New Business Direction LLC
QuickBooks 2015 Desktop has just been released and there are several new features and improvements to old ones that you will want to take a look at to see if it has something worth upgrading for.
Insights Dashboard – Insights is similar to the old Company Snapshot, which is still available. It’s a dashboard view of your financial position with a more up-to-date user interface. You can find it as a tab on the Home Page and configure the view using the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. It’s customizable – you can add your logo, decide what you want to see and print the details of the entire screen. You can also click on the graphs to see a report with the supporting details.
Time and Expense on the Income Tracker – You can now view Unbilled Hours for Work in Progress by Dollars and sort the on-screen information in the Income Tracker. If you’re not familiar with the Income Tracker, that was a new feature in QuickBooks 2014.
Improved Reporting – This is great for those of us who are now having a difficult time with seeing our monitors without magnifiers. The on-screen reports have a more modern design with background shading, vertical and horizontal lines, increased line spacing, row alignment and indentation.
Field Search Boxes – Finally! When customizing reports we can now search for the columns we want to add to our reports from the filter list that is now in alphabetical order and searchable, instead of scrolling up and down looking for a needle in a haystack.
Comments on Reports – In QuickBooks 2015, you will be able to add comments to reports, snapshot save them as Commented Reports and email them with the comments attached. The comments are numbered sequentially and will print as a separate page. Please keep in mind that emailing sensitive information is not secure.
Multiple Reports in Single Email – instead of sending one email per report or creating PDF’s of multiple reports, storing them in a folder and then emailing them, you can now process and email multiple memorized or commented reports from the multiple reports menu. Again, emailing is not the preferred method of sending sensitive financial information as it is not secure. We recommend using a secure portal for transmitting data.
Manufacturer’s Part Numbers – in QuickBooks 2015, we can add the Manufacturer’s Part Number to our forms without using up a valuable custom field. This is available on Invoices, Sales Receipts and Sales Orders, but not Credit Memos. Be careful, this is an editable field and can be copied back to your Item List.
Pin Notes – the Notes section of Customers and Vendors has been re-designed and we can now pin important notes to the top of the view screen so that it always shows and is the default note on reports.
Reminders Dashboard – The Reminders now show up as a dashboard with To Do Notes. It’s easier to understand and work with than previous versions.
Terminate QB on Workstation – This new feature is dangerous at best. In a multi-user QuickBooks file, the Administrator can now switch to single-user mode without the permission of the other users who may be logged in. It closes even if the other users have unsaved data. I am recommending that all Admins forget that I told you about this feature.
Invoice for Selected Items on Sales Orders – We can now select which items we want to Invoice from a Sales Order.
Unless you see something in these changes that has been an issue for you, there is no real reason to upgrade. If Intuit stays true to form, the 2012 version of QuickBooks will be sunsetted in May of 2015 at which time those users will be required to update if they wish to continue using online banking, payroll and email features from within the program.
New Business Directions offers QuickBooks consulting, outsourced accounting, business and CFO services to small and mid-sized organizations. If we can help you in anyway, please contact us.
QuickBooks 2015 offers some new features that we are excited to share with our fellow accounting professionals. The Accountant Toolbox, Client Collaborator and Report Comments are a few of the latest features available to accountants that we will explore in this newsletter.
Accountant Toolbox
In Pro and Premier versions of QuickBooks 2015, when you log into your clients’ QuickBooks file as the External Accountant, you will have an Accountant Toolbox available to you.
Instead of taking the file back to your office and restoring it to work on it with your tools while the client waits patiently and cannot use the file, you will be able to perform tasks right at their office on the live data file.
You will either need to be a ProAdvisor or have purchased the QuickBooks Accountant Plus subscription in order to use this Accountant Toolbox. From the Toolbox, you will be able to:
- Batch enter and/or reclassify transactions
- Preview the status of reconciliations
- See a list of your memorized reports
- Access the Client Data Review Tools
- All other features previously only available in the Accountant Center.
With Client Data Review, you will be able to track changes made by the client; changes to lists, anything that was merged or deleted, you will be able to correct client data errors, record review notes, troubleshoot beginning balances, write off small Accounts Receivable balances, apply open credits, troubleshoot Inventory and correct Sales Tax and Payroll Tax errors.
Comments on Reports
With QuickBooks 2015 for Accountants, you will be able to add comments directly onto the Reports that you generate for your clients. You can save these reports as Commented Reports, similar to Memorized Reports, and you will be able to batch print and batch email these reports to your clients. Now you can avoid drafting lengthy emails outside of QuickBooks with this handy feature.
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Figure 1: This screenshot captures the process of adding comments to reports. |
Send Portable Company File
The Portable Company File feature has been streamlined. It’s a one-time setup and you can decide whether to send a Portable Company File or an Accountants’ Copy.
Client Collaborator
This was new in 2014, however it has been a best kept secret. This tool allows you to associate questions with specific transactions and track conversations between you and your client. Interactions between the accountant and the client are stored on a secure server and accessed online ensuring that nothing is lost.
This feature is located in the Accountant Menu under Ask Client about Transaction. Sign in to your Intuit account with your user ID and password and follow the onscreen prompts to create and send your questions to the client. The client will receive a secure email, log in to their QuickBooks file and view the conversation list, answer your questions and then you will be notified to review and close the conversations.
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Figure 2: Here you can see the conversation trail of several transactions. No need for emailing your client with transaction details and questions, as you can do that now directly from QuickBooks. |
New Business Directions helps small business owners streamline the process of making money with QuickBooks consulting and training services and provides outsourced accounting, business and CFO services. If we can help you in anyway, please contact us.
Getting QuickBooks ready to process payroll is a complex, time- consuming process. Here’s what you can expect.
Payday. You look forward to it when you’re young and working at your first part-time job.
But as a grown-up who needs to start processing payroll for your employees, you probably anticipate it in a different way, perhaps even with a sense of dread. QuickBooks handles the real grunt work once you’ve done the initial setup, but those early hours you spend preparing to print your first paycheck can be challenging.
Fortunately, QuickBooks’ payroll setup tool can guide you through the process. Once you’ve signed up for payroll, open the Employees menu and select Payroll Setup.
Figure 1: The QuickBooks Payroll Setup tool tells you’ll what information you need to supply in order to start paying employees.
Easy Operations
The first screen you’ll see in this step-by-step, wizard-like setup guide contains a link to QuickBooks’ payroll setup checklist. You don’t have to assemble all of the information you’ll need about your company, your employees, and your payroll taxes, but we recommend that you gather as much as you can before you start.
You’ll advance through setup by completing the information requested and then clicking the Continue button in the lower right (or, sometimes, Next; there’s also a Previous button available often). If you don’t have a particular detail immediately at hand, you can continue on and come back later. You’ll be able to edit your work then.
To back out of the whole process and return at another time, click the Finish Later button in the lower left.
Building a Framework
QuickBooks first wants to know about the various types of compensation and employee benefits your company offers. To start adding your Compensation options, click Add New. Click in the box in front of any pay types you support (Salary, Hourly wage and overtime, Commission, etc.) to create a check mark. When you click Next, this window opens:
Figure 2: It’s easy to indicate the types of compensation your company offers.
Keep clicking Next after you’ve completed each screen until you come to a page that lists all of the compensation types you’ve defined. To make any changes, highlight the type and click Edit to modify or Delete to remove. Then click Continue when you’re finished.
The next section is probably the most difficult: Employee Benefits. Here, using similar interface conventions to enter information and navigate, you’ll provide information about your company’s:
- Insurance benefits
- Retirement benefits
- Paid time off, and
- Miscellaneous items (cash advance, wage garnishment, mileage reimbursement, etc.).
It’s absolutely critical that you set these up accurately, or you’ll have unhappy benefits providers – and employees. If you’re not absolutely confident of an answer, it’s better to leave an item unfinished and come back later. You may want to ask us to work with you as you complete this section.
People and Taxes
QuickBooks will then ask you about your employees. Have your W-4 forms handy for this section, as you’ll need to know Social Security numbers, birth dates, etc.
Figure 3: On this screen, you’ll tell QuickBooks what type(s) of compensation and their dollar amounts apply to the employee.
All of those details you entered earlier about company benefits comes into play here. Once you’ve defined an employee’s compensation types and amounts, the next screen will display the additions and deductions that your company supports. You will have set up defaults for some of these, but you can modify them for individual employees.
There are numerous other details that you’ll have to supply for your staff, like how vacation and sick hours accrue, what state will want to collect taxes from them, and what their filing status is.
Unless you’ve worked with payroll before, you’re going to want our help in completing the payroll tax section. Once it’s done correctly, QuickBooks will calculate taxes due and help you pay them.
Finally, QuickBooks helps you determine whether you’ll need to enter any previous payroll data from the current year before you start to process your payroll in the software.
Whether you’re switching from manual payroll or a payroll service, or simply getting ready to pay your first employee, QuickBooks payroll-processing tools can help you save time and foster accuracy – as long as you get the details from the start.
The Income Tracker is one of QuickBooks’ more innovative features. If you’re not using it, you should be.
One of the reasons that QuickBooks appeals to millions of small businesses is because it offers multiple ways to complete the same tasks, which accommodates different work styles. Say, for example, you wanted to look up a specific invoice. You could:
- Go to the Customer Center and select the customer, and then scan through the list of transactions,
- Use the Find feature (Edit | Find), or
- Create a report.
There’s also another way you can get there if you have a recent version of QuickBooks: the Income Tracker. (Note: Only the Administrator or a staff member with the correct permissions can access this feature. Talk to us about whether to allow other employees to use it, and how to set that up.)
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| Figure 1: QuickBooks’ Income Tracker provides a visual overview of your company’s income. |
That’s the first thing you can do with QuickBooks’ Income Tracker. To get there, either click the link in the vertical navigation bar or go to Customers | Income Tracker.
Four colored bars across the top of the screen represent unbilled estimates, open invoices, overdue invoices, and invoices paid within the last 30 days. Each bar contains two numerical values: the number of transactions of that type and the dollar amount involved.
QuickBooks defaults to displaying all types of transactions, but when you click on a bar, the screen changes to show only that type of transaction.
You can also filter the table of transactions using the drop-down lists below the colored bars. Your choices here include Customer:Job, Type, Status (Open, Paid, etc.) and Date (range). Click the arrow to the right of each filter’s label to display your options.
The column labels below these lists will change depending on the transaction type that’s active.
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More Functionality |
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The Income Tracker is great for simply viewing groups of transactions; double-clicking on one will open the original form. You can also open them by selecting an action to take. For example, open your estimates list and click on a transaction to highlight it. Then click the arrow next to Select in the Action column at the far right end of the row.
If you choose the first option here, QuickBooks opens a small window that asks you whether you’d like to create an invoice for 100 percent of the estimate, a percentage of it, specific items, or percentages of each item. When you make your selection and click OK, a completed invoice form opens, which you can then check over and save.
As you can see above, you can also mark the estimate as inactive, print it, or email it.
Each transaction type supports a different set of actions. In the open invoice action column, as you’d expect, you can click the option to Receive Payment, which opens the Customer Payment window with the customer and amount due already filled in. This can be edited to reflect a different amount, or you can just accept it as is, then save it. |
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Flexible Forms
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You can even create a new transaction within the Income Tracker. Click on the arrow next to Manage Transactions in the lower left corner of the screen and select the form you want.
The Income Tracker also provides one of the fastest ways to print multiple forms. Just select the transactions you want to print by clicking in the box in front of them, and then click the arrow next to Batch Actions in the lower left corner.
Finally, you can edit transactions from here, too. Either double-click on one or select it and click Edit Highlighted Row in the Manage Transactions menu.
QuickBooks’ Income Tracker doesn’t do anything that can’t be done another way in the program. But it provides an excellent one-glance view of the current state of your receivables movement.
If you’re consistently seeing patterns that you don’t like, call us. We can evaluate your receivables process and suggest ways to accelerate it. Even if your sales aren’t increasing, getting that “PAID” stamp on invoices quickly will improve your cash flow and strengthen your confidence as a business manager. |
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QuickBooks provides dozens of customizable report templates. You know when you need some of them, but which are musts?
You send invoices because you sold products and/or services. Purchase orders go out when you’re running low on inventory, and there are always bills to pay, it seems like. All of this activity is, of course, important in itself, but all of your conscientious bookkeeping culminates in what’s probably the most critical element of QuickBooks: your reports.
Reports can tell you how many navy blue sweatshirts you sold in March, what you paid for health insurance premiums in the first quarter, and how much you bought from your favorite vendor last month. They’re very good at drilling down to get the precise set of numbers you need.
But reports – carefully customized and properly analyzed – can do more than tell you how many golf clubs to order and when it’s time to switch phone services. They can help you make the business decisions that will help you take your growing company to the next level. There are several that you should be looking at regularly, some of which you can interpret easily and use in your daily workflow. We’ll help you with the interpretation of the more complex financial reports. |
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Who Owes Money? |
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That’s probably a question you ask yourself every day. You don’t necessarily have to run the A/R Aging Detail report every day, but you’ll want to run it frequently. It tells you who owes you money and whether they’ve missed the due date (and by how many days).
Figure 1: By running the A/R Aging Detail report, you can see whether you need to follow up with customers who have past due invoices.
As with any report, you can modify it to include the columns, data set and date range you want by clicking the Customize button. When you create a report in a format that you think you might want to run again, click the Memorize button. Enter a name that you’ll remember, and assign it to a Memorized Report Group.
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Getting There
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There are two ways to find the reports you want to see. You can open the Reports menu and move your cursor down to the category you want, like Customers & Receivables, which will open a slide-out menu of options there.
Or you can open the Report Center, which lets you explore reports in more depth. Each is represented by a small graphic with four icons under it. You can:
Figure 2: If you access QuickBooks reports through the Report Center, you’ll have several related options.
Other accounts receivable reports that you should consult periodically include Open Invoices and Average Days to Pay. |
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Tracking What You Owe
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Reports can also keep you up-to-date on money that you owe to other people and companies. An important one is Unpaid Bills Detail, accessible through the Vendors & Payables menu item. Though you can modify its columns, this report basically tells you who is expecting money from you, the date the bill was issued and its due date, any number assigned to it, the balance due, and relevant aging information.
Vendor Balance Detail is critical, too. This report displays every transaction (invoices, payments, etc.) that contribute to the balance you have with each vendor.
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Standard Financial Reports
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QuickBooks report categories include one labeled Company & Financial. These are reports that you can run yourself, but they’re critical for understanding your company’s financial status. We can customize and analyze these for you on a regular basis so you’ll know where you stand. They include:
Reports can only generate information about what you’ve entered in QuickBooks and exactly where it’s been entered. So it’s crucial that you follow standard accounting practice as you proceed through your daily workflow. We’re always available to answer questions you have about QuickBooks’ structure and your activity there. Your reports – and your critical business decisions – depend on it. |
Watching the cash balance is one of the most frequent activities of a small business owner. Besides making sure you have enough cash for payroll and bills, there is another huge opportunity you can benefit from: lowering the cost of processing your bills. It can be expensive and time-consuming to process bills and handle the paperwork involved. We’ll take a look at a couple of the many ways you can streamline your accounts payable processing costs in this article.
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Opportunity #1: Go Digital
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The Intuit Payment Network (IPN) is a best-kept secret when it comes to sending and receiving money. It’s free to set up your account, and it’s also free for your receiver to set up an account. All you do is add your bank account, and you can easily transfer funds between the two accounts just by knowing the receiver’s email address.
Another way to go digital is via PayPal. Fees vary, and are usually paid by the receiver. |
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Opportunity #2: Get Control
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When it comes to finances, it’s never a good idea to mix business and personal, especially when it’s coming out of the same bank account. Keep separate accounts for business and personal, and your bookkeeping costs will go way down. Do the same thing for credit cards as well.
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Opportunity #3: Automate
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Opportunity #4: Verify
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We hope you never pay bills that aren’t yours, but it can happen. To avoid it as much as possible, implement a three-way matching process on all your payables, especially those related to inventory. The three-way part refers to the three documents involved in accounts payable:
Before any invoice is paid, these three documents should be matched line by line – for quantity, price, and description — to ensure you ordered and received what you paid for. Only then should your bill be approved. This will ensure that you don’t pay a fraudulent bill, you don’t pay for out-of-stock that didn’t ship and that you paid the correct price you agreed to in the first place.
Please feel free to reach out and ask us about this if you’d like to know more. |
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Opportunity #5: Tell Yourself a Little White Lie
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Reduce all that by telling yourself a little white lie about your bank balance. If your bank balance is $10,000, tell yourself it’s only $5,000 (or whatever amount makes sense for you). That way, you’ll always have a cushion in your account that will help you reduce transfers. There are several ways to set this “little white lie” up in your books. |
There’s an old saying: “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” If you’re always moving money around from one checking account to another to cover bills and payroll, you’re not the only small business owner who juggles funds. It takes up valuable time to make all these transactions, and then it costs to record them and track them. |
More A/P Ideas
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These are only five of many ways you can reduce your processing costs and save time on accounts payable processing. Give these five accounts payable ideas a try, and if you’d like to know more, please reach out and let us know. |
There are a lot of clues that indicate trouble with your QuickBooks company file. Is it time for a check-up and tune-up?
After this ridiculously long winter, you’ll probably hear few complaints about things like puddles in the street, summer heat and spring cleaning. Most people are eager to throw open the doors and windows, and attack the dirt that the season left behind, both inside and outside of the house.
It’s not hard to see when your home is dirty. QuickBooks company file errors are harder to detect, but they’re there, including:
- Performance problems
- Inability to execute specific processes, like upgrading
- Occasional program crashes
- Missing data (accounts, names, etc.)
- Refusal to complete transactions, and
- Mistakes in reports.
Figure 1: If some transactions won’t go through when you click one of the Save buttons – or worse, QuickBooks shuts down — you may have a corrupted company file.Call for Help
The best thing you can do if you notice problems like this cropping up in QuickBooks – especially if you’re experiencing multiple ones – is to contact us. We understand the file structure of QuickBooks company data, and we have access to tools that you don’t. We can analyze your file and take steps to correct the problem(s).
One of the reasons QuickBooks files get corrupt is simply because they grow too big. That’s either a sign of your company’s success or of a lack of periodic maintenance that you can do yourself. QuickBooks contains some built-in tools that you can run occasionally to minimize your file size.
One thing you can do on your own is to rid QuickBooks of old, unneeded data. The software contains a Condense Data utility that can do this automatically. But just because QuickBooks offers a tool doesn’t mean that you should use it on your own.
A Risky Utility
The program’s documentation for this utility contains a list of warnings and preparation steps a mile long.
We recommend that you do not use this tool. Same goes for Verify Data and Rebuild Data in the Utilities menu. If you lose a significant amount of company data, you can also lose your company file. It’s happened to numerous businesses.
Be Proactive
Instead, start practicing good preventive medicine to keep your QuickBooks company file healthy. Once a month or so, perhaps at the same time you reconcile your bank accounts, do a manual check of your major Lists.
Run the Account Listing report (Lists | Chart of Accounts | Reports | Account Listing). Are all of your bank accounts still active? Do you see accounts that you no longer used or which duplicate each other? Don’t try to “fix” the Chart of Accounts on your own. Let us help.
Figure 3: You might run this report periodically to see if it can be abbreviated.
Be very careful here, but if there are Customers and Vendors that have been off your radar for a long time, consider removing them – once you’re sure your interaction with them is history. Same goes for Items and Jobs. Go through the other lists in this menu with a critical but conservative eye. If there’s any doubt, leave them there.
A Few Alternatives
There are other options. Your copy of QuickBooks may be misbehaving because it’s unable to handle the depth and complexity of your company. It may be time to upgrade. If you’re using QuickBooks Pro, consider a move up to Premier. And if Premier isn’t cutting it anymore, consider QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions.
There’s cost involved, of course, but you may already be losing money by losing time because of your version’s limitations. All editions of QuickBooks look and work similarly, so your learning curve will be minimal.
Also, try to minimize the number of open windows that are active in QuickBooks. That will improve your performance. And what about your hardware? Is it getting a little long in the tooth? At least consider adding memory, but PCs are cheap these days. If you’re having problems with many of your applications, it may be time for an upgrade.
A Stitch in Time…
We’ve suggested many times here that you contact us for help with your spring cleanup. While that may seem self-serving, remember that it takes us a lot less time and money to take preventive steps with your QuickBooks company file than to troubleshoot a broken one.
Increasing your income is good. But even if you can’t, you can still take steps to collect the money you’re already owed faster. Here are five ways. 
If you asked five small business owners to name the top three roadblocks they face in their quest for ongoing profitability, it’s likely that all five would point to slow payments.
It’s everyone’s problem. Accounts receivable requires constant monitoring. As satisfying as it can be to dispatch a group of invoices, you know that it’s going to take some work to bring in payment for at least some of them.
By using QuickBooks’ tools and complying with accounting best practices, you’ll be more confident during the invoicing stage that what you’re owed will actually be in your bank account in a reasonable amount of time. Here are five things that we suggest.
Let Customers Pay Invoices Electronically
A few years ago, this was a good idea. In 2014, when people have stopped carrying checkbooks and are accustomed to using their mobile devices to pay for merchandise, it’s become almost required. Whether or not you know it, you’re probably losing some business if you don’t have a merchant account that supports credit and debit card payments, and possibly e-checks.
If you have an online storefront, you’ve undoubtedly been accepting plastic for a long time now. Not many shoppers want to place an order on a website and hunt for envelopes and stamps and blank checks to complete it. If you invoice customers, it’s just as critical that you allow them to remit payment as soon as possible.
Not set up with a merchant account yet? We can help you get started with the Intuit Payment Network.
Keep a Close Watch on your A/R Reports
Part of being proactive with your accounts receivable is being vigilant and informed. Create and customize A/R reports regularly. When you customize your A/R Aging Detail report, for example, in addition to the other columns that you include, be sure that Terms, Due Date, Bill Date, Aging and Open Balance are turned on (click Customize Report | Display and click in front of each column label).
You should also be looking at Open Invoices and Collections Report frequently, or assigning someone else to monitor them closely. We can help here by creating more complex financial reports periodically, like Statement of Cash Flows.
Send Statements
Invoices are generally the preferred way to bill your customers, but you should consider sending statements when customers have outstanding balances past a certain date. QuickBooks sometimes calls these reminder statements. You’re not providing the recipients with any new information; you’re simply sending a kind of report that lists all invoices sent, credit memos and payment received.
To generate statements, click Customers | Create Statements. You’ll see the window pictured above. You can send statements to everyone, a defined group or one customer, and you can define the past-due status that you want to target in addition to other options.
Send Accurate Invoices the First Time
Few things will slow down your accounts receivable more than incorrect invoices. The customer can wait until payment is almost due to dispute the charges, which means that they’ll probably get another 15 or 30 days (or whatever their terms are) to pay the amended bill.
So whoever is responsible for creating invoices needs to be checking and re-checking them. If it’s logistically possible, and depending on your workflow, have them verified by a second employee.
Offer Discounts for Early Payment and Assess Finance Charges
Offering discounts is a balancing act. You’ll be getting less money for your sale – even 5 percent multiplied by many customers can add up – but it may make sense financially for you to take a small hit in return for being able to deposit the payment sooner. We can help you do the math here.
To offer this, you’ll have to set up your discount scenario as a Term option (Lists | Customer & Vendor Profile Lists | Terms List), as seen here:
To make a customer eligible for the discount, open the Customer Center and double-click on a customer, then on Payment Settings| Payment Terms.
You might also want to be assessing finance charges. The revenue you bring in from finance charges will probably be negligible. But sometimes, just knowing that a late payment will be more costly may prompt your customers to settle up in a timely fashion.
Whatever approaches you choose to accelerate your receivables, be consistent. If any of your customers should compare notes, you want to be regarded as being firm but fair.
You may not have even completed your 2013 taxes yet. But now is an ideal time to start getting ready for your 2014 returns.
We know that you’re in some stage of preparation for your 2013 income taxes. It may seem odd to start thinking about 2014 taxes just now, but actually, this is the ideal time to start planning and making business decisions with their tax implications always in the back of your mind.
As you look at the data that will be entered in your 2013 tax forms, you’re likely to come across some expenses that you might have handled differently, or some income that should have been deferred. If you begin your planning process for 2014 while 2013 is still in the works, you can start making smarter, more tax-advantageous business decisions now, instead of late in the year when everyone is rushing to take actions necessary to lower their tax obligation.
Here’s how QuickBooks can help you with this new approach.
Overhaul your Chart of Accounts
The mechanics of doing this in QuickBooks are fairly uncomplicated, but changing this critical list – the backbone of your company file – requires solid knowledge of which accounts should be added, deleted or changed. You also need to know which accounts and subaccounts will have impact on your income taxes. They must be structured accordingly.
Figure 1: QuickBooks’ default Chart of Accounts can be easily modified to meet your company’s unique needs. But let us help you with this task.
For these reasons, we ask that you consult with us if you think your Chart of Accounts could use an overhaul. Our early involvement will be much more economical for you than if we have to come in down the road when your accounts have become dangerously tangled.
Devise an Effective System for Estimated Taxes
As you well know, there’s no magical formula for estimating how much income tax you’ll owe when all of your income and expenses have been tallied. We can make this an ongoing task by creating monthly or quarterly financial reports for your business and working from those.
If you’re self-employed, you might want to open a low-fee checking account that will serve solely as your tax fund. Because you have no employer to pay a portion of your Social Security and Medicare obligations, it’s critical that you’re putting enough away. Consider putting one-third of your taxable income into that account and see how it goes. You may get a pleasant surprise at tax prep time, or you may have to dip into other savings to be compliant.
Figure 2: You may want to set up a separate bank account to park estimated tax funds, so you know they’re committed. Ask us about numbering new accounts.
You can submit federal payments online on the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System site. Check with us to see if your state has an electronic system. Of course, the IRS will accept a check.
Run Reports on Everything. And Keep Running Them.
We already mentioned that we’re happy to create and analyze your most critical financial reports on a regular basis. You may have tried to understand the Trial Balance, Statement of Cash Flows, etc. in QuickBooks and been puzzled. Don’t feel incompetent because of that: It often takes an accountant-level individual to understand what they mean for your business.
You can define and build your own reports using QuickBooks’ customization tools. If you have employees who travel, consider bringing in an automated expense report application (we can help you find one and implement it). Stress the importance of adhering to IRS rules about travel. Same goes for your local salesforce, off-site technicians and other service providers, etc.
For employees who come into the office every day or are telecommuting, you can give them some ownership of their contribution to expenses by bringing them into the budget process and/or requesting that they submit their own monthly mini-reports on any company funds they spend. The more employees are aware of and accountable for expenses, the easier it will be for you to work toward minimizing your tax obligation. And having some information about the considerable sum you pay in taxes may help staff understand your tightening of the purse strings.
Consider Retraining Bookkeeping Staff if Necessary
You may be paying a portion of your taxes unnecessarily, simply because your company’s bookkeeping is less-than-precise. Nip that in the bud.
The more you manage your reporting, stay aware of the consequences of every expenditure and bring employees into the process, the more prepared you’ll be for 2014 taxes.
Have you ever tried on a shirt or jeans and found they didn’t fit at all? 
They looked great on the hanger, but that was the end of it. Accounting systems come in all sizes, shapes, and colors just like clothing; and just like clothing, some accounting systems fit your business better than others. It’s not that easy to spot in a mirror when an accounting system does not fit a business, but there are other signs that will give it away. Here are five of them:
Numerous Workarounds
A workaround happens when your current system cannot do all the things you need it to do. A workaround can take the form of a spreadsheet, a report, a program, or a database that is created with extra time spent every month so you can get the information out of your system and manipulate it the way you need it to run your business. 
Since no accounting system is a perfect fit for any one business, it’s normal to have some workarounds in place to meet your unique business needs. If you have too many workarounds, and it feels like patchwork, it might signal that you’ve outgrown your current system and need to find an accounting system that provides you with more functionality.
Downtime or Wasted Time
If you are unable to access your system when you need to do your job, then you are experiencing downtime in one form or another. You may be waiting for a file to be fixed, or the system may actually be down. If your system runs slowly, then that’s another form of downtime that wastes your time. If you have to take time to make backups and perform restorations, this type of activity does not add value to running your business. When you have too many of these time-wasters, it could be time to look for a better way.
Old Technology
If your accounting system is more than about three years old and you’ve chosen not to update it, then you may be missing out on newer time-saving features that could help you reduce the amount of time you spend doing your accounting. If your accounting system is more than six or seven years old, then you are definitely losing productivity. It’s time to bite the bullet and learn a new system so you can experience better profit margins in your business.
Limited Users or Security
If your current accounting system does not provide you with enough users, then you might have more expensive employees doing lower level jobs, which is costing you more in payroll expenses. 
You may also need certain user permissions to be more granular than they are in your current system as you grant access to certain parts of the system to different users. If you’re on QuickBooks, that’s a really easy fix, so please talk to us about this.
We find that user access is a hot button with a lot of business owners, so if it’s true for you, please reach out and let’s have a conversation about this.
Limited Physical Access
If your accounting system is located on a private PC or server in your business, this limits access to your files. If you have more than one business location, you like to work from home, or your employees work from their homes occasionally, then you may want to look for a system that accommodates “anywhere, anytime” accounting. This is a pretty easy fix too, as this requirement is now quite common with business owners today.
The same can be said for mobile access. New apps enable many accounting features to be completed from your mobile phone, such as checking bank balances, approving a bill, and taking a picture of a receipt and uploading it, to name a few. If you want to do you accounting from your mobile phone, ask us about mobile apps that we can link to your system to enable this functionality.
Boosting Your Accounting Productivity
We might be a little biased, but accounting has gotten to be a lot more fun in the last few years with advancements in technology. If you see any of the signs listed above, it might be worth a conversation to see if your accounting system is the best fit for your business. Just reach out anytime.
