The job on your phone. The books in QuickBooks.

QuickBooks is where your accountant wants the numbers. It's not where you want to be standing in someone's loft trying to price a job. Most trades end up with the two halves out of step: invoices raised in one place, typed into the other at the end of the month, and a few that never make it.

With Adminmate the invoice goes to the customer from your phone, and a card asks whether to post it to QuickBooks. One tap, and it's in. Posted once, never twice, with your invoice number and your VAT treatment intact.

Why the invoice should start on your phone, not in QuickBooks

QuickBooks will raise an invoice. It will not price the job from your rate card on the drive, send a quote the customer can accept on their phone, ask for the deposit, tell you when the quote's been opened, or get a polite reminder ready when the invoice is late. Those are the steps that decide whether you get paid this week or next month, and they happen on the job, not at the desk.

So the invoice starts where the job is, on your phone, from the quote they already accepted. QuickBooks gets it when you say so, complete, with the number and the VAT as the customer saw them. Your accountant gets a clean ledger; you get your evening.

Setting up QuickBooks, and what to check with your accountant

Connecting takes two minutes in Settings, through Intuit's own sign-in. Before the first posted invoice, three things are worth a word with whoever does your books.

• Which income account sales should post to.
• Your VAT treatment: registered or not, and whether your prices are on top of VAT or include it. The app asks once and prints every invoice the same way.
• If you're in CIS, how they want the deduction shown, so the contractor's statement and QuickBooks agree.