Job-Tracking Adds Precision to Your QuickBooks Company

Does your business have clients whose work sometimes requires multiple steps drawn out over weeks or months, like remodeling projects or court cases? If so, and you're not using QuickBooks' Jobs features, you're missing out on the opportunity to track and evaluate the financial impact of these complex tasks. 

You can, of course, just send an invoice out to these customers. But if you do, you're not taking advantage of what QuickBooks' job tools can do. If you create and track these projects faithfully, you'll have valuable insight that you wouldn't otherwise.

Simple definitions
Before you create jobs, you'll need to make sure that QuickBooks is set up properly. Click on Edit | Preferences and then on the Jobs & Estimates and Company Preferencestabs. You'll see this window:


Figure 1: It's important to set up Jobs options before you begin.

There are just a few preferences to set here, but you need to make any necessary changes before you launch into job creation. Also, if you track time, scroll down on the list on the left to Time & Expenses. Be sure time-tracking is turned on, as this will likely be an important element of your jobs.

Before you can attach jobs to customers, you'll have to define your Job Types. Go to Lists | Customer & Vendor Profile Lists | Job Type List. A small window opens with command bars at the bottom. Open the Job Type tab and click New. Let's say you're a building contractor. You might type Remodel in the Job Type Name box, then OK.

Repeat until you've entered all of your job types. If you want to build subtypes, click New again and enter the name of the subtype, like Kitchen. Click Subtype of and click the arrow to drop down the list. Select the parent type and click OK.


Figure 2: It's easy to build a list of your job types and subtypes.

Outlining your jobs
Of course, you'll be attaching jobs to customers, though each Customer:Job will exist as an individual entity. So start by opening the Customer Center. Right-click on a customer who needs a job tracked and select Add Job. The New Job window opens, which should already contain your customer's profile. Click on the Job Info tab. In the Job Name field, enter Main Home Kitchen Remodel, and skip over the Opening Balance field.

Click the arrow to open the Job Status list and select Awarded from the options offered (None, Pending, Awarded, In Progress, Closed, Not Awarded). Select the Start Date and Projected End Date. Type a brief description in the Description field and select the correct job type. Your window will look something like this:


Figure 3: You can lay out simple details about each job on this screen.

Click OK to save this job. It's now available for use in transactions and reports. When you're creating an invoice or estimate for a specific job, for example, or filtering a report, you'll need to make sure that you select the correct job, and not just the customer. Otherwise, your bookkeeping will not be accurate.

Estimates and progress invoicing
If you do many jobs that take weeks or months, you may find yourself in a bit of a cash flow crunch. Rather than billing for everything at the end, companies in this position often deal with that by creating estimates and dispatching progress invoices. You don't even have to send estimates to customers; they're helpful, though, for gauging your projected income and expenses.

To build a progress invoice partway through a job, create the estimate and click Create Invoice. This window will open, offering three billing options:


Figure 4: QuickBooks gives you three options when you're creating a progress invoice.

Select the one you want and click OK. Your invoice will appear, billed according to your instructions.

In-depth reports
Insightful, detailed reports are your reward for all of this meticulous bookkeeping. QuickBooks' job definitions may be fairly simple, but the reports they make possible give you tremendous insight into how cost-effective your projects are. You'll learn how each job is doing in terms of things like:

 • Profitability
 • The accuracy of your estimates
 • Time and mileage
 • Unbilled costs
 • Job status

QuickBooks' job-tracking tools are not overly difficult to use, but you may want our help in getting your jobs set up and preparing progress invoices. Once you get more than a few jobs in the pipeline, you're going to want to be very confident in your ability to keep up with these procedures. But if you do, you'll have a deeper awareness of how all of your inventory and labor and other expenses are working together to complete projects profitably.

Add/Edit Multiple List Entries Simplifies Record Changes

Data entry and modifications in QuickBooks can be tedious. Beginning with QuickBooks 2010 Pro Edition and above, that job got a lot easier. The Add/Edit Multiple List Entries tool does just what its name implies: It lets you add entries to your lists of customers, vendors, services, inventory parts, and non-inventory parts. It also makes changing one or several of them quick and easy. 

Using this feature, you can: 

• See customized views of your list data 
• Enter missing information 
• Create new entries from duplicates of existing ones 
• Do a mass change of a whole column 
• Copy and paste records from Excel

There are myriad applications for this tool. You could use it, for example, when you're changing Preferred Vendors for a group of items and you don't want to have to edit each individual item record. Or when the area code for select customers or vendors has changed. You could use it if you're adding an inventory item that's just slightly different from another, or when your accountant tells you to change the name of an account.

Building the perfect view
To get started, click Lists | Add/Edit Multiple List Entries. In the screen that opens, click the arrow next to the List box and select the type of data you want to see, like Customers. Then select the group that you want displayed by dropping the View list down. Click the Customize Columns button. This window opens:



Figure 1: Make sure your columns are correct and in the right order.

The list on the left represents all possible column labels. To make the list on the right reflect what you want to see in your table, highlight the correct item and use the Add or Remove buttons and the Move Up or Move Down buttons. When you're satisfied, click OK. The table will change to display those columns in that order.

TIP: You may have a lot of empty space between columns. To close those gaps, put your cursor on the faint vertical line that separates two column names. A cross-like symbol will appear. Drag it left or right until the columns are positioned well.

Let's say that a customer commissions a new job. Since so much information will remain the same as in previous jobs, you can duplicate her record. Highlight the last entry in her list of jobs and right-click. Select Duplicate Row. The new entry will contain her default information, except the name will change to DUP (NAME OF PREVIOUS JOB). Change that phrase to the name of the new job and click Save Changes if you're done.



Figure 2: It's easy to duplicate an entry's information.

Mass changes
You may occasionally want to make the same change to a subset of records. Say a city's zip code changed and you want to find the customers affected. You'd open the Customers list, click on the View arrow and select Custom Filter. Then:

• In the Search list, choose from All, Active, etc. 
• In the For box, enter the common attribute, like the zip code.
• Click on the arrow next to the in box, and tell QuickBooks where you want to search (address fields, all common fields, etc.). 

Figure 3: You can search for a group of entries that share a common characteristic.

• Click Go. QuickBooks will display a list of all of the matching entries.
• Make your change to the entry at the top of the list, then right-click on it. You'll see this menu:

Figure 4: The Copy Down command changes all entries in a column to match the top one.

When you select Copy Down, all of the entries duplicate the first one in the list.

Some housekeeping
Anything you change in these views – as long as you click Save Changes – will be reflected throughout QuickBooks, wherever that record appears. If you've made an error, like using a dollar sign, you'll get a message telling you to fix it.

You can use Add/Edit Multiple List Entries in other ways. For example, it's a good way to see how thorough your recordkeeping is. Take a look at your lists occasionally to spot missing data. Or say you were at a trade show and signed up new customers, but you didn't have QuickBooks on your laptop so you entered them in Excel. Once you've made sure that your column names and order in Excel match those displayed in Add/Edit Multiple List Entries, you can just copy and paste the new customers in.

This feature is easy to use, but be cautious. We can help with complex modifications. Add/Edit Multiple List Entries is one of the ten best features QuickBooks has incorporated in recent years. It's an easy way to get a birds' eye view of your lists, and a great time-saver.                                

Using Logmein.com

This is a blog post for my clients and anyone else who needs to know how to use remote desktop sharing.  As many of you know, I am a huge fan of Logmein.com.  It is the best program I know of for desktop sharing.  The best thing is that it is free.   It also works really well on a Mac or a PC.

Here are the screen shots.  If you follow them, they are pretty self-explanatory. Start with going to the Logmein.com website.  This is the screen you will see.  Click the green button, "try if free".

Then select "Create Account".  Put your email address in and a password that you will remember.

 Next, add your computer.

Which will then download the software. 

Agree to the Logmein terms of use.

Click "Typical installation".

Give your computer a name (or use the one that comes up on the screen). 

Give your computer a computer access code.

Use the default selected destination folder, if it comes up like this.

Click next. It will install.

Once it is installed, a box like this comes up:

The following are the screenshots for the steps to send me an invitation to share your desktop to work in your company file in QuickBooks or schedule a training session on your PC.

This is a screenshot of your new Logmein account, where you have added your computer.

It is that easy to set up and use.  Under this type of installation, they (Logmein) has provided you with the Pro version of their program for free. This is temporary and will expire in 30 days.  After that, you will not be able to send invitations anymore without upgrading (for a small cost) to the Pro version.  You can, however, add any of your own personal computers and use them for free on their website.  Just log into your Logmein account from their website and add the other computers.  

This works wonderfully if you have a desktop computer at your office (you leave it on) and then you go home and use the Logmein software with your laptop or home PC to log into your office computer.  As long as you have the Logmein software on both computers, you can log in through your Logmein account (for free).

Lastly, on the scheduled time for our shared remote session, I will open my email with the invitation link.  You will see this series of screens.  You will need to provide me full access (mouse-sharing so I can teach).  The last screenshots show you the windows that will pop up on your computer when we are ready to share your computer.  You will have to "verify my identity" to complete the final step of desktop sharing.

Once our remote session is over, you will see on your computer that the desktop sharing session is disconnected.

Courtesy of our colleague Lynda Artesani, Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor in SW Florida

How do I move QuickBooks to a new computer?

So, you purchased a new computer and you want to move the program from the old computer to the new computer.  How do you do this?

Just get your QuickBooks CD and install it on the new computer.  You will have to re-register the product by going to help, register QuickBooks.  But what if you downloaded the program, what do you do?  Click here to re-download your software.

But what about the software product and license numbers, I don't have them or I lost the CD jacket with the numbers?  Click here to retrieve them or open your old computer, open QuickBooks and click the F2 button.  It will bring up the numbers you need.

Once you have installed the new program, open QuickBooks and click help, update QuickBooks to make sure you have the most current release of QuickBooks.  Do this on the old computer as well.

Now, how do I get my data (company) file onto the new computer?

Easy, in the old computer go to file, backup and backup each company (data) file to a usb stick, cd, or to your desktop (so you can email it to the new computer-see the post sending larger files).  You will create a .qbb (backup) file.

Once you have the backup completed, open QuickBooks in the new computer and go to file, open or restore company file, click restore and browse to the backup file. You will have either plugged into the new computer (with the usb stick) or put the backup CD in the CD drive or download the file (if you sent it to yourself a backup in an email, you will have to open the email and download or save it to your desktop on the new computer).

It is that easy.  Enjoy your new computer!  

Courtesy of our colleague Lynda Artesani, Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor in SW Florida

I have a customer and a vendor and it is the same company, QuickBooks won't let me enter it!

In QuickBooks you are either a vendor or a customer, but not both. So, you will need to have two separate names for this vendor and they have to be unique. So, if you have ABC Company that you owe money to, name it ABC Company-v, which will let you know that this is the one to use to track money you owe to your vendor.

For ABC company that owes you money, call it ABC Company-c, for the customer. That way when you are entering invoices, you will use this customer card and not apply it to the vendor. This will keep both accounts separate.

Tomorrow we will address this issue when no money changes hands and you use the barter system between the companies.

Courtesy of our colleague Lynda Artesani, Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor in SW Florida

Recording a deposit when there are merchant service fees

This one always stumps people because they figure that only income can be recorded in the Make Deposit Window.

For example below, Heather Campbell has paid me through my Paypal account.  Now, I could download my transactions from Paypal, but I want to track my sales through items so I can see what I sell the most of.  When I go to download from Paypal, only the net deposit is downloaded, which in this case is $975.00.  So, I may have charged her $1000.00 for my services, but Paypal charges a fee of 2.5% for the service of collecting the funds via a credit card so I have to show that merchant fee of $25.00 somehow.

Here is how I record the payment to Heather Campbell's account:

Click photo to enlarge

Next, I record the deposit and enter the merchant fees:

Click photo to enlarge

So as you can see,  you will enter the sale for the full amount to clear the invoice and enter the merchant service fees expense this way.  Then you will be recording the correct net amount that actually deposited into the bank.

Courtesy of our colleague Lynda Artesani, Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor in SW Florida

Vendor Refund

I received a call from a client the other day.   "How do you enter a refund from a vendor?"  This client had just been audited by their worker's compensation insurance carrier and was overcharged based on the numbers used from the prior year.  So, she received a refund check.  

Here is how you would enter that check (or any refund from a vendor, just use the account you would normally use for the vendor):

On your home page, select "record deposit" and enter the name of the vendor in the "received from" box, the insurance expense for the "account from" box and the amount.  I always make a note on the memo line describing why a vendor is refunding me.  

Click photo to enlarge

And that is it.  This refund will lower your expense, but that is just what a refund check does.  It is a very simple transaction to enter.

Courtesy of our colleague Lynda Artesani, Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor in SW Florida

Help! My client entered bills and then wrote checks

As a ProAdvisor, how many times have you seen this?   It is a common error when someone enters checks and then enters bills.  They do not connect automatically.  Of course you could delete the bills and just leave the manual check entries.  But what if you want to keep the bills in place?  

 

Here is the fix:

First, here is what you see, bills and the checks that paid them.

So, you open these checks and change the account used from the expense to accounts payable.  You also need to put the vendor name in the customer:job spot because that is what will link it to accounts payable:

Then go back to vendors, pay bills and apply the newly created credit caused by changing the check above to accounts payable:

Once you click pay now, you will have cleared the bill with the manual check entry.  You will see a box like this:

That is how easy and seamless it is to connect the two transactions.  Have a great week!

Courtesy of our colleague Lynda Artesani, Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor in SW Florida

QuickBooks for Mac Classes.. Now in Broward and Miami

We are now offering Apple / Mac only Quickbooks training in a 1-Day seminar format for $189

Visit: www.quickbooks-mac.com

or Call Hector Garcia @ 954-414-1524

http://qbkaccounting.com/Quickbooks_Training_Mac/qb-mac-class/

QuickBooks Mac 2011 Review

QuickBooks 2011 Review from MacLife

Intuit's bookkeeping-software stepchild gets a little love

For years now, autumn brings more than the new school year and Halloween. It also signals Intuit’s annual update of its QuickBooks for Mac bookkeeping software. This year’s version sports a few new features and—for the first time—upgrade pricing, but the stand-out addition is multiple-user support. Windows users have long collaborated on a single company file with up to five simultaneous users, and Mac owners are finally able to do the same. But we’re not all invited to the same party. Your QuickBooks sharing can be all-Mac or all-PC (using the PC version), but never the twain shall meet. Sigh.

For customer support, Intuit takes a page from Microsoft’s old Mactopia site with Little Square—  a magazine-style site conceived and curated by Intuit’s Mac team. We were initially put off by the name, which sounds like an epithet toward diminutive nerds, but it actually refers to a town square–style gathering place. The included articles and videos cover a nice mix of nuts-and-bolts usage instructions, fundamental bookkeeping principles, and small business advice. Psychologically, it’s more gratifying to use a platform-specific site, instead of trolling the general discussion board’s Mac topics. The young site’s offerings don’t run deep, but if Intuit stays with it, Little Square has the potential to be a destination site for more than just QuickBooks for Mac users.

The much-improved custom report settings employs palettes with real-time updating on the report.

As for software itself, QuickBooks’ reporting tools got a major facelift for 2011. The old report-filter interface was probably designed when neon sweatshirts and acid-wash jeans were still fashionable. Filter options now appear as a list: check off the ones you want to use, and they float to the top of the list while unused options remain dimmed below. Report formatting is now handled primarily with floating palettes that change the report in real time. The whole experience is a significant improvement over previous versions.

Intuit also added a module for tracking vehicles and mileage this time around. After entering vehicle information, a quick trip to the mileage-entry window keeps track of your business trips. Users can tag entries with specific customers and designate them as billable, if necessary. We were a trifle disappointed to see that the starting odometer reading for a given trip doesn’t automatically load the ending odometer value from the last trip. And while QuickBooks calculates total miles based on the odometer entries, manually changing the total miles doesn’t change the odometer to match—you must manually correct them before saving trip information.

Creating business forms and invoices is much easier with QuickBooks 2011’s substantially improved layout designer. Stability issues in prior versions are under control, and some fundamental layout tools have been added or enhanced. Grid units are now customizable, and objects can be snapped to that grid for quick, clean designs. Dynamic guides appear as you drag an object, making it simple to align the components of your form.

But our enthusiasm upon learning that upgrade pricing has finally been introduced wilted upon closer examination. Intuit simply raised the price 15 percent for 2011 and offers upgrades for—you guessed it—15 percent off. Another thing that hasn’t changed is the feature gap between the Mac and Windows versions of the product. For the same $230, Windows users get more sharing options, more reports, access to a whole range of third-party software integration tools, and at least eight other features absent from the Mac version of QuickBooks.

The bottom line. QuickBooks for Mac 2011 is the first compelling update to the product in several years. Still, we’re disappointed by the continued lack of true cross-platform integration, the Windows feature gap, and the upgrade pricing shell game.

QuickBooks 2011 Review from MacLife

Paying Vendor bills with your credit card

Many businesses like to pay their bills with their credit cards.  Especially, if your credit card company offers a reward program, it is beneficial to pay the bills by credit card to get the "perks".  But if you need to track the vendor bills and reference numbers on the bills, how do you enter them into accounts payable and pay them by credit card instead of a business check?

Here is how you do it:

Make sure you have your credit card account properly set up on the chart of accounts.

Next, go to vendor, pay bills screen.  Change the checking account at the bottom of the screen to your credit card and select your credit card you are using from the drop down list.

Then select to pay your bills. Click pay now and save and close.  This will create the same type of transaction as if you were entering them directly into banking, enter credit card charges, but it will flow it through the accounts payable module.  You will be able to track the vendor bills just as you would if you paid by a business check.   You can go to banking, enter credit card charges, select your credit card at the top and click previous to see the transactions created by the above steps.

 

Quick tip: Make sure the next time you do go to pay your bills by check, that you change the bottom drop down list from the credit card to the checking account again.  QuickBooks "remembering" feature will default it to the last payment type used (which was credit card).  If you forget to change it back to checking, you will have to delete the credit card transactions entries made by the payment by credit card and then go back to pay them again by check.

Courtesy of our colleague Lynda Artesani, Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor in SW Florida