New Business Direction LLCUsing QuickBooks Mobile, you’ll improve business relations, put out fires before they start and unchain yourself from your office computer.
There are only a few reasons why you wouldn’t be using QuickBooks Mobile on your smartphone. Maybe you don’t have a smartphone. Or when you’re out of the office, you don’t want to be available for accounting work. Or you might not think that it has enough features to make it worth using.
While the first two reasons are matters of personal preference, the third just isn’t true. QuickBooks Mobile automatically – and almost instantly – synchronizes the data from your desktop or laptop computer copy of QuickBooks. While it’s only focused on sales, not payables or payroll, you can manage receivables quite nicely whether you’re in a customer’s office or at a trade show or community event – or sitting on the couch at home.
Figure 1: You can see this screen no matter where you and your smartphone are (the-recently-upgraded Android version is pictured here).
Countless Scenarios
There are numerous situations where you might want to access, add or edit customers, estimates, invoices, sales receipts or payments when you’re not near the PC where QuickBooks is installed, like these:
- You’re a mobile service provider (i.e. appliance repair, locksmith, tow truck operator, pizza delivery) and you want to accept payment on site.
- You do a half day of onsite training and your client wants to pay you cash right then. You can record the payment and email a sales receipt.
- You’re on the road and you want to see how well your bookkeeper is managing receivables. QuickBooks Mobile displays three views: recent activity, today and upcoming.
- You’re with a client who would like to give you a check to get current, but he or she can’t find the invoice. Rather than calling your office and sitting on hold until someone has time to look, you can pull up the form on your smartphone to discuss it.
Figure 2: You can record sales receipts and payments on your smartphone – even schedule appointments that move to your Google calendar.
The Perils of Payroll
QuickBooks Mobile doesn’t support payroll, but Intuit Online Payroll does. Like QuickBooks Mobile, the app itself free (of course, you have to pay for the service itself). You can view the most recent payroll run and employee information, as well as preparing, previewing and approving the current payroll.
Neither app is available yet for the iPad, though QuickBooks Online is.
Figure 3: Missed your flight and afraid you’ll miss the current payroll run, too? Intuit Online Payroll gives you access from your Android or iPhone.
Paper or Plastic?
If you’ve been in business for very long and still don’t accept credit cards, you have an idea of how many sales you’ve lost. You’ll need to get a merchant account from Intuit Merchant Service for QuickBooks (fees apply). A merchant account allows you to accept plastic through QuickBooks itself, your web browser, your web storefront – and on your smartphone or iPad.
You can also download Intuit’s free GoPayment app. You can either swipe cards on the free mobile reader or type numbers in. Your customers sign their names on the surface of your mobile device, and you can print, text or email a receipt. There are no monthly fees, no long-term contracts, and you pay as you go. 
Figure 4: You’ll need to get acquainted with the Intuit Merchant Service Center to work with credit card payments.
It would be nice if those credit card payments were just instantly zapped into the right places in QuickBooks, but alas, it isn’t so. You’ll need to do some setup and processing both within QuickBooks and in the online Intuit Merchant Service Center. We can help you with setup and your initial transactions to make sure all of your payments get through and are deposited and/or credited correctly.
We think you’ll find that once you start using all of the mobile payment services that Intuit offers, you’ll wonder what took you so long.
We hope you’ll be ringing out a successful financial year at month’s end. Here’s what you should know about preparing for a new year.
End of the year: QuickBooks has been hard at work for the past 11+ months, recording and tracking and storing all of that financial data that you’ve entered so faithfully.
But when you turn the calendar page and make a new start January 1, your accounting software could use some closure on the year that’s just passed. Here are some actions you can take to ring out the old and ring in the new. There’s more you can do (we can help you with the advanced activities) but we’ll just hit the highlights here.
- Reconcile, reconcile, reconcile. Yes, we know it’s not one of your favorite chores, but we really like to see all bank and credit card accounts reconciled by the end of the year if at all possible. Void all checks necessary and enter missing transactions.
Figure 1: You can make yourself crazy looking for a nickel when you’re reconciling, but it’s a critical function.
- Make accrual adjustments. This is complicated, and it only applies if you accrue payroll and liabilities or prepay expenses that are then carried as assets. We’ll need to create journal entries for you.
- Close your books. This is totally optional. It depends on whether you want to lock 2012 data to everyone except those who have the password and permissions. If you don’t close them, you’ll have easier access to last year’s transaction details. Regardless of what you choose, QuickBooks® will automatically make some year-end adjustments.
- Do a physical inventory. Then compare this with what QuickBooks® says. Reports | Inventory | Physical Inventory Worksheet.
Figure 2: It’s good to match up your physical inventory count with QuickBooks® occasionally, and the end of the year is as good a time as any.
- Check W-2 and 1099 data. You can’t create these forms, of course, until after your final 2012 payroll, but you can get a head start. Ask employees to verify their names, addresses and Social Security numbers for accuracy. Also, make sure that your EIN and SEIN are correct, as well as the company address.
- Clean up, back up. We can monitor the health of your QuickBooks® data file anytime. But year-end is a good time to scrutinize your software’s performance. Has it slowed down, started crashing or returning error messages? We can troubleshoot to find the problem and clean it up. We’re sure you’ve been backing up your file faithfully, but archive all of 2012 and store it in a very safe offsite location – or use Intuit Data Protect for online storage.
Figure 3: Frequent backups are critical, but you should be sure to have a copy of your entire 2012 data file stored somewhere safe.
- Double-check tax liabilities. If you’re handling your own payroll, look back to see whether all of your payments and filings have been completed.
Thanks for another year
Again, these are suggestions. QuickBooks® does not require you to do any of them. There’s more you can do, and you will need assistance with some of these. So let’s set up a December or early January meeting to get you started right in 2013.
We want to take this opportunity to thank you for letting us serve your company in 2012. We certainly appreciate your business, and we’re happy to do what we can to help your business prosper.
This article of QuickBooks Tips and Tricks was based on the 2013 version of QuickBooks.
We wish you a joyous holiday season and a happy, healthy new year!
Jill, Kristen & Rhonda
New Business Directions
There are different ways to reset a lost password. In QuickBooks there are three different password types. In this article we will outline the purpose of different password types and the ways in which to reset them if they are lost.
Administrator Password:
This allows unlimited privileges. When logged on as Administrator you can add, change, and delete users of the file. If the Administrator Password is lost, you will need help to recover it by using the Automated Password Removal and Reset Service.*
*This service is not available for Point of Sale or any version on QuickBooks for Macintosh – you will be directed to the assisted password removal option if using these products.
User Password:
This is required to log in as a User of a QuickBooks® file. Users can change their assigned password, but cannot change their user name or level of access to the QuickBooks® file data. When a User Password is lost, the Administrator can reset it by logging in and modifying the User Record in the Set Up Users window.
Closing Date Password:
This locks the file so users cannot add, edit, void or delete any transaction dated on or before a specific date – unless they enter this password. Only the Administrator has permission to enter this password to make a change to a closed period. If the Closing Date Password is lost, the Administrator can reset it in the Accounting Company Preferences window.
Troubleshoot Passwords:
Passwords can be rejected for any of the following reasons:
- Passwords are case-sensitive – check your Caps Lock
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Are you in the correct version of QuickBooks®?
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Are you in the correct Company File?
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Could a space have been recorded inadvertently when you created or entered the password?
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Make sure the Numbers Lock is not interfering with numerical characters.
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The keyboard might not be functioning properly
- Enter the password in a text editor program such as Notepad to be sure the keyboard works properly.
- An incorrect login screen appears
- A login screen that asks for a password but not a user name is the Administrator’s login access. If the Administrator’s login screen appears, close QuickBooks® and reopen it.
Automated Password Removal & Reset System:
To reset the Administrator Password by using the Automated Password Removal Service, you must have the product license number and the phone number and zip code you registered the product with. Note: The version of QuickBooks® you last opened your company file with must be on the computer you are using to remove and reset the password.
After completing the Automated Password Removal Service, proceed to use the Automated Password Reset Tool which will reset your Administrator password in any version of QuickBooks® for Windows. All information must match exactly what was used to register the product. The email with the new Access Token will only be sent to the original email on file. The Automated Password Reset Tool will guide you through the remainder of the process.
Important Tips:
- Keep a record of your clients’ Administrator passwords
- It is best that no one, not even the owner, uses the file as Administrator. Set up a username and password for the owner and give the owner full access to the file, except for the ability to affect closed periods. This will add another layer of protection to the closed financial periods.
For more information on this matter, please call us or visit Intuit’s support page on Password Removal here: http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/passwordremoval.aspx
This article of QuickBooks Tips and Tricks was based on the 2012 version of QuickBooks.
QuickBooks® 2013 has a number of new features as well as improvements to existing ones. It also has a few problems as evidenced by the fact that they have already issued Release 3 to fix the bugs and it only just hit the retail store shelves in October.
Changes in the User Interface
There are major changes in the visual design of the program and how you navigate each of the screens. Fonts, spacing and colors have changed in just about every area of the program. This was done to try to standardize the look and feel throughout QuickBooks®. Change is not always welcomed by people who are used to things the way they were and it will take a little bit of getting used to in order to find where they put your favorite things.
Left Icon Bar
Instead of the top icon bar that we have been using since 2006, the navigation bar is now on the left hand side of the screen much like it used to be back in 2005. If you have a low resolution monitor, this icon bar takes up a great deal of real estate on your screen. You do have the option of moving this back to the top, but it’s not as pretty as it used to be and harder to read with gray on black.
More White Space, Smaller Labels and Scroll Bars
The Home Page and other screens have more white space which makes things less busy but it also shows less information – about 30% less information is displayed in the same size window. Some of the Labels are really small and the light gray color is too faint to actually see. The Scroll Bars are so small it can be difficult to get your mouse cursor on them.
Ribbons on Transaction Windows
The most commonly used transaction windows will have a new “ribbon” interface at the top similar to the ones in Microsoft Word 2010. This combines the features that relate to these transaction windows into one easy to use place. The content of the ribbon will change from form to form, but the general layout is the same.
Improved Centers
This is the most improved area as far as additional features for small business owners who use the software for their bookkeeping needs. In the Customer, Vendor and Employee Centers, Tabs have been added to quickly access Transactions, Contacts, To-Do’s and Notes. You can now have multiple Notes per record, instead of just one. There are now 24 contact-related field labels and you can choose which eight (8) to show on your screen. The To-Do list is much more convenient and can be filtered by Customer, Vendor or Employee.
Color Scheme Preference
In QuickBooks® 2012 we could set each QuickBooks® file to have a different color scheme in the Desktop View preferences. This was helpful when working in multiple company files. This has been removed in QuickBooks® 2013. If you don’t like the color settings in the new program, you can’t change it. You do still have control of some of the colors used in some individual windows and the colors are less intrusive.
QuickBooks® Accountant
There are a number of changes in the QuickBooks® Accountant version of the software. Send general journal entries to clients via email is a simple way to send the year end journal entries back to clients, batch enter transactions allows you to quickly enter (or import) large numbers of checks, credit card charges or deposits, Starter Copy is easier to find and work with, toggle to the Bookkeeper edition is available and the QuickBooks Statement Writer is now supposed to be compatible with 64 bit versions of Microsoft Excel. Client Data Review received a few improvements in converting the Other Names and Writing Off Invoices.
QuickBooks® Enterprise
There are a few improvements that are only available in the QuickBooks® Enterprise version of the software. We now have Automatic Purchase Orders, Default Classes and Larger List Limits. In the Advanced Inventory add on feature to Enterprise, we now have Barcode Scanning, Bin Location Tracking and FIFO Cost Lot History by item Reporting.
Conclusion
Look before you leap. If you don’t have to upgrade right now, don’t – It’s buggy at best and for the regular small business owner using the software for everyday bookkeeping needs, it has no real improvements over the prior year. QuickBooks® will be sun-setting the 2010 version of the software in May of 2013 and hopefully by then they will have resolved most of the issues and we can help you make a smooth transition to the latest version.
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Tips & Tricks in QuickBooks®
