QuickBooks Tips And Tricks: Make it Yours

No matter which version of QuickBooks you’re using, there are always ways to make your workday easier. As with any software, we tend to learn the features we need and not much more. But small changes in the way you operate can add up to significant time savings and more accurate files. If you jumped into QuickBooks without a thorough introduction, consider these tips.

Use the Open Window list

Spend some time in Preferences, and you’ll be surprised to learn that you have more flexibility than you knew. QuickBooks is designed to work for a tremendously wide variety of businesses, so it comes with some features activated but many dormant.

The Open Window list is a good example. Do you tire of closing windows to find a screen that you used several tasks ago? Make sure that you’re in one-window view (View | One Window), and then click View | Open Window List. Click on any entry to move to that page.

Figure 1: The Open Windows list lets you easily move among active screens.

Make account assignment mandatory

QuickBooks lets you enter transactions without assigning them to accounts. So your Chart of Accounts has two accounts labeled Uncategorized Income and Uncategorized Expenses that serve as repositories for these transactions. This means that when you run reports or prepare for taxes, you may have a hard time remembering the circumstances of those transactions and will find it difficult to assign them to accounts.

Do yourself a favor. Set up QuickBooks so that you must assign an account to every transaction. This will take extra time upfront, but not as much as if you try to recall the transaction three months from now. Go to Edit | Preferences | Accounting | Company Preferences and make sure that Require Accounts is checked. If you have questions on this, please call or email us.

Use the Account Prefill fields

Speaking of accounts, here’s a little time-saving tip. If you have vendors that are always assigned to the same account(s), you can establish this constant in the vendor record. Simply open the Edit Vendor window for a client and click the Account Prefill tab. Select the appropriate selection(s) from the drop-down lists. If a payment is sometimes split between multiple accounts, you’ll handle this division when you add transactions.

Figure 2: Designate vendor accounts to save time when creating transactions.

Use “Pending Sales”

Invoices, sales receipts and credit memos can be earmarked as “pending.” These sales do not show up in registers or reports (except for the Pending Sales report) and can’t be used for transactions where payment has already been applied. Create the transaction and click Edit | Mark [form name] As Pending. To finalize it, open the form and click Edit | Mark [form name] As Final.

This action can be useful in multiple situations, including:

• Backordered items
• Draft approvals
• Estimates
• Time-tracking for jobs
• Profit and loss reports that show the impact of pending sales (choose Either as the posting status [Non-posting or Posting] under Filters)

Figure 3: You can mark a payment as “pending” in several situations.

Be kind to your accountant: Set a closing date

Once we’ve worked with your QuickBooks file up to a certain date, entering, editing or deleting transactions prior to that date wreaks havoc with the balance of your books. To be safe, your administrator should password-protect the ability to do this, so that no one does this intentionally or unintentionally. Go to Edit | Preferences | Accounting | Company Preferences and enter a closing date and password. We will change the date each time we complete our work.

Figure 4: Password-protect closed periods to preserve the accuracy of your books.

These are just a few examples of ways you can customize QuickBooks to make your workdays more productive and your record-keeping safer and more reflective of your business. We can help you further tailor the software to make it a better fit.

If you have questions on this or any other QuickBooks feature, call or email us. We’re your partner and we’re here to make your business better.

The new Express Start is designed for businesses that want to blast through setup and start entering customers and invoices. You have two other options, though: Advanced Setup is the old EasyStep interview that solicits more details. You can also open an existing file or convert data from Quicken or other accounting software.

Express Start requires minimal input: company name, industry, company type, tax ID, and contact information. After you save your company file, it lets you start adding or importing customers/vendors/employees, products/services, and bank accounts.

Figure 1: Express Start simplifies company setup.

An Activity-Driven Calendar

QuickBooks’ Reminders keep you apprised of each day’s tasks, but they don’t provide any information about the past or future. QuickBooks 2012 solves this problem with its new Calendar. When you enter an appointment, to-do, or key business task (invoices, bills, purchase orders, etc.), it appears in the calendar. You can display a graphical view of the month that tallies activities for each day and lists them below. Daily and weekly views are in list form. And links open the original documents.

Figure 2: The new Calendar displays daily, weekly, and monthly views of your financial transactions.

Save Excel Formatting

Once you’ve formatted a QuickBooks report in Excel, it’s frustrating to have to reformat it each time you run it for different time periods and/or with your ever-changing content. Excel Integration Refresh simplifies this process. You can now export a report to Excel, make formatting changes and save them, and then reapply them later to the same type of report using different date ranges and your updated QuickBooks data. Acceptable alterations include:

• Row and column header font formatting
• New formulas
• Renamed column and row headers, and report titles
• Resized columns
• Inserted columns and rows
• Inserted formula text

You can do this by opening your report in QuickBooks and clicking Update an existing worksheet, or by launching your report in Excel and clicking the QuickBooks tab on the toolbar, then the Update Report button.

Figure 3: This window opens when you click Update Report in Excel.

A New Report Community

There’s always room for more report formats. QuickBooks 2012 offers a library of Contributed Reports, variations created either by Intuit or your fellow users. You can select one of these, like Customer Sales By Quantity By Item Detail and instantly populate it with your own data.

You can sort these templates by industry and rating, and view them as a list, in a grid, or in the Report Center’s Carousel view.

Centralized Operations

QuickBooks 2012 also saves you time with its new Centers. The Inventory Center works similarly to those available for customers, vendors, and employees. It’s a clearinghouse of item records and transactions that can be viewed and sorted. You can also do inventory housekeeping tasks here, like adding items and launching transactions.

The Lead Center helps you carefully track new leads that you either paste in from Excel or enter manually. You can add to-dos and notes to contact records, and convert them into customers.

Upgrading Can Be Tricky

Intuit has included other, smaller time-saving organizational and reporting tools in QuickBooks 2012, like One-Click Transactions, which lets you create related transactions from existing ones (i.e., invoice to credit memo) with one click.

There’s nothing especially difficult about using most of QuickBooks 2012′s new features. But upgrading and setup are sometimes quirky, and the Excel Integration Refresh tool has a learning curve. We’re happy to help you start your company file on the right foot or get acclimated to this latest version.

Figure 4; Track your leads and convert them into customers in the new Lead Center.

Albert Einstein once said (on filling for tax returns) This is too difficult for a mathematician. It needs a philosopher. Let’s now try and review his statement with the help of a simple story.

Once there lived a girl named Princess who wanted to be independent so she started working as a freelancer. She started making profits in her LLC (Limited Liability company) as a sole proprietor and a single shareholder but never knew that she falls under unincorporated businesses. The Government of the country she lives in also owns a share of profit in her endeavour. She was to be taxed on Schedule C which is different from paying personal taxes. She could easily have modified her mistake if she had disclosed her business income and expenses on Form 1040 Schedule C.

Her business started growing fuelled by the huge demands in the global market for freelancers. So she decided to add a few partners who had similar interests. Now since there were more than one shareholder, the company no more falls under Schedule C. Soon the partners started having conflicts as some of them wanted the partnership to fall under S-corp. In order for the partnership to fall under S-corp the prime criteria would be that the corporation does not pay direct taxes instead the income and expenses are distributed in the personal files of the individual shareholders and the number of shareholders can not exceed 100.

Now Princess is in doldrums because she does not know how to deal with this problem and rectify her mistakes and make the required changes.  So she needs the help of a  Elite Accounting – CPA / Tax advisor Firm. They are the right people who know how to use the right forms in a right way and pay the right amount of taxation. Here at Elite Accounting & Business Services, we offer the solutions to your many needs. Call Elite for more information 847-833-8822.

In the business world, there are a lot of people out there who pay a lot of money for technology, but when it comes to putting that technology to use, they tend to stray away from it. They might even consider hiring someone to use the technology, but they discover that the money they would spend on extra help already went to purchasing the technology. If there is one thing that business owners need to understand, it’s that technology is not a bad thing. As a matter of fact, it’s a great thing that helps many businesses to become more efficient and to save money. This is probably what was going through your head when you decided to buy the technology in the first place. One such piece of technology that gives people trouble is Quick Books. This is why you might want to get some Quick Books training for businesses.

The first thing you’re going to think is that you don’t need Quick Books training for businesses. It’s only going to cost more money. Besides, you’re no idiot. You certainly can use a computer, so there really is no reason to assume that you could not figure out a way to use a program as simple as Quick Books. But when it comes time to use this software, you and your colleagues probably look at one another and decide that it’s time to get another cup of coffee. You can figure out the software later.

The truth is that yes, Quick Books is indeed easy to use, but you may just need Quick Books training for businesses to get you started. There is nothing to be embarrassed about. As a matter of fact, you might be surprised to learn that the business who will be teaching you to use Quick Books weren’t born with this knowledge. They didn’t wake up one day magically knowing how to use certain kinds of software. They had to train as well. If you want to get your finances in order, this training is going to be a smart move.

Quick Books training for businesses is  worthwhile investment for all business owners/managers. It’s also one of these skills that are going to help you to save money in the long term. When you balance your books properly you are going to find that you know where your money is and where it’s gone. This kind of knowledge will empower you to make smarter decisions in your own companies. Call now for more info on our Quick Books Training Program. Mario @ 847-833-8822

To open a shop is easy; to keep it open is an art. And after keeping it open, making profits is the job. This is the mantra that one has to follow while running any kind of business. All the people involved in any kind of business strive to make greater profits each day whether a business is small or big. Now making profits and managing profits are two entirely different things. Again we can say from here in profit management it is very important to understand the kind of business you are in and the tax implications of all the deeds.

Incorporation means creating a new corporation (which is essentially a legal entity) and is read as a person under the law. The benefits of incorporating a business are many some of which include protection of proprietor’s assets (means all the shareholders in the company have to get involved not only in reaping profits but also in paying off debts), falling under lower tax slab, flexibility for the partners to own the shares in a different company, easy access to raising market capital, getting the company credit rating etc. The other benefits of incorporation are, since the business is a legal entity after incorporation it can enter into business contracts or file any law suit if so required. Once the business is incorporated it does not get much affected if one of the partners dies or leaves the company for any reason.

The process of incorporation requires the owners to submit a lot of details and fill out tedious forms which may not be easily understood by common man. The process mainly includes three steps which are deciding on a proper name, submitting the documents and paying the registration fees. Here we can do it on our own but since it is a  complicated process that must be done correctly. So hiring Elite Accounting & Business Services would be a wise decision.

For carrying out a successful business, you are to first chalk out a plan according to which you will go on. It’s just like building a good road, otherwise walking on an unfurnished will do nothing better but make your clothes filthy!

Make a simple outline of the plan at first. It should consist of all the aspects like financial analysis, management team, web plan summary, strategy and implementation, market analysis, product and service, company description and executive summary to be provided at the end.

Now, comes proper maintenance of the road you have made i.e. organizing the plan. Cash flow is the most important mathematical analysis in any b-plan and you should never skip it. Other than Sales Forecast and Profit/Loss statements, they should also be self-interactive by having separate Personnel Settings, Business Ratios, projected Balance Sheet and Market Analysing tables.

It is a general tendency of human beings to run after colourful from very birth! So, you can use pie charts or bar graphs even in order to illustrate the mathematical data in pictorial form.

You will find it difficult to walk on a road which has a lot of bumps. So, try to avoid them by preparing a simple plan. Make it to the point, realistic and complete. A good plan can be organized by following the flowchart given below:

Keys for enhancing the quality of your plan:

• Make your plan guide in your business.
• It should be practical.
• Review your plan and introduce new ideas on a regular basis.
• Good plans help you in setting a deadline for your work

Common mistakes while framing a business plan:

• Don’t let your cash to flow casually.
• Don’t overestimate the significance of idea.
• Don’t make your plan too lengthy. You yourself will get bored!
• Avoid use of vague phrases like ‘being the pioneer’ or ‘being the best’.

Here is the truth about business management. The economy is tough right now. We all know that. You might look at the economy and think that this is all big concept stuff, but the truth is that people aren’t spending because they’re scared. If they’re not buying, then chances are that you’re not going to be selling. You don’t need to have a PhD in economics to figure that much out. This doesn’t mean that you have to give up hope or even starting cutting down your budget until you’re operating out of your car. That might be a little drastic. Instead, if you get an advisor to help you, you might end up with more money than you never even knew you had,

This isn’t magic we’re talking about here. As a matter of fact, we’re talking about the work that a trained and professional CPA can do for you. If you have ever taken an accounting class before, you know there is no magic involved. It’s all numbers. But numbers are a tricky thing, and they can make business management seem a lot more difficult than it needs to. The lesson you should be taking here is that you might very well need some help.

If you want some business management help, look no further.You can learn to use cool and useful programs, such as Quick Books, and even have Elite Accounting advisors look over your finances. What do advisors do? They advise. Again, this isn’t magic, though it might seem that way. They advise you to make good decisions that will save your business both time and money. So contact Mario @ 847-833-8822 to get started now!!

What many business starters don’t realize is the stone-etched fact that, success cannot be attained just by having a 200 page long business plan at hand. There has to be an intangible personal bonding with the prepared plan which motivates one incessantly, thus fabricating an optimist out of a typical businessman.

Want to paint Mona Lisa? Start with an outline.

A model of your business as a whole defines your business plan. To put it in simple words, your business plan should be like an outline of a drawing. Many over confident da Vincis’ start concentrating on the detailed strokes even before completing the outline. This is where they go wrong and end up in a chaos. Would you prefer to work on an impossible, hard-to-understand business plan or start with a simple, workable one? Are you lackadaisical to choose among these? Not to worry! You’ve two choices at hand. Change the existing business plan to your needs and abilities or consult a psychiatrist!

Planning does not end here. In fact, it is simply the beginning or the first-page of your business plan which would motivate you to read on further rather than making you concentrate on the fly buzzing somewhere in the room. With such motivation, you would come up with amazing alternatives for a situation rather than merely reacting to it. Be proactive, the first habit of highly effective people!

FAQ. How to prepare a business plan?

I’ll give you a clue. If you’re hunting WebPages to know ‘how’ to prepare a business plan, then hold on and give a second thought to the job you just walked away from. Do you think you are fit enough to run a business on your own? If yes, then do it in your own style. Be creative. Only imbeciles will need the help of gurus to prepare a business plan. These gurus have nothing to do with ‘successful-business-running’. If so, why would they waste their time sharing their hard-earned experiences with you?

No business plan? Look back. A devil!

Starting a business without a plan is like driving during misty weather. You may proceed well to an extent but expecting to reach the exact destination is totally absurd! An inappropriate business plan or no business plan at all for that matter, introduces you to a devil known as Procrastination. This devil makes the businessman reluctant from taking decisions and ultimately pushes him low. You’d be amazed to know that this devil also has many faithful followers like pessimism, anger, frustration, blood pressure, heart attack and acute sleep disorder.

An effective business plan is one which sums up the present and future prospects of one’s company with regard to factors like funds, employee strengths, resources and priorities. Setting a destination and working towards reaching it is a lot simpler than laying roads throughout by you. Think again and decide! Will you or will you not need a business plan?   When you are ready contact Elite Business Services @ 847-833-8822 .