on producing heat that can be used to turn water into steam. The pressurized steam then turns a turbine, which cranks a generator and produces electricity. This is the same way nuclear and coal electricity generation works, but without all the nasty pollutants and radiation issues.

Given this, why don’t we see more solar farms? Well, there are real land use problems. You need a large number of mirror installations to generate the heat. This takes up a lot of land, which makes the projects very expensive considering the general cost of land these days before even taking into account the cost of building and maintaining the installation.

Given the cost problems, it is hardly a surprise that companies are looking for alternatives. Ironically, a utility company may have come up with the best idea. I say “ironically” because utilities are not often associated with creative ideas. Southern California Edison, however, may have a great one.

The utility has come up with a simple idea that seems to run afoul of no possible parties. The idea is to rent the top of warehouse roofs across the huge industrial areas every city seems to have. The utility then installs a bevy of solar panels on the roofs and wires them into the grid. This effectively turns these vast unused, empty spaces into energy producers. The building owner is happy because it makes some money it otherwise would not have.

All and all, the warehouse roof rental idea seems like a true win-win idea. These days, that is a pretty hard thing to find.…

Warehouse Racking Systems: The Options

Adjustable Pallet Racking

Adjustable pallet racking is the most widely used technique for storing palletised unit loads. It consists of upright frames and horizontal beams that interlock to form the rack structure. Within the rack each pallet is individually supported and independently accessible. Adjustable pallet racking arranged in a wide aisle pattern, a minimum of 2.5 metres wide aisles, requires no specialised handling equipment. A standard counter balance truck can be used in aisles 3.5 to 4.0 metres wide. Reach trucks can work aisles only 2.5 metres wide. A limitation of using standard lift trucks is that the racking system’s height is restricted to the maximum lift height of the trucks.

Racking arranged in this way gives a high quality storage but may only utilise 40% of the available floor space, the rest being aisles. However, fast through put and ease of loading make this type of storage extremely popular.

Narrow Aisle

Narrow aisle racking systems have the aisle width reduced to around 1.6 metres. This can free up to 45% of the floor space given over to aisles in a wide aisle scheme. Narrow aisle forklift trucks must be used with the system, but the net result is a dramatic increase in space utilisation.

Drive-in Racking

If storage capacity is a prime requirement of your warehouse then drive-in racking may offer the solution. Eliminating aisles and lanes produces a higher storage density at the expense of selectivity. The first pallet into a lane will be the last out.

However in many applications pallets are received and dispatched in batches so this is not a disadvantage. Each pallet is supported so damage from crushing is eliminated. Speed of operation is good with standard forklift trucks driving into the lanes to pick and place pallets. It can be further increased by the provision of lead-in rails and guidance rails with the lanes.

Push Back

Push back is an innovative solution that enables full space utilisation when a run of rack backs onto a wall or has a barrier that prevents total access. Push back comprises special beams and two push back sub frames assemblies running from front to back in each bay. The fabricated sub frames have wheels that run in captive tracks that mounts onto the beams. The rear beam is higher than the front beam so the sub frames come to rest at the front of the bay. When a standard fork lift truck place the first pallet in a bay it sits on the sub frame. Putting a second pallet into the bay pushes the first pallet to the back. When lowered, the second pallet then sits on the beams so preventing the first pallet from rolling forward.

Live Storage

High storage density and perfect stock rotation. Any size and shape of pallet can be handled and each is fully supported. This system is ideal for fast moving, perishable goods.

Mobile Racking

Powered mobile pallet racking comprises of conventional pallet racking mounted upon …

Labor Day Celebration

Brief History

Labor Day is being celebrated in most parts of the world. Countries have their own specific date for them to celebrate their Labor days. As for the Americans, they celebrate their Labor Day every first Monday of September.

The first ever Labor Day that was celebrated in the United States was back in September 5, 1882 which was held in New York City. The celebration is all about the commemoration for the workers who died at the hands of the US Military and the US Marshals in the Pullman Strike in 1894. During the term of President Grover Cleverland, he made Labor Day a national holiday for the Americans. Since then, it is being celebrated every year.

Things to do

There are so many things we can do during the Labor Day. Workers are off and it is a Monday, so we can expect a three day weekend vacation from work. We can enjoy picnics with our family along the park. It will be a very enjoyable thing to do. We can take the kids out and just enjoy the lazy afternoons sitting on the park and play some outdoor activities.

We can also do barbeques at home. We can grill chicken, fish, and anything we like. We can invite our friends to come over and join us for the celebration. Everyone is encouraged to enjoy during this day before going back to work the next day. Make the most of the break because there can be only a few of these in the U.S.

If we want to really enjoy the three-day off, we can try going somewhere out of town and spend the whole weekend with our family there. It would be a very good way for us to really relish the three day break. It is also a way for us to unwind and relax before we engage back with our jobs again.

Camping can be a very good idea as well. Consider going to camping sites within the first two days. You can enjoy your time with your family, and still have a day to rest after. The kids will definitely love camping. It will also be a good thing for you to escape from the busy life out in the city for a while.

Tips and Recommendations

If you are planning to go out of town or camping somewhere, always book your trip beforehand. That way, you can reserve rooms for you and your family. There are lots of people that will be planning for the same thing, and it would be better is you get to book for your own, and reserve a room for your family.…

The Ancient Art of Preserving the Body of the Dead, Mummification

Everyone has something that he or she might need to protect and preserve for as long as they can. For this reason, mankind has invented several ways of protecting different things. From tin cans to plastic boxes, we have different kind of food packaging available today. Businesses such as Contract Warehouse provide fulfillment packaging services and provide high end protection for various goods. It is an interesting fact that preservation and protection of valuable things is not a modern concept.

Even the most ancient of civilizations used to protect their precious things that they wanted to last forever. Talking about the most ancient civilization, the Egyptian civilization, the most precious of all things were the Pharaohs. The process used to preserve their bodies after death is called mummification.

In general, mummification is not specific to any particular region or human being. A mummy is any corpse or body whose skin and organs have been preserved. This could either be intentional or incidental preservation. In case of incidental mummification, factors such as extreme cold weather or the lack of air can act as preservatives.

Typically, mummification in Egypt was intentional and they used chemicals for this purpose. Yet, long before this, Egyptians used a natural process of mummification. They used to bury their dead in dry desert sand, where the heat and less humid environment naturally preserved the body. Later, they learned chemical mummification to protect the bodies from animals in the desert.

For Egyptians, mummification soon became a part of their religion and mythical life. It was assumed that a person might need their body in the afterworld. Therefore, the body along with several worldly possessions was preserved and kept in a casket. It is also said that the tetragonal shape of pyramids was supposed to preserve the body for a longer time.

The mummification was based on several processes. Ancient murals and hieroglyphs on the pyramids’ walls give us quite a detailed account of these processes. The first process which is called embalming was carried out at IBU, the tent of purification. This usually took 70 days to complete. The body was washed with Natron, which is a salt that dehydrates the body. Once cleansed, the body was taken to Wabet where the internal organs were removed through incisions.

After removing the organs, the internal space was cleansed and stuffed temporarily. The organs were also treated with Natron and later had to go through all the mummification processes as well. In mummies found from the Middle Kingdom and later dynasties, the brain was also removed and preserved. Then the dry Natron was applied inside and outside of the body.

Forty days after the application of Natron, the body became completely dehydrated so that decaying would not occur. It was then bathed in perfume, decorated and wrapped in linen. The purpose of linen was to protect the body from breakage. The body and organs along with valuable possessions were …

Controlled mechanical ventilation with heat recovery takes place by means of machinery that is installed inside industries or factories and simply exchanges the internal air with the external one. Thanks to this operation – taking the internal air and sending it out – the air passes through a heat exchanger, which retains the heat itself. 

The controlled mechanical ventilation system is used in particular to avoid mold, humidity and condensation inside the home. But in reality every controlled mechanical ventilation system achieves this result as a “side effect”, but it is not its main function. For more information about the positive pressurization unit, visit the website https://www.refrind.com/en/our-products/pressurization-systems/industrial-positive-pressure-ventilation-units/

Hence, one way to ensure the protection of workers in places where there may be gas leaks is to prepare local pressurization filters, or spaces interposed to separate the safe area from the compartment with the danger of gas emissions and toxic substances. Designed to allow the occupants to breathe properly through the special ventilation ducts created ad hoc. It is an essential tool, made with high-strength materials capable of filtering and purifying the air even in contact with high temperatures. The pressurization devices are made using filters and perimeter gaskets which, when assembled together, give a suitable suitability for the correct functioning of the gasket described above and correctly calibrated return springs that guarantee its closure. 

The systems to ensure that there is an air pressurization are designed to create a “safe” place for the occupants of the building who have to operate in a difficult scenario due to gas emissions. This prevents gases from escaping naturally through special fireplaces or windowed surfaces, and the filter will be pressurized by means of a special ventilation system with parameters expressly indicated by law. The systems we are talking about provide for adequate openings or gas evacuation filters that exploit the natural principle of thermal stratification to guarantee the protection of people inside the filter, while the general principle for which a filter is pressurized in the event of emission is to maintain a positive pressure differential between the area to be protected and the premises where the event took place, with the aim of preventing the smoke or gas produced by the sinistros8 event from penetrating inside it.…

Cephalopelvic Disproportion

Cephalopelvic disproportion, or CPD, is a condition that is diagnosed when a baby’s head is too large to fit through his mother’s pelvis during birth. CPD is often declared on a woman before she even goes into labor. This results in many unnecessary cesarean sections each year. However, if you truly have CPD, it can lead to a problematic labor.

There are two forms of cephalopelvic disproportion: absolute and relative. However, even when doctors use the term “absolute,” this does not confer upon a woman a fate of solely c-section births. In fact, in one study, 68% of women who were given the condition of CPD still had vaginal births. Nevertheless, there are still women who have true cephalopelvic disproportion. This can be due to malnutrition as a child, such as from rickets or other such things. Also, it can result from pelvic injury or abnormality.

Relative CPD, also called feto-pelvic disproportion, is usually diagnosed during labor or due to circumstances right before delivery. It is often given when a labor is long-lasting. Some things that contribute to relative CPD include:

Restriction of the mother’s movement

Pelvic misalignment

Nuchal arm or head

Baby is face-up instead of down towards the mother’s back

Other improper positioning of the baby’s head

Brow or face presentation of the baby

Additionally, a pregnant woman may indeed try to deliver a baby that is too large for her pelvis. Sometimes, this is not due to the woman’s body, but to that of the baby. Overly large babies, which are said to have macrosomia, can truly get stuck in the birth canal. Things like gestational diabetes, being late for a due date, heredity, and not being the first baby can contribute to a larger child.

Some women naturally have longer labors than others. Also, the pelvic joints spread as the baby’s unfused bones compress to fit through the birth canal. This can make it difficult for doctors to conclusively diagnose that a mother will suffer from CPD during birth. However, doctors often turn to the diagnosis of CPD and opt for a c-section when other options fail. When labor fails to progress, and even inducing drugs like oxytocin do not help, your obstetrician may want a caesarian section.

The problem with CPD is that there is a chance that your baby can be stuck in the birth canal for too long, which can result in several health issues for your child. These include things such as shoulder dystocia and birth infections.

When a doctor fails to induce labor, your baby’s health may be at risk. If your healthcare practitioner has failed in his or her duty to you and your baby, you may be entitled to financial compensation. For more information regarding birth injury law, check out the law firm of Lowenthal & Abrams PC, today.…

Tips On Storing Perishables

Anyone who is in the business of taking vast amounts of goods around the country, or for importing from foreign nations will always have a problem of finding the right storage facilities which are big enough to take the amount coming in. A public warehouse facility is there for just such a purpose. Indeed, the 3PL way is the best way to solve any kind of storage problem that may crop up.

The third party logistic providers will certainly know how to take control of any goods that are in transit. They can also repackage and reprint anything to do with these goods to save the contractor time and energy.

But this is not the only service that these companies provide. Loads which are sometimes huge can be split apart into smaller units so that they can be delivered all over the country. This used to be done by the wholesaler but since he no longer has to worry about this aspect, he can usually source other business while this work is being undertaken.

The other good thing about getting a great company to help out is that they normally have contacts with sister companies who can custom make cartons to repack most of the goods. The way in which goods are packaged really denotes how they will arrive at their destination so making sure that the cartons are of reasonable quality will ensure that the goods arrive undamaged.

This is particularly important when it is fresh foods that are to be transported across the country. Even the storage has to be at the right temperatures so that the goods do not perish, and then there is the speed of breaking down the order and transporting them onwards to consider.

For example, fresh lobster or seafood is notoriously difficult to keep fresh so having temperature controlled facilities is of the utmost importance. Then the handling and repackaging must be done by people who know how to handle this commodity in a clean and efficient manner, all the time keeping the product as cool as possible. Then they have to be delivered across the country from temperature controlled vehicles to ensure that they arrive at their destination as fresh as possible for the consumer or restaurant to consume safely.

Where chicken or other fowl is being stored, cross contamination is also a problem since these commodities often drip body fluids out of their packaging. Contamination can be a problem so it is imperative that the people handling these goods know how to cut down on cross contamination and eliminate it completely if possible.

It is obvious then that any goods which have to be stored away from the contractor or importer buying them must be entrusted to companies who know how to take care of them in the best possible way. Of course, once the company has proved itself, importers or buyers will certainly keep going back to where they get quality and timely service at excellent …

Does Pineapple Induce Labor?

If you are past your due date you may be looking for some ideas to get labor going. There are some foods that have properties in them that are known for helping prepare your body for labor and even sometimes inducing labor. Pineapples are one type of food that may help your body ready for labor. Tropical fruits like pineapples, mangoes, and papaya contain enzymes known as proteolytic enzymes. What these enzymes do for your body is they help break down protein.

While they function to break down proteins, they have also been used for all kinds of natural remedies such as anti-inflammatories and aiding digestion. Their digestive properties may help explain how they can induce labor. Sometimes foods that cause the bowels to move can stimulate contractions. This is because your intestines and uterus are both made up of smooth muscles. If the smooth muscles of your intestines start to move or contract, this can carry over to your uterus and stimulate contractions.

Bromelain, a specific type of proteolytic enzyme found in pineapple, may also help with softening the cervix. In order for a woman to go into labor, her cervix needs to efface and dilate (or thin out and open up). The softening of her cervix helps to prepare the body for labor and in this way pineapples may help to induce labor. Eating pineapples, however, may not have immediate results but it is a natural way to prepare the body for labor though.

If you want to try to induce labor naturally or just help get your body ready for labor by eating pineapples, make sure that you are eating fresh pineapples. The canning process destroys most of the enzymes and won’t have the same affect. Also know that the core is the richest in bromelain.…

Missing Shoulder Launched Surface-to-Air Missiles from Libyan Military Warehouse

Okay so, it appears that shoulder launched surface-to-air missiles have fallen out of control of the Libyan army and into the hands of Libyan rebels. NATO obviously doesn’t want the Libyan Army to have them, as they will try to shoot down NATO helicopters, UAVs, or Cargo and Attack aircraft, unfortunately, we also know that many of the Libyan rebels are or were members of Al Qaeda.

We also know that Egypt is allowing folks to travel over the border into the Gaza Strip, and we know weaponry is moving in that direction and along that supply chain. Therefore, one could conclude that; some of those surface-to-air missiles have made their way into the Gaza Strip, thus, will be used in the future against Israeli forces defending their nation from future rocket attacks.

It is quite possible that some of those surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), and perhaps, other weapons too, have also made their way into the Sudan where they are having a civil war, and in all of these places there are radicalized Muslim terrorists, as well as members of Al Qaeda stoking the flames. Al Qaeda with shoulder launched surface-to-air missiles is quite problematic for peacekeeping efforts, NATO forces, US military, and Arab governments with aerial assets used to keep the peace.

There was a rather alarming article in SpaceWars Online News titled “Missing SAMs in Libya Alarms West” by Staff Writers in Cairo. The article stated;

“Russia has sold countless thousands to Moammar Gadhafi’s regime over the years, mainly Strela-2s, also known as SA-7s. But it’s not known had many Libya had when fighting broke out there. U.S. teams have dismantled more than 30,000 worldwide since 2003 but an estimated 500,000-750,000 remain in military arsenals.”

Perhaps, you can see how deadly and dangerous these types of weapons are in the hands of international terrorists. Terrorists also know that they must use these weapons sooner, than later, because the rocket propellant only lasts for a certain number of years, and in the extreme heat, it won’t last as long because the rocket fuel separates. That rocket fuel can also be used to make explosives, along with the tips of the missile, which can be used to make a more robust and longer-ranged RPGs.

While everyone is worried that Iran will get a nuclear bomb, and give that to proxy terrorists to use, which is probably not all too far off in the future, what about hundreds, if not thousands of shoulder launched antiaircraft missiles?

These shoulder-launched SAMs could also be used on soft civilian targets such as airliners killing scores of people to make a statement for their cause. We already know that Al Qaeda has a fascination and fetish with attacking civilian targets of this type. Therefore this is not a good thing, and I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.…