QuickBooks Online vs Desktop for Contractors: Job Costing, Progress Billing and Retainage

What contractors actually need from accounting

General ledger features matter less to a contractor than these:

• Job costing: budgets, committed costs and actual costs by job and cost code, updated as bills and timesheets come in.
• Progress billing: invoicing against a schedule of values, with change orders.
• Retainage: held on every progress bill, receivable from owners and payable to subs, released at completion. See retainage in construction.
• WIP reporting: over- and under-billing by job for your surety and lender.
• Lien waivers and sub compliance collected before payments go out, by state rules (see our lien waiver guide).

QuickBooks Online vs Desktop, side by side

Prices and limits from Intuit's pricing and usage-limit pages, November 2026. Pro Plus and Premier Plus (including the contractor-focused editions) are no longer sold to new US subscribers; existing subscribers can renew.

Progress billing and retainage

Both products can invoice progress against an estimate. When you convert from Desktop, Intuit says progress invoices stay linked to their estimates, but active estimates become Closed and extra progress-invoice fields must be set up again, so convert at a clean billing point.

Retainage is where contractors most often find gaps. Many contractors track it with a retainage item and a retainage receivable or payable account rather than a dedicated feature. Before you move, ask how your target plan handles retainage on owner invoices and on subcontractor bills, and how it reports retainage owed by job.

Where Intuit Enterprise Suite fits

Intuit Enterprise Suite (IES) is Intuit's tier above QuickBooks Online for multi-entity, project-based and construction businesses. Intuit added a Construction Edition in February 2026. IES is priced by contract through Intuit sales, with no published list price. For a contractor with several entities or heavy project accounting who wants to stay with Intuit, it's the option to price.

When a construction ERP fits better

QuickBooks is a strong general ledger. It starts to strain when a contractor runs:

• monthly AIA-style pay applications with retainage on every job;
• lien waivers and insurance certificates collected from dozens of subcontractors before payment;
• committed costs from subcontracts and purchase orders, not just bills;
• a WIP schedule the surety relies on every quarter.

At that point a construction ERP, or QuickBooks for the ledger plus a construction system for jobs, usually beats stretching any QuickBooks plan. Agenbord Build for general contractors is designed for that workflow and is in early access; our Procore alternatives and Buildertrend alternatives comparisons cover the established options fairly.

Moving without losing job history

Whichever way you go, convert at a month-end, reconcile job cost reports between old and new systems, and keep the Desktop file as an archive. See what converts to QuickBooks Online, and use our migration cost estimator to see what a move with job costing typically involves.

Plan details from Intuit's pages as of November 13, 2026. Features and prices change; confirm on Intuit's site and with your accountant.