Accounting & Business Solutions

Most small businesses use invoices for billing customers. But there are times when you may want to send statements instead of – or in addition to – invoices.

One of the more enjoyable parts of your job is probably sending invoices to your customers to bill for products and/or services is probably one of the more enjoyable parts of your job – second only to recording payments received. Thanks to the company file you’ve built in QuickBooks, creating invoices is generally a very simple process that requires no duplicate data entry.

QuickBooks also includes easy-to-use templates for another kind of customer form: the statement. These forms are generally not used nearly as frequently as invoices. However, you may find them more appropriate if you:

– Want to create a form that lists all of a customer’s open charges
– Have a customer who accrues multiple charges before being billed
– Receive advance – or regular — payments, or
– Need a historical customer’s activity, including charges, payments, & balance.

The “Reminder Statement”

There may be occasions when you want to create a form that lists invoices received, payments made, and any credits given for one or more customers. This may be necessary when, for example, a customer disputes a charge. You may also want to send out these statements to remind customers of delinquent payments.

You do not have to enter any new data for these statements. Instead QuickBooks will pull the existing activity that you ask for in the Create Statements window, shown below.

As you can see, QuickBooks offers a lot of flexibility in the creation of statements. You can specify:

The active date range. Under SELECT STATEMENT OPTIONS, you can either enter a date range or request a statement for every customer who has open transactions as of the Statement Date.

The customers to include. Do you want to use the conditions you just outlined to apply to All Customers? You can make a choice Multiple Customers, a single customer, or by types.  You will also have the option to print or send it electronically.

The template to use. If you have not customized QuickBooks’ standard form and want to do so, let us help.

If you assess finance charges, it may be involve additional process.  This is an advanced activity in QuickBooks, and we’d be happy to provide guidance in this area.

We highly recommend that you let us help you get started with this or any configuration and setup of your company file.  It’s much easier and economical for you to get upfront guidance than for us to come in and untangle your company file.

Thank you and we look forward to working with you,

Ben Derebie, MBA, CMA
Certified Management Accountant
Advanced Certified in QuickBooks
& Enterprise Solutions ProAdvisor

Creating bank deposits manually can be a huge chore. QuickBooks simplifies this task.

Satisfying though it may be to enter all of those customer payments manually on a paper deposit slip, it can also be tedious and time-consuming. The more successful in business you are, the more time and care it takes.

Whether you accept cash, checks, or credit/debit cards, QuickBooks has tools that help you streamline the process of moving the funds into your physical bank accounts. In fact, part of your job is done when you enter the payments on the Receive Payments or Sales Receipt screens.

An Important Decision

When you record a payment in QuickBooks, you can enter it in one of two ways. Ask us if you’re not certain which one best suits your business. Payments can be deposited:

• In a specific bank account. QuickBooks lets you specify an individual account for each transaction. If you select this option, a box labeled DEPOSIT TO will appear on the Sales Receipt and Receive Payment screens. Select an account from the drop-down list, and your payment will be automatically deposited into it.

• In Undeposited Funds. This is an asset account that can hold multiple payments, but they are not automatically deposited.

If you decide to have all payments sent to the Undeposited Funds account, you can establish that as your default and use it for both.

Other Deposits

What about money you receive that is neither payment on an invoice you sent or payment for an item or service received immediately? There are many situations where this might be the case and a bit confusing includes:

• Vendor refunds, rebates, etc.,
• Unsolicited donations [for non-profits], or
• An owner’s investment in the business.
• Loan from shareholders etc.

To record incoming funds like these, you may want to go through the banking or company menu depending upon the particular transaction. The process of identifying and recording such transactions at times can be challenging in particular when repayment will be processed. You can consult with us for a specific direction and will be glad to offer help or training as necessary.

If you’re planning to open a merchant account so you can accept debit and credit cards, the process is similar, but there are additional steps you must take to ensure that your books balance.

We can show you the ropes and answer any other questions you have about depositing payments. You work hard for your money, so make sure you see it in your bank accounts as well.

Thank you and we look forward to working with you,

Ben Derebie, MBA, CMA
Certified Management Accountant
Advanced Certified in QuickBooks
& Enterprise Solutions ProAdvisor

The Income Tracker is one of Quick-Books  more innovative features. If you’re not using it, you should be.

More Functionality

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 from different avenues

There’s also another way you can get there if you have a recent version of QuickBooks: the Income Tracker. (Talk to us about whether to allow other employees to use it, and how to set that up.) The Income Tracker provides a visual overview of your company’s income.

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. 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.

Here is a good place to start your analysis!

The Income Tracker is great for simply viewing groups of transactions; double-clicking on one will open the original form.  If you have not been there yet, you may want to explore by selecting the colored tabs.  Here you will discover wealth of information that will help you move forward your business operation.

What else can you do?

From the Income Tracker, you can create invoice for a 100 percent of the estimate or you may decide to use percentage of completion method.  If you are ready you can also receive payment, edit or view transaction journal.

QuickBooks’ Income Tracker doesn’t do anything that can’t be done in another way in the program. But it provides an excellent one-glance view of the current state of your receivables movement.

What to look for

If you have observed unexpected balances or you discovered any irregularities in your accounting system, let us know and we will be glad to address your concerns.  We can evaluate your receivable process, suggest ways on how to improve your operation and accelerate your cash-inflow.  Getting that “PAID” stamp on your invoices is the 1^st step to improve your cash flow and strengthen your confidence as a business manager.

We are always available to answer your questions.  It can be your QuickBooks configuration / setup, accounting, bookkeeping, reporting, data interpretation or just needed training for your staff.  You already know that your managerial accounting reports are critical tools to help you make better business decisions.

So, why not be on top of it!

Ben Derebie, MBA, CMA

Certified Management Accountant

Advanced Certified QuickBooks & Enterprise Solutions ProAdvisor

QuickBooks provides dozens of Customizable Report Templates. You know when you need some of them, but which are must?

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 bookkeeping culminates in what’s probably the most critical element of QuickBooks and your Accounting System, i.e.:

Your Financial and Managerial Reports to base your Business Decision.

Reports can tell you how many navy blue sweatshirts you sold in March, what you paid for health insurance premiums, 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 that are carefully Customized and properly Analyzed can do more than telling you how many golf clubs to order or when to pay your bills. They can help you make Better Business Decisions that will help you take your growing company to the next level.

There are several reports that you should be looking at regularly. Some of them you can interpret easily and use in your daily workflow. Some of the reports need appropriate interpretation by a seasoned professional. As much as there many type of reports in QuickBooks, it needless to say that they are “Customizable Report Templates”. 

Contact us, so we can help you with its customization and the interpretation of the more complex financial and managerial reports.

Who Owes Money?

At the end of the day Cash is still the King! “Do I have it?” that’s probably a question you ask yourself every day. You may want to run the A/R report periodically to find out who owes you money and to follow up with customers who have past due invoices. We can help you customize and bookmark the reports so that you don’t have to re-invent the wheel over and over again there by saving you your limited resources.

Getting There

There is more than one way to get you to your reports. You can open the Reports menu and move your cursor down to the category you want, like Customers & Receivables, Accounts Payable, Company Financial and so on. These reports are ‘As Is’ & come as a standard with your product. The menu is a great place to explore & familiarize one-self.

The quality of your Financial / Managerial Reports depends on the input and how customized the reports are to your business needs. You may want to check with us and we will be glad to tailor the reports to your business needs or even review what you already have in the process.

Tracking What You Owe

Accounts Payable Report can keep you up-to-date on money that you owe to other people and companies. You can also modify its columns to get additional information that your business may need. This report helps you on how much cash you need before writing your company’s check.

Standard Financial Reports

QuickBooks report categories include 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:

• Balance Sheet. What is the value of your company? The balance sheet breaks out this information by account such as, assets, liabilities and equity.
• Income Statement. Often referred to as Profit & Loss, this shows you how much money your business made or lost over a specific time period.
• Statement of Cash Flows. How much money came in and went out during a specified time range?

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 and bookkeeping practice as you proceed through your daily workflow.

We’re always available to answer questions you have be it QuickBooks’, accounting & bookkeeping, reporting & interpretation, system configuration or set up including review your chart of accounts and items related there-in. Your reports are critical tools to make better business decisions.

Ben Derebie, MBA, CMA

Certified Management Accountant

Advanced Certified QuickBooks &

Enterprise Solutions ProAdvisor