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Resolve to Do These 3 Things in QuickBooks Online This Month

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BookPro, Inc. ‘Tis the season for making resolutions and setting goals. Try exploring these three areas to dig deeper into QuickBooks Online.

By now, many New Year’s resolutions have already been made – and broken. Though they’re usually created with the best of intentions, they’re often just too ambitious to be realistic.

For example, you might decide to learn more about QuickBooks Online and keep up with your accounting chores more conscientiously in 2019. That’s hard to quantify. How will you know if you achieved that goal?

Instead, why not pick three (or more) specific areas and focus on them this month? We’ll get the ball rolling for you by making some suggestions.

Explore the QuickBooks Online mobile app:

Yes, QuickBooks Online itself is already mobile; you can access it from any computer that has an internet connection and browser. But you probably don’t always lug a laptop around when you’re away from the office, and you’re sometimes at locations where using it wouldn’t be practical. But you can always pull out your smartphone and fire up the QuickBooks online app, available for both iOS and Android.

No matter how small your smartphone (this image was captured on an iPhone SE), you can still do your accounting tasks using QuickBooks Online’s app.

QuickBooks Online’s app replicates a surprising percentage of the features found on the browser-based version. You can create, view, and edit invoices, estimates, and sales receipts for example, as well as see abbreviated customer and vendor records. Your product and service records are available there, including tools for recording expenses on the road.

Create a budget for one month:

Budgets are intimidating. That’s one reason why some small businesses don’t create them. So instead of trying to estimate what your income and expenses will be for an entire fiscal year, just build a budget for one month. In QuickBooks Online, you’d click the gear icon in the upper right, then select Budgeting. Click Add budget in the upper right to open the New Budget window.

Give it a name, like “February Budget,” and select FY2019. Leave the Interval at Monthly, and open the Pre-fill data? menu to click on Actual data – 2018 (if you have data from last year). Then click Create Budget in the lower right corner. Look at last year’s February numbers and estimate how they might change in 2019. Replace the old numbers with your new ones.

Creating a framework for a budget in QuickBooks Online is easy.

We’re suggesting you try it for just one month, so you get a feel for how this tool works. And that experiment will probably leave you with some questions. We can help you go further and complete an annual budget.

Customize your sales forms:

Every piece of paper and email you send to your customers contributes to their impression of you. Are you presenting an attractive, consistent image of your business to them? QuickBooks Online can help with this. It offers simple (for the most part) tools that allow you to modify the boilerplate forms offered on the site – without being an experienced graphic designer.

Start by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right and selecting Your Company | Custom Form Styles. Unless you’ve done some work in this area before, the screen that opens will have just one listed entry: your Master form, the one that comes standard in QuickBooks Online. To see what you can do, click Edit at the end of that line. Your four options are:

  • Design. This section contains links to modifications you can make to your sales forms’ visuals. You can, for example, add a logo or color and change the default fonts.

Want to change your logo or other elements of your sales forms? QuickBooks Online has the tools.

  • Content. Do you want to add or remove the standard columns (Date, Quantity, etc.) displayed on your invoices? You can do so by checking and unchecking boxes.
  • Emails. QuickBooks Online sends email messages with forms; you can edit them here.
  • Payments. This is a reminder that QuickBooks Online supports online payments, which can help you get paid faster.

There’s more you can do to make your sales forms look professional and polished. We can help you with these tools – and any others you want to explore to expand your use of QuickBooks Online. It’s a new year, and who knows what might come your way over the next 12 months? Contact us if you want to prepare for the new accounting challenges that 2019 might present.

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Did you resolve to grow your understanding of QuickBooks Online in 2019? We can help you explore new features.

Go mobile in 2019: Download the QuickBooks Online app for your smartphone. You’d be surprised at how much it can do for you while you’re on the go.

How are things going with your 2019 budget? If you don’t have one yet, let us show you how QuickBooks Online simplifies this critical task.

QuickBooks Online’s sales forms (like invoices) may work fine for you. Do you know, though, how they can be customized to fit the image of your business? Ask us.

4 Areas to Consider When Transitioning Employees to Working From Home

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Young Asian small business owner working at home officeFor businesses that haven’t traditionally embraced remote employees, it may be difficult to get up to full speed with the current turn of events.  To make the inevitable transition less overwhelming, we assembled a handy checklist of actions to consider while adjusting to the new workplace reality.

Organization

  • Access your staff members and/or roles that are able to work remotely, those that can’t work remotely, and those where remote work may be possible with some modifications.
  • Conduct an employee survey to determine the availability of computers that can be used for working remotely, as well as availability to high-speed internet access.
  • Create company guidelines covering remote employees, including inappropriate use of company assets and security guidelines.
  • Develop and conduct work-at-home- training for using remote access, remote tools, and best practices.
  • Select a video-conferencing platform for services, such as Zoom, Cisco WebEx, or Go To Meeting.
  • Develop a communications plan to involve remote employees in the daily activities of the organization.

 Security

  • Create and implement a company security policy that applies to remote employees, including actions such as locking computers when not in use.
  • Implement two-factor authentication for highly-sensitive portals.
  • If needed, confirm all remote employees have access to and can use a business-grade VPN, and that you have enough licenses for all employees working remotely.

Staff

  • Institute a transparency policy with your staff and communicate frequently.
  • Check in on your staff, daily if possible, to confirm they are comfortable with working from home. Find and address any problems they may be experiencing.
  • Make certain each staff member has reliable voice communications, even if this results in adding a business-quality voice over IP service.
  • Don’t attempt to micro-manage your staff. Remember their working conditions at home won’t be ideal, and they will need to work out their own work patterns and schedules.
  • Create a phone number and email address where staff members can communicate their concerns about the firm, working at home, or even the status of COVID-19.

Infrastructure

  • Ensure that you have ample bandwidth coming in to your company to handle all of the new remote traffic.
  • Make sure you have backups of your services so your staff is able to keep working in the event extra traffic causes your primary service to go down.

You may need to adjust or expand this list to match the specific needs of your firm and the conditions affecting your organization.  Use this list to get you started and to help guide you through the process.

Get back to the job of running your business and leave the accounting to us! Call us at 407-281-7375 now and request a free consultation to find out how we can work together for your success.

Why an Employee Handbook is Necessary

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BookPro, Inc. - Your Bookkeeping Professionals - Why an Employee Handbook is NecessarySusie wanders in half an hour late two or three times a week. James checks his personal e-mail and monitors Internet auction prices at work. They’re both good workers — but they’re giving the other employees the wrong message. If you have problems like these, it might be time to create an employee handbook.

Sound too “corporate”? The truth is, even very small businesses can benefit from having an employee handbook. Having things in writing puts your employees on equal footing, gives you rules to enforce, and helps new hires learn the rules quickly.

Mission statement. Start your handbook by painting the big picture: What is your company all about? What are your goals? A mission statement can help your employees feel more like part of the team.

General policies. This is where you spell out your dress code; your hours of operation, pay periods, and holidays; the company policy on telephone and Internet use; and other general information.

Leave. This section covers your policies on sick leave, vacation time, maternity leave, jury duty, personal and funeral leave, and military duty.

Benefits. Here’s where you provide information about any health, disability, or life insurance, or any other benefits you provide.

Discipline. This part can get tricky. Some courts have considered employee handbooks as legally binding contracts. Check with an employment attorney for help and advice.

For more tips on how to keep business best practices front and center for your company, give us a call today. We can’t wait to hear from you.

Request a free consultation or call us today at 407-281-7375 to start working with an experienced Longwood, FL accounting firm with a reputation for integrity and quality service.

Depreciation: Is It Right for You?

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BookPro, Inc. - Your Bookkeeping Professionals - DepreciationDepreciation is a deduction from income tax that lets you recover the cost of property. Click through to see how the IRS allows for the wear and tear, deterioration or even obsolescence of items.

Depreciation of tangible property — buildings, machinery, vehicles, furniture and equipment, even cell phones — as well as intangible property, such as patents, copyrights and computer software, in some situations, is allowed by the IRS and can be used to offset income from your business. Does your property meet these requirements?

  • You own the property.
  • Or you lease the property and make capital improvements.
  • You use the property in business and for personal purposes. (In this case, you can only deduct depreciation for business use of the property.)
  • The property must have a determinable useful life of more than one year.

However, not everything can be depreciated. For example, land is off the table: It doesn’t get used up and is not subject to wear and tear. Inventory is not depreciated either.

You depreciate an asset over time. When you place property in service to use in your business or trade or to produce income, that’s when depreciation begins. However, property stops being depreciable when you’ve fully recovered the property’s cost or other basis or when you retire it from service — whichever happens first.

There are different schedules for different items: For computers, office equipment, cars, trucks and appliances, the recovery time is up to five years; office furniture and fixtures work on a seven-year schedule. Residential rental properties can be recovered over 27.5 years, while commercial buildings and nonresidential properties can be recovered over 39 years, depending on the year you acquired them.

You need to know the initial cost of the asset and how long you can depreciate it for. There are three depreciation methods summarized below. Particular situations will dictate which ones are most appropriate for you.

  • Straight line — depreciate the property an equal amount each year over its useful life.
  • Accelerated method — take larger depreciation deductions in the first few years of the property’s useful life and smaller deductions later on.
  • Section 179 deduction — deduct the entire cost of the asset the year it’s acquired.

And to ensure that you properly depreciate property, you need to consider:

  • The depreciation method for the property.
  • The class life of the asset.
  • Whether the property is Listed Property (as defined by the IRS)
  • Whether you’ve elected to expense any portion of the asset.
  • Whether you qualify for any bonus first-year depreciation.
  • The depreciable basis of the property.

Use depreciation to decrease your tax burden — you are lowering your overall taxable income. Depreciation doesn’t affect your company’s cash flow or its actual cash balance — it’s a noncash expense. However, before making any decisions, keep in mind that this is just an introduction to a very complex topic, and the provisions and methods described here are not applicable in every situation.

Contact us today at 407-281-7375 and ask for Denise May to discuss your business needs with an experienced Longwood, FL accountant or request your free consultation online now.

Getting Started with Accounts in QuickBooks Online, Part 1

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BookPro, Inc. - Your Bookseeping Professionals - QuickBooksQuickBooks Online was built to work with transactions downloaded from your online financial institutions. Here’s how to work with them.

The ability to import transactions from financial institutions into QuickBooks Online is definitely one of the best things about the site. You may have even signed up for that very reason. By now, you’ve probably already set up at least one connection. But are you using all of the QuickBooks Online’s account tools? There’s a lot you can do once you’ve imported in data from your bank or credit card provider.

We’ll explore these features in this column and the next.

First Steps

If you’re a new subscriber, you may not have established these critical links yet. It’s an easy process. Start by clicking the Banking link in the left vertical navigation pane. In the upper right corner, click Add Account and enter the name of your financial institution if it’s not pictured. Then follow the instructions you’re given on the screen. These can vary depending on the bank or credit card provider, but you’re always at least asked to enter the user name and password that you use to log into each online.

Need help with this? Let us know.

Viewing Your Transactions

Once you’ve made a successful connection, you’ll be returned to the Bank and Credit Cards page. You should see a card-shaped graphic at the top of the screen for each account you’ve linked. Click on one. The table that opens is not your account register. The view here defaults to For Review, which refers to transactions you’ve downloaded. The All tab should also be highlighted; we’ll get to Recognized transactions later.

When you first download transactions into QuickBooks Online, before you’ve done anything with them, many will appear under For Review.

There’s a lot going on here, so don’t be surprised if you’re confused. Review each transaction by clicking on it. QuickBooks Online will have guessed at how it should be categorized, but you can change this by opening the list in the category field and selecting the correct one. It’s critical that you get this right, since it will have an impact on reports and income taxes. If you need to Split it between multiple categories, click on that button found to the right. If the transaction is Billable, check that box and choose a customer from the drop-down list. If you don’t see this box, click the gear icon in the upper right and select Account and Settings | Expenses. Check to see that Make Expenses and Items Billable is turned On (click on Off, then check the appropriate box to turn it on).

Next, determine how you want to process the transaction by clicking on one of the three buttons at the top of the transaction box. Do you want to accept it and Add it to that account’s register? Do you want QuickBooks Online to Find (a) Match for it (like a payment that matches an invoice, for example)? Or, do you want to Transfer it to another account? Once you’ve made one of these three selections, the transactions that you’ve added or matched will move under the In QuickBooks tab (where you can still Undo them) and will be available in the account’s register.

Other Options

You can save time by using QuickBooks Online’s Batch Actions tool.

Say you run a cross some duplicate or personal transactions that you don’t want to appear in the current account’s register. Check the box in front of each, then click the arrow in the Batch Actions box. Select Exclude Selected. They’ll then be available under the Excluded tab. You can also Accept or Modify multiple transactions simultaneously by using this tool.

So far, you’ve been viewing All your transactions. Click on Recognized to the right of it. These are transactions that are already familiar to QuickBooks Online because they’ve appeared before and/or have been matched, or because you’ve created Bank Rules for them (we’ll address that concept next month). You’ll need to address these the same way you did the transactions in the For Review section; you can either Add or Transfer them.

If you’re new to QuickBooks Online, this may all sound pretty complicated. It can be at first. But once you’ve worked with downloaded transactions for a while, you’ll understand the flow much better. If you’re not clear on the process from the start, it can lead to trouble. Contact us at your convenience. We’d be happy to sit down with you and go through it all using your own company’s data; the familiarity may help.

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If you’re new to QuickBooks Online, there’s a lot you need to understand about dealing with downloaded transactions out the gate. Let us help.

When you download transactions into QuickBooks Online, the site sometimes automatically “matches” them to existing entries. We’re here to explain and help you navigate this. Tired of reviewing downloaded transactions one by one in QuickBooks Online? Click on the Batch Actions button to explore this feature. We can show you how.

QuickBooks Online often guesses at how downloaded transactions should be categorized. You should always check these for accuracy, and we can show you how.

Call us at 407-281-7375 or request your free consultation online now and find out how you can leverage QuickBooks to precisely track your finances.

Get Your Business Costs Under Control Today

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cost control imageIncreasing your profits requires selling more and/or spending less. While building up your sales may require an extended effort, business costs are often very ripe for a quick trimming. Here are some possibilities.

Supplies and Other Purchases

Usually, in any business, relatively few items represent a very large share of all outlays. The first step in cutting expenses is, therefore, to identify your highest costs. You may be able to trim many of these costs by making sure you always bid out significant purchases or by more actively seeking less expensive alternatives.

For many companies, inventory carrying costs are a very significant expense. Focusing on matching your inventory quantities more closely to your short-term needs could result in significant savings.

Telecommunications and Other Services

The ongoing services you buy may also offer the potential for cost savings. Revisit your choice of telecommunications vendor and your usage.

Look carefully at your costs for financial services. If you borrow or maintain a line of credit, always compare the rates from more than one financing source before you commit. Make sure you are not paying higher-than-necessary fees for your company’s checking and deposit services.

Cash Management

To control cash outlays, take advantage of discounts for early payment whenever possible. And look to delay payments for as long as you can without giving up discounts.

On the receiving side, deposit all receipts daily. And always actively pursue collection of any invoices that are past due. To help control your working capital needs and, therefore, your credit costs, try to match any new liabilities to your anticipated cash flow.

Fixed Expenses

One other category worth examining is fixed expenses that are long-term commitments. While you usually can’t change these quickly, be aware of when a window for change will open and prepare well in advance by considering lower cost alternatives.

To learn more ways to control your business costs give us a call today. Our trained staff of professionals is always available to answer any questions you may have.

Call us at 407-281-7375 now and request a free consultation to find out how we can work together for your success.