QuickBooks locks job costing behind a $90+/mo tier and treats mileage as an afterthought. Fast Pay Books gives contractors and construction businesses per-job profit, materials tracking, 1099 subs, and on-site payments — from the phone in your pocket, for $24.99/mo.
Contractors are the clearest case for leaving QuickBooks, because the things you need most are the things QuickBooks does worst on its cheaper plans. Three frustrations come up again and again:
Job costing is locked behind the Plus tier. The single most important question in a contracting business — did this job make money? — requires QuickBooks's project/job costing, which lives in the Plus tier at $90+/mo. On Simple Start at $38/mo, you get a general ledger that tells you total revenue and total expenses, which is useless for deciding what to bid next. So contractors either pay for the expensive tier or run their real job math in a spreadsheet next to the accounting software they're already paying for.
The workflow is desktop-oriented. QuickBooks Online was built for someone at a desk — a bookkeeper, an office manager, an accountant. Its mobile app is a companion, not the product. But a contractor's business happens in the truck, at the supply house, and on the job site. If entering a receipt means "remember it until tonight," half your receipts never get entered, and every missed receipt is taxable profit you didn't actually make.
Mileage is an afterthought. Driving between sites, the supply house, and inspections is one of a contractor's biggest deductions, and QuickBooks treats mileage tracking as an add-on rather than a core feature. At the 2026 IRS rates of 72.5¢/mile through June 30 and 76¢/mile after, a contractor putting 15,000 business miles on the truck has a $10,500 deduction — money that quietly disappears if the software isn't logging trips automatically.
Strip away the general-ledger machinery and a construction business needs six things done well:
Tag every expense to a job and see true profit per project — not just total revenue — so your next bid is priced from reality.
Snap the supply-house receipt, assign it to the job, and keep lumber, fixtures, and fasteners out of your taxable profit.
Track payments to subs all year with running totals, so you can see who crossed the $600 1099-NEC threshold — no January scramble.
Trips between sites, the supply house, and inspections logged at the 2026 rates of 72.5¢/mi through June 30 and 76¢/mi after, straight onto your Schedule C.
Bill in draws as the job moves — deposit, rough-in, completion — so cash comes in with the work, not 30 days after it.
Send the invoice from the driveway and take card or ACH through built-in Stripe before you leave the job.
Fast Pay Books does all six from a native iOS app (plus web), with receipt photos, job tagging, and one-tap Schedule C export built in. There's no chart of accounts to configure and no reconciliation homework — you tag money as it moves, and the books build themselves.
Two jobs can bill the same and earn wildly different profit once materials, subs, and drive time are counted. Without job-level numbers, you keep bidding the losers at the same price.
If you pay an unincorporated subcontractor $600 or more during the year by cash, check, or bank transfer for services, the IRS requires you to issue a 1099-NEC. Most contractors find this out in January, staring at a checkbook. Record every sub or helper payment in Fast Pay Books as you make it, categorized and tied to the vendor, so you have a clean payment history to work from at 1099-NEC time instead of reconstructing it from your checkbook. Our 1099-NEC guide covers who gets one and when.
When contractors search for QuickBooks alternatives, Jobber ($39/mo entry) and Housecall Pro ($59/mo entry) come up constantly — but they solve a different problem. Both are field-service management platforms: scheduling, dispatch, quoting, CRM, and "on my way" texts. They're good at that. What they are not is accounting software. Neither tracks your deductible mileage, builds a Schedule C, or manages 1099s for your subs — in fact, both advertise their QuickBooks integrations, because they expect you to keep paying for accounting on top.
If your pain is the accounting bill and complexity, swapping QuickBooks for a field-service tool doesn't fix it — you'd be paying for two subscriptions instead of one. Fast Pay Books replaces the accounting layer itself: invoicing, payments, job costing, mileage, 1099s, and taxes at $24.99/mo. For the full landscape, see our complete QuickBooks alternatives guide.
QuickBooks Plus — the tier where job costing lives — runs $90+/mo, and mileage and payments still cost extra. Fast Pay Books Basic is $24.99/mo flat and includes job tagging, automatic mileage, Stripe card and ACH payments, receipt photos, contractor payment records, and tax-ready reports. That's roughly a quarter of the price for the specific features a contractor buys accounting software to get. Need bank sync and AI cash-flow insights? Premium is $74.99/mo — still under the QuickBooks tier that gates job costing. If price is your main driver, our cheap QuickBooks alternative page runs the full cost math.
Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial — a card is required to start, but you're not billed until it ends, so you can run it alongside QuickBooks on a real job before deciding. When you're ready to move, the switching guide walks through exporting your data — most small contractors are moved in an afternoon.
Start your free trial, see all features, or view pricing.
Contractors need per-job costing, materials tracking, automatic mileage, and 1099 handling more than a general ledger. Fast Pay Books is built mobile-first for the trades — you tag expenses to jobs from the truck, mileage logs automatically at the 2026 rates of 72.5 cents per mile through June 30 and 76 cents after, and your expenses stay categorized and tax-ready. At $24.99/mo it costs a fraction of QuickBooks Plus, the tier where QuickBooks puts job costing.
The feature contractors need most — job and project costing — is locked behind the QuickBooks Plus tier at $90+/mo. Mileage tracking is treated as an add-on, and payment processing and payroll fees stack on top. A contractor can easily pay $100–$150/mo for the QuickBooks setup that actually answers "did this job make money?"
Not really. Jobber and Housecall Pro are field-service management tools — scheduling, dispatch, quotes, and CRM — not accounting software. Neither tracks deductible mileage, builds a Schedule C, or manages 1099s for your subs; both advertise QuickBooks integrations because they expect you to keep paying for accounting on top. If the accounting bill is your pain, Fast Pay Books replaces that layer directly.
If you pay an unincorporated subcontractor $600 or more during the year by cash, check, or bank transfer for services, you must issue a 1099-NEC in January. Record every sub or helper payment in Fast Pay Books as you make it, categorized and tied to the vendor, so you have a clean payment history to work from at 1099-NEC time instead of reconstructing it from your checkbook.
Yes. Fast Pay Books is mobile-first on iOS, so you can send an invoice from the driveway and take payment by card or ACH through built-in Stripe before you leave the site. Getting paid same-day instead of net-30 is one of the biggest cash-flow improvements a small contractor can make.