Purpose-built for contractors

CrewCost vs. QuickBooks Desktop for Contractors

Desktop was the best QuickBooks for contractors. Intuit has stopped selling most of it to new customers, and what remains is priced per seat. CrewCost keeps what Desktop did well and adds what it never could.

A real budget: three levels of cost codes by cost type, tied to the ledger

WIP schedules and native retainage tracking, no spreadsheets

Implementation included, unlimited users, native Procore sync

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The verdict at a glance

	QuickBooks Desktop	CrewCost
Budget	One flat item list	Three levels of cost codes, by cost type
WIP report	Spreadsheet	Automatic
Progress billing	Invoice against an estimate	Pay app from the prime contract
Retainage	Negative line item	Native tracking + release
How it’s priced	Per seat	Flat, unlimited users

Side by side: what each one does without a workaround

If you run Desktop today, the left column is your current process. The right is the same task in CrewCost.

	QuickBooks Desktop	CrewCost
Job cost structure	Cost codes built as Items and sub-items on one list	Three levels of cost codes, plus cost type: labor, material, equipment, subcontract, other; tied to the GL
Contracts	Estimates and purchase orders	Prime contracts and subcontracts that build the schedule of values, the pay app, and the WIP
When a cost reaches the job	Only if entered on the Items tab	Every bill, sub pay app, and payroll run posts by default
Committed costs	A report, in Enterprise only	On the budget the day the sub or PO is issued
Cost to complete	Not available	On every budget line, with gain or fade
WIP / over-under billing	Manual WIP accounts and a spreadsheet	Automatic. Job costs are a subledger of the GL, so WIP ties out
Retainage	Negative line items and custom reports	Tracked natively on both sides, through release
Labor burden on the job	Depends on setup; usually incomplete	Pay, taxes, and benefits post to the job
Accounts payable	Keyed by hand, approvals by email	Captured from inbox, matched, routed to PMs
Field access	A server and a VPN	Cloud; PMs approve from anywhere
Implementation & users	Your accountant; per-seat licenses	Included; unlimited users

Where Desktop runs out

One flat item list. Try building a real budget on it.

Desktop job-costs through the Item list: one flat list of items and sub-items standing in for cost codes. It works until the job needs structure. Try building Concrete, then Rebar and Forming under it, then labor, material, equipment and subcontract under each of those, and then getting a crew's hours and a lumber receipt to land on the right line. Three places that shows up:

A budget with one layer

Items and sub-items give you a list, not a budget. There is no cost type under a cost code, so labor, material, equipment and subcontract for the same line are either separate items or not tracked at all, and none of it ties to the general ledger. CrewCost's budget has three levels of cost codes and a fourth by cost type, and the job ledger ties out to the GL by construction.

Time and receipts that never reach the budget

QuickBooks Time can tag an entry with a customer, a job and a service item. Those hours reach a report and stop: no budget line moves, no cost to complete changes. Receipts get coded days later in the office by someone working from a photo. In CrewCost the crew and the buyer code it to the cost code and cost type themselves, and the budget updates the same day.

Pay apps from estimates, WIP by hand

Desktop bills progress against an estimate and tracks subcontractors as purchase orders. There is no prime contract and no subcontract, so nothing builds the schedule of values, the monthly pay app, or the WIP schedule. They get built in Excel, and retainage is a negative-rate line item and a monthly reconciliation, mirrored for subs.

What changes in CrewCost

Everything Desktop did, without the item list

A real budget: three levels of cost codes by cost type, with committed costs, cost to complete and ECAC on every line, tied to the GL

Prime contracts and subcontracts that build the schedule of values, the monthly pay app, and the WIP; retainage tracked through release

Payroll that lands on the job with burden, regular and overtime split

AI-powered AP with PM approvals from the field

What the move costs

The question isn't what Desktop costs. It's what replaces it.

Desktop is cheap and it will stay cheap. The cost that decides this sits on the other side of the move, and for most contractors leaving Desktop it is a three-vendor stack before anyone has opened a budget. Every figure below is for the same company: an $8M contractor with 18 employees and four people in the office.

Stay on Desktop

$5,300 / yr

Enterprise Gold, four seats, plus Intuit's per-employee payroll fee. The cheapest option here, and the one that leaves everything above unsolved.

Sage Intacct

$58,000 / yr

Before payroll. Sage's own rate card applied to this company: three accounting seats plus PM and superintendent seats, a Sage partner for implementation and support at about $18,000 a year, and a Procore connector. No field seats, because on Sage the crew's hours live in the payroll vendor. Almost all of it is fixed, so headcount barely moves it. The quote it comes from was $42,000 a year with a single accounting seat.

CrewCost

$11,988 / yr

Before payroll. $999 a month, paid annually, for contractors under $10M. Unlimited users, implementation included. Accounting, job costing, time and expenses in one system, with payroll running inside it rather than at a third vendor.

Procore itself sits on all three paths, so it is not counted in any of them. Payroll is excluded from the Sage and CrewCost figures so they compare like for like; on Sage it is a third vendor. Desktop: Enterprise Gold list pricing plus Intuit's per-employee fee, effective February 2026. Sage: the rate card from a 2024 Sage Intacct Construction quote via a Sage partner, applied to this company; Sage has raised prices since.

“We’re now able to track our labor production against our estimated costs automatically.”

Daniel Kurtin, General Manager, Luma Exteriors — exterior contractor, $5–10M revenue

Your three options off QuickBooks Desktop

Enterprise or Intuit Enterprise Suite

The familiar path and the expensive one. Higher annual cost for the same item-based job costing — with a couple of reports added.

A construction ERP

Sage Intacct, Foundation or ComputerEase. Real construction accounting, priced per user, with implementation sold as an ongoing partner subscription and payroll from a third vendor.

CrewCost

Everything Desktop did for you, without the item list, plus the budget, WIP, and retainage it never had. Implementation included; live in days.

Questions Desktop contractors ask

Is QuickBooks Desktop being discontinued?

Partly. After September 30, 2024, Intuit stopped selling new subscriptions of Desktop Pro Plus, Premier Plus, Mac Plus and Enhanced Payroll to U.S. customers. Existing subscribers can keep renewing, and Enterprise is still sold. In practice, a contractor on Pro or Premier has one Desktop path left, and it is Enterprise at Enterprise prices.

Should a contractor move from Desktop to QuickBooks Online?

QuickBooks Online is a real cloud product, but it job-costs the same way Desktop does — through items and classes. You get the cloud without getting a budget, a WIP schedule, or retainage. If the reason you are leaving Desktop is job costing, Online does not solve it.

How is CrewCost different from Enterprise Contractor Edition?

Contractor Edition adds reports on top of the same item-based structure. CrewCost replaces the structure: a budget with three levels of cost codes and a fourth by cost type, tied to the general ledger; real prime contracts and subcontracts rather than estimates and purchase orders; and WIP and pay apps that come out of those contracts rather than a spreadsheet.

What comes over from Desktop when we switch?

Your chart of accounts, items, customers, vendors and trial balance, plus open AR and AP. For jobs in flight we bring over the budget by cost code and job-to-date costs, so you finish the job in CrewCost rather than in two systems. Implementation is included and we do the mapping with you rather than handing you a template.

We use Procore with the Desktop connector. What happens to that?

CrewCost has a native Procore integration, so the connector goes away. Jobs, budgets, prime contracts, commitments, subcontractor invoices and direct costs sync between the two systems, vendors and customers stay in sync, and payments flow both ways.

Build confidently.

Bring one of your jobs. We'll show you the budget, the WIP schedule, and retainage tracked through release.

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