The red flag is this article from CNN Money.  The gears of government grind slowly but exceedingly fine (trite, but accurate).  The IRS figures to gain some $7 billion over the next 10 years by actively and randomly auditing businesses for misuse of independent contractors vs. employees.

Don’t be on the wrong side of this chasm as a business owner.  This article tells you, among other things, to file an SS-8 IRS form to get an IRS determination.  Whatever you do, don’t depend on the advice of an taxation amateur like myself.  Get professional assistance from an accredited tax expert and don’t forget your state agencies or other governmental agencies such as unemployment insurance in your evaluation process. Be proactive before you have to defend yourself for what is an essentially legitimate business strategy.

Work is hard to come by, but don’t encourage the abuse of the independent contractor model by accepting work you know really should be done by an employee.  When the work starts to look like a job complete with scheduling requirements and stipulations how the job is to be done, better give it a second look! Being an independent contractor can be an excellent choice for the right person (and the right business that needs to outsource the work).  It’s not an excellent choice for trying to shuck and jive taxation and labor laws.

Camtasia is the tool you need in your toolbox.  Affordable and you can incorporate your PowerPoint presentation in it.  Camtasia will record your mouse movements over your screen while you voice annotate.  Your brand new church treasurer can follow along and return to the video even after the previous treasurer moved away.

Wouldn’t that make your QuickBooks usage more stable?  Improve volunteer and paid employee morale? Increase confidence and increase the bottom line?

PS: While you’re there, grab SnagIt as well, powerful screen capture tool if you need somebody else to see exactly what you are looking at.

• .nd – If you are in multi-user mode (not included in Simple Start version), you may see this .nd file.  The file is created as a way for the network to access your data file.  Don’t delete it.
• .tlg - These are transaction logs created in the backup process, very handy for Tech Support if something goes haywire during the process.
• .qbm – This is a portable file, a compressed version of your .qbw working file to email or move around.
• .qbx, .qba, .qby – These files are all associated with the accountant’s copy, a handy way to get just the right amount of info to your accountant while allowing you to still work on your company file.  .qbx is the file created when you do the export, .qba is the accountant’s copy created to work with, and .qby is the file that you import back in from the accountant (I’ll post more about this process in the future).

Now the next time you are playing around in your Windows Explorer trying to make sense of all the different QuickBooks files you find, you should have a good idea what each one does, who gets it and where does it go.  I will post some more down the road about how to use Windows Explorer to actually work with these different files.

Meantime, go crunch some numbers:)

The common recommendation for small business sites is a Wordpress platform, which works fine until you decide you want to color outside the box:)

If you are like me, you’ll melt at the thought of missing your Outlook email and contact lists.  Include that backup in your schedule for sure!

Here is how you do it:

1. Go to File pull down menu and choose Import or Export.
2. In the little popup that appears, choose Export to a File.
3. Then choose Personal Folder File (.pst), Personal Folders (be sure to check Include Subfolders).
4. Select a path where you want to save it.  I name each .pst with the date, so I know what I did last and I’m not overwriting something I want to keep.

Don’t have an Outlook meltdown; back up your .pst file!

more to follow…

• .qbw – Top of the list, this is your company file, the one you open in QuickBooks all the time.  Shortcut to finding out where the file is being already stored - File/Open Previous Company (the one at the top of the list is your current .qbw and it will show the file path).  Suggest creating a folder at C:/Intuit and copying this file to that place (not sure about Windows 7 but if you need to do a operating system repair, My Documents can get wiped out; don’t use My Documents to store anything important). The .qbw file extension is the only file you can open QuickBooks from directly if you double-click on it.

More to follow…

You can do this, you know. Start with a free online resource.  You’ll need to register, but I won’t send you anyplace that misuses your info.  (If they do, call me, ok?)

• Intuit Community: I worked on this site for over 3 years and I know the people. You can post your question directly from within QuickBooks if you want to, but you don’t want to miss out on the wealth of other small business topics on the site.  Other folks on the community are QuickBooks users just like you.  They do it all every day and your odds are good you can find out what you need.  Hint: before you ask, try the Search function.  It’s not great, but try it anyway.
• Quickbooksusers: This somewhat smaller site is all about Quickbooks, another user-generated powerful resource for you to try out.  If you bump into Shannon Tucker, tell him I said hi:)
• Intuit Support Knowledge Base: They call it a knowledge base for good reason but often overlooked.  Knowledge base articles often show up when you Google for help.

I was in Borders a few days ago and I noticed several Quickbooks 2010 manuals such as the Official Guide. I don’t recommend reading these front to back, but get used to knowing where stuff is in the book. One particular book, Laura Madeira’s QuickBooks 2010 on Demand, you ought to have.  I got a rave review from one client in the last month, really excited to have something so usable.  I couldn’t have said it better.

Dennis

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