Data management made easy: Creating items and jobs in QuickBooks Desktop
Does your company do projects or jobs for customers? QuickBooks can keep all related data in one place for you.
Before QuickBooks came along, tracking jobs or projects for your business probably involved file folders and paper invoices and bank statements, and lots of sticky notes. You hoped that you didn’t forget to bill a customer or record a payment. And calculating the profitability of a job was quite a challenge.
QuickBooks makes these tasks easy. You can attach multiple jobs to customers and assign expenses to them when you enter a purchase. You can also assign estimates and invoices to specific jobs, then do the same when payments come in. QuickBooks allows you to create individual records for each job based on all this data, and run reports that gauge profitability and unbilled costs, for example.
Transaction and reports templates are all ready for you to fill with your own data, but if you haven’t yet created records for the products and services you sell to complete your jobs, we suggest you do so before you start building your first one. You’ll need to be able to add those sales to your records. We’ll start there.
Creating Item Records
It’s always a good idea to make your item records as comprehensive as possible. But it’s especially important when you’re going to be creating and tracking jobs. We’ll create a service that might be used by a landscaping service as an example.
To get started, open the Lists menu and select Item List. Click the down arrow next to Item in the lower left so you can familiarize yourself with the options available there. Click New. In the window that opens, select Service from the drop-down list that opens below Type. Give your service an Item Name/Number and click the box if it will be a Subitem of another account.
Before you can start building job records, you should create records for the products and services that will be used for them.
If you’re using a version of QuickBooks that says Enable under Units of Measure and you want to designate one, click the button and walk through the wizard to define it. If you’re using a version of QuickBooks that doesn’t offer it, d0n’t worry about it. Enter a brief Description in the appropriate field and then a Rate. Open the list in the Tax Code field and select either Tax or Non.
You may want to meet with us before you start creating items to go over the Tax Code and Account fields, or the question about assemblies or contractors – especially if you’re new to QuickBooks. They have to be correct, and you may have more questions if you have to create records for inventory parts, as this process is more complicated. If you’re sure of the information you entered here, though, click OK.
Creating Jobs
To start creating jobs, you need to open the Customers menu and click Customer Center. The Customers & Jobs tab on the left should be highlighted. Click the down arrow next to the field in the upper left and select New Customer & Job if you need to create a customer record first. If you already have a customer record, click once on the customer’s name in the list and then click Add Job. Either way, you’ll see a window like the one displayed below when you click the Job Info tab.
QuickBooks contains templates for each customer that you can use to create individual job records.
At the very top of this screen, above the window, you’ll see a field for Job Name, which you’ll need to enter. If this is a new customer, there won’t be an Opening Balance [dollar amount] As Of [Date]. If the customer owes you money from previous work, you’ll need to supply the balance owed, which you can find by looking in the Balance Total column back in the Customer Center’s customer list.
You’ll enter a Description, of course. If your company offers a variety of summer landscaping packages, you might want to be more specific (like Weekly and Monthly Summer Landscaping) so you can differentiate among them. You need to consider what kinds of Job Types you want to create. Click the down arrow in that field and select <Add New>. Job Types provide a way for you to categorize different jobs.
Select your Job Status from the drop-down list, and then choose your Start Date and Projected End Date using the calendars provided. You’ll eventually be able to fill in the End Date field. When you’re done, click OK. Your new job will appear in the Customers & Jobs list, under the related customer.
Next month, we’ll talk more about how jobs are used in QuickBooks. If you have questions before then, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We want you to get the most you can out of the software and are happy to help you learn new features.
QuickBooks Online helps you track mileage
With gas prices so high, you need to track your travel costs as closely as possible. Every penny counts and this helps make sure you get your tax deduction for your business mileage.
If you drive even a little for business, it’s easy to let mileage costs slide. After all, it’s a pain to keep track of your tax-deductible mileage in a little notebook and do all the calculations required. If you do rack up a lot of business miles, you probably forget to track some trips and end up losing money.
QuickBooks Online offers a much better way. Its Mileage tools include simple fill-in-the-blank records that allow you to document individual trips. You can either enter the starting point and destination and let the site calculate your mileage and deduction or enter the number of miles yourself.
If you use QuickBooks Online’s mobile app, it can track your miles automatically as you drive (as long as you have the correct settings turned on). Here’s a look at how all of this works.
Setting Up
To get started, click the Mileage link in QuickBooks Online’s toolbar. The screen that opens will eventually display a table that contains information about your trips, but you need to do a little setup first. Click the down arrow next to Add Trip in the upper right corner and select Manage vehicles. A panel will slide out from the right. Click Add vehicle.
You’ll need to supply information about your vehicles before you can start entering trips.
You’ll need to supply the vehicle’s year, make, and model. Do you own or lease it, and on what date was the vehicle purchased or leased and put into service? Do you want to have your annual mileage calculated by entering odometer readings or have QuickBooks Online track your business miles driven automatically? When you’re done making your selections and entering data, click Save.
Entering Trip Data
You can download trips as CSV files or import them from Mile IQ, but you’re probably more likely to enter them manually.
Click Add Trip in the upper right corner. In the pane that opens, you’ll enter the date of the trip and either the total miles or the start and endpoint. You’ll select the business purpose and vehicle and indicate whether it was a round trip. When you’re done, click Save.
The trip will appear in the table on the opening screen, and your current possible total deduction will be in the upper left corner, along with your total business miles and total miles.
If you want to designate a trip as personal, click the box in front of the trip in that table. In the black horizontal box that appears, click the icon that looks like a little person, then click Apply. Now, the trip will appear in the Personal column and will not count toward your business tax-deductible mileage.
When you select a trip in the Mileage table, you can mark it as personal so it’s not included in your business tax-deductible miles.
Personal Trips Can Count, Too
If you use your vehicle(s) for personal as well as business purposes, tracking some of those miles can also mean a tax deduction. For tax year 2022, you can deduct 18 cents per mile for your travel to and from medical appointments. Note: Medical mileage is only deductible if medical exceeds a certain percent of AGI. Be sure to check with the IRS yearly tax code, as they update the mileage amounts annually.
And if you do volunteer work for a qualified charitable organization, the miles you drive in service of it can be deducted at the rate of 14 cents per mile. You can also claim the cost of parking and tolls, as long as you weren’t reimbursed for any of these expenses. Obviously, the IRS wants you to keep careful records of your charitable mileage, and QuickBooks Online can provide them.
QuickBooks Online doesn’t track these deductions, but you’ll at least have a record of the miles driven.
Auto-Track Your Miles
The easiest way to track your mileage in QuickBooks Online is by using its mobile app. You can launch this and have it record your mileage automatically as you’re driving. Versions are available for both Android and iOS, and they’re different from each other. They also have more features than the browser-based version of QuickBooks Online, like maps, rules, and easier designation of trips as business or personal.
The iOS version of Mileage in the QuickBooks Online app
In both versions, you’ll need to click the menu in the lower right corner after you’ve opened the QuickBooks Online app and select Mileage. Make sure Auto-Tracking is turned on. Your phone’s location services tool must be turned on, too. There are other settings that vary between the two operating systems. You can search the help system of either app to make sure you get your settings correct if the onscreen instructions aren’t clear enough.
Of course, you won’t see the fruits of your mileage deductions until you file your 2022 taxes. But you can factor these savings in as you’re doing your tax planning during the year. Please let Peak Advisers help if you’re having any trouble with QuickBooks Online’s Mileage tools, or if you have questions with other elements of the site.
QuickBooks Desktop products ARE NOT going away
Recently, there has been considerable disinformation out there regarding a “sunset” or discontinuation of QuickBooks. It’s not true.
QuickBooks Desktop version is not going away.
Recently, there has been considerable misinformation regarding a “sunset” or discontinuation of QuickBooks.
This is not true. It’s not happening.
The truth is that QuickBooks is changing the purchase model to a subscription. All versions of QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise became a subscription product a few years ago. Enterprise is purchased with either monthly or annual subscriptions. Peak Advisers can offer a perpetual discount on QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise if you buy through us.
It’s QuickBooks Desktop Pro and Premier’s turn to become an annual subscription product. Over the past year, new QuickBooks Pro and Premier purchases have moved to the Pro Plus and Premier Plus products.
If you purchased your QuickBooks Pro or Premier before 2020, you will find some product services will no longer function (i.e., Currency update, Payroll Subscription, etc.). These older versions of the software will be out of compliance and outdated as of January 31, 2023.
Honestly, this isn’t out of the normal for QuickBooks. Updates of older software versions have sunset after four years of service for the past many years. The products don’t update after four years because they need to be upgraded to a current application with proper privacy, security, and the newly developed features that older products don’t have.
Flagship Product
QuickBooks Desktop is a flagship product for Intuit; it is not going away. It is just changing to subscription products. Contact Peak Advisers to upgrade the old software that will serve you for many years.
No hesitation needed to switch from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online
It’s a great time for businesses to switch from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online, and many businesses are doing it for ease of access from anywhere there is an internet connection.
It’s a great time for businesses to switch from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online, and many businesses are doing it for ease of access from anywhere there is an internet connection. Another good reason is the discount pricing that is available from Peak Advisers.
But what if you don’t want to switch?
“I like QuickBooks desktop better than QuickBooks Online,” is a statement we hear sometimes when talking to folks about migrating to QuickBooks Online (QBO).
Adopting new innovations and change has always been a challenge. Let’s address some of the issues that cause hesitation to switch to QBO.
Performance
One of the most frequent reasons people like QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT) is the ability to have multiple windows open. We see clients who open up to 5, 10, or 15 windows at once.
Did you know that when multiple users have multiple windows open the desktop performance is directly reduced for all users.?
Many times the open windows are reports, QBDT has to work hard to keep these reports refreshed in the background. If four users all have Accounts Receivables Aging, Profit & Loss statement, and a Balance Sheet open while new invoices or bills are created…all of the reports need to be refreshed.
This isn’t an issue in QBO.
Multiple windows work in QBO
QBO actually supports multiple windows by adding additional tabs to the browser page. There are several ways to create these additional tabs.
An easy way to do this is to hold the Control key (CTRL) down and click on Reports. A new tab will appear. Switch between tabs, drag a tab away from the top, and place reports and transactions side-by-side. There is no limit to the number of tabs you can have up in QBO.
Important changes available in latest version of QuickBooks
Whether or not you’re ready for the latest version of QuickBooks, you should know about some important changes.
Sometimes, deciding that you need to upgrade a piece of software is easy. Either a newer version has features you need that your current product lacks, or you’ve outgrown the application’s capacity. You may be hesitant to move up, though, because you don’t want to start over learning a new user interface and command structure.
Fortunately, QuickBooks hasn’t made overwhelmingly drastic changes in its user experience for a long time. Even if you jump two or three versions, what you’ll see should be pretty familiar, except for any new features added.
QuickBooks 2022 looks like QuickBooks 2021, but Intuit has introduced significant changes to its flagship software. When you upgrade to the 2022 version, you’ll find that the company has altered its pricing structure. You may also not be able to install and run it if your PC is a few years old. And getting bills into your company file is easier.
A New Annual Obligation
As you probably know, QuickBooks Online is a subscription product. You can keep using it for as long as you pay your subscription fees once a month. The desktop versions of QuickBooks have always required one upfront payment that allows you to keep using the software for as long as you want (though Intuit discontinues support for older products eventually).
Starting with the 2022 versions of desktop QuickBooks, you’ll pay an annual subscription fee that you’ll need to renew every 12 months. If you don’t, you won’t be able to continue to use the software.
Note: If you have an older version of QuickBooks, you may not know that all desktop products now are “Plus” versions. These include unlimited support, data backups, and annual upgrades.
Up until now, you had to enter bills manually. QuickBooks 2022 allows you to upload them from its mobile app, among other new options.
QuickBooks Pro Plus 2022 costs $349.99 annually for one user. You’ll need to pay another $200 for each additional user (up to three). QuickBooks Premier Plus 2022 is $549.99 per year. Additional users are $300 each for up to five users. We don’t usually write about QuickBooks Enterprise but talk to us about upgrading if you’re outgrowing Premier and want to stay in the QuickBooks family. QuickBooks Enterprise 22.0 costs $804 per year ($1,340 after the first year) and supports up to 40 users.
Easier Bill Entry
You probably already know how to manage bills in QuickBooks. You open the Vendors menu, select Enter Bills, provide the basic details, and save it. You go to Vendors | Pay Bills when you’re ready. That bill template will be available for paying subsequent bills (using a different date and—usually—amount).
If you upgrade to QuickBooks 2022, you’ll be able to complete this step in numerous ways. You’ll have several options for automating your bill entry. You can:
Download the QuickBooks Desktop mobile app (be sure to get the right one – there’s another mobile app for QuickBooks Online). Click Snap Bill, then Upload photo. It will be available in QuickBooks on a bill entry form with some of its details (like date, amount, and vendor) already transferred from the photo and filled in. You can edit it and treat it like any other bill. QuickBooks 2022 Premier Plus and Enterprise and above only
Email PDFs of your bills using a custom email address ending in @qbdesktopdocs.com.
Take a photo using your mobile device’s camera (not the QuickBooks app) and email it to your custom email address.
Upload photos of bills from Google Drive.
Keep in mind that this technology is not perfect. You may have to practice with it some, and all of the expected data may not transfer every time.
Improved Performance
If you have a large QuickBooks company file and/or an older computer, you may notice that the software runs slowly. QuickBooks 2022 has enhanced the product’s performance by taking advantage of the 64-bit processor – in some cases, by 38 percent, according to Intuit.
Note: If you’re unsure whether your PC has a 32-bit or 64-bit processor, click on the Windows Start menu and select Control Panel, then System and Security | System.
We want you to be aware of what is available in QuickBooks 2022. When the time comes for you to move up to the current version, we can help you make that decision and deal with any installation issues. In the meantime, we hope that the software is helping you do your accounting work as productively and efficiently as possible.
The fix for too many transactions in QuickBooks Online: Create rules
It’s essential to categorize transactions, but it takes time. However, if every day brings several dozen into QuickBooks Online, you can automate this process.
One of the cardinal accounting rules is this: Go through your new transactions every day. If you wait until there are too many of them, you’re likely to give them short shrift. As a result, you may miss problems, just as you might skip categorizing some of them because it simply takes too long.
But correct categorization is essential. Your income taxes and reports will not be accurate if you fail to assign the right category to your transactions. QuickBooks Online makes this easy.
The site also allows you to accelerate the process by automating it. For example, it will enable you to create Rules. If a transaction contains a specific piece of information, a name, or an amount, QuickBooks Online allows you to indicate how it should be categorized. This kind of automation will save you time and may even prevent errors – as long as you use it carefully. Here’s how it works.
Defining Your Rules
We’ll use an easy example to explain how QuickBooks Online’s Rules work. Let’s say your shipping costs have started to increase lately, and you want to make sure you’re seeing any UPS transactions that go above a specified dollar amount and that they’re categorized accurately. Hover your mouse over Transactions in the toolbar and click on Banking (assuming you’re downloading your bank transactions). Select an account to work with by clicking on it, and make sure to highlight the For review bar.
Click on a transaction to open it. (If you’ve never explored what you can do with a downloaded transaction, study this box carefully while you’re there, and contact us with any questions.) On the bottom line, you’ll see a link labeled. Create a rule. Click on it, and a panel slides out from the right, as pictured below:
The upper half of the Create rule panel
This portion of the Create rule panel is pretty self-explanatory. First, give your rule a descriptive name (we entered UPS 25 Plus) and indicate whether it should be applied to Money in or Money out. Next, if you want to select a specific bank account or card, click the down arrow in the field to the right and select it. Otherwise, choose All bank accounts. Next, decide if a transaction has to meet Any of the conditions you’re going to specify or All of them. In this case, we want All.
Now you have to describe the conditions under which a transaction will be affected. We want transactions whose Description Contains The UPS Store. We also want to identify purchases from The UPS Store whose total is more than $25. So you’d click + Add a condition. Click the down arrow in the Description field and select Amount in the row that opens. Click the down arrow again in the next field and choose Is greater than. The final field in the row should contain 25.00.
You could keep adding conditions, but that’s all we need for this rule. You can click Test rule to find out how many transactions in your For review list would meet your specifications.
Next, you want to Assign attributes to the transactions selected. Your options are Transaction type, Category, Payee, Tags, Class, and Memo. The first two are required, and the third is recommended. The last three are optional. If you want QuickBooks Online to automatically confirm transactions this rule applies to, click the Auto-confirm button, so it’s showing green. If you choose this option, your matching transactions will be modified to meet your criteria and moved directly into the Categorized queue. You won’t see them in For review. So consider this carefully.
Click Save when you’re done.
The lower half of the Create rule screen
Warning: QuickBooks Online allows you to create new categories directly from this window. But accurate categorization is so critical that we'd rather you schedule a session with us to go over your list of categories and make any modifications necessary.
To recap: Any expense over $25 that comes into your For review queue whose Description reads The UPS Store will be automatically categorized and moved into the Categorized queue.
QuickBooks Online's Rules can save you time, but you may have errors in your company file without even knowing it if they're not created correctly. We recommend that you let us help you set these up from the start to avoid this. If you're new to downloading transactions onto the site, you may also want to consult with us.
Use the convenience of the cloud, get the power of QuickBooks
QuickBooks Online gives you the flexibility of the cloud with many of the features you’re used to with desktop. So take advantage of this opportunity to move managing the financial side of your business to the cloud.
QuickBooks Online gives you the flexibility of the cloud with many of the features you’re used to with desktop. And now is the best time to move to the cloud because you can get significant savings for 12 months.
Easier to manage your business
Keep your desktop data
Easily upload your data to QuickBooks Online and refer to the original file anytime.
Share up to date business data
Keep clients and decision-makers on the same page with up-to-date information in the cloud.
Manage more with apps
Connect to apps you already use like PayPal, Shopify, and Square to reduce duplicate data entry.
The power of real-time sharing
QuickBooks Online lets you share access with your accountant so they can view your books. There’s no emailing or waiting for them to make changes. You can also work simultaneously with other team members.
We’ll show you how it works.
Video: How QuickBooks Online works
Automate more of your workday
More automation means more time to do other things aimed at growing your business.
All of your bank and credit card transactions can automatically be imported to QuickBooks Online to help you seamlessly track your income and expenses
Create, send, and automatically schedule recurring invoices with a pay now button so your customers can pay online
Snap photos of your receipts and QuickBooks automatically matches them to existing expenses
Call Peak Advisers at (303) 801-4772 to discuss more of the business advantages of switching to QuickBooks Online.
QuickBooks makes managing your vendors easy
In these days of supply chain issues, you need to keep track of your vendors. QuickBooks has this covered.
If you buy and resell products, or if you need to purchase materials to create your own items, good management of your company’s vendor records is critical. Maintaining a physical card file is way too inflexible. You can’t find or edit individual records quickly or easily. They get lost or illegible because you’ve updated the cards too many times.
When you create a transaction like a purchase order or write a check, you have to look back and forth between your card and the form, and it’s easy to make transposition errors. And you can’t generate reports – not even an alphabetized list.
QuickBooks solves all of these problems. It includes blank vendor records that you can fill in and save. You can find the ones you’re looking for in a couple of seconds, and modifying them is a simple process. If you need to use vendor data elsewhere in the software, you only have to select the correct entry from a list. And vendor reports are plentiful. Here’s how it works.
The Vendor Information Screen
QuickBooks displays all of your vendor records and related tools on one page. To get to it, click Vendors in your toolbar to open the Vendor Information screen. There’s a list of vendors and transactions to the left and a small horizontal toolbar at the top containing action icons. But most of the page is taken up by your vendor records, displayed one at a time. Click New Vendor in the upper left corner to create a new one. A window like this appears:
Partial view of a QuickBooks vendor record
Fill in the blanks to complete your vendor’s contact information. Below that section, you’ll enter a physical address. Click Payment Settings in the series of tabs in the upper left. Here, you can enter an account number (if applicable) and select payment terms (like Net 30). You can also specify a credit limit and indicate how the vendor’s name should appear on checks. Click Tax Settings to enter a Vendor Tax ID and mark them as eligible for an IRS Form 1099 (using information from the vendor-provided W-9).
Clicking the Account Settings tab opens a window that may confuse you. If you’re entering a phone bill, for example, you’ll need to assign the correct expense account to it, which in this case would be Utilities: Telephone. That account will be automatically selected when you create a transaction for that vendor. There’s space for two alternate accounts here, too, if you think you’d ever have occasion to use a different one.
Warning: You must be accurate when assigning default accounts anywhere in QuickBooks, or you may run into problems with reports and taxes. Peak Advisers can go over this concept with you.
Click the final tab, labeled Additional Info, and you’ll have two options. You can specify a Vendor Type, like Utilities or Subcontractors (or create your own), and you can define Custom Fields that will appear on your customer, vendor, and employee records. You can assign up to 18 total, no more than seven to vendors.
You can define up to seven custom fields for your vendor records.
When you’ve completed your vendor record, click OK, and it will appear in your Vendors list and be available to use in transactions.
More Vendor Options
When you highlight a name in your Vendors list, the screen changes to display their contact information in the upper horizontal pane. Click the paper clip icon in the upper right corner to attach a file and the pencil icon to edit the record.
The lower half of this screen is divided into five sections, accessible by clicking tabs. It opens to Transactions, a list of all of your activity with the vendor. Click Contacts to see that vendor’s contacts and To-Dos to see any related tasks that have been created (you can right-click in the table and select Create New to generate your own). Notes are similar; right-click and choose Add New. The final tab, Sent Email, displays just that. Links at the bottom of the screen let you Manage To-Dos and Run Reports.
You can add To-Dos for your vendors.
Manage Your Vendor Relationships
Your business relationships with vendors are critical, considering it may be hard to get all the supplies you need. QuickBooks can ensure that you have the information you need about them – information that is comprehensive and easy to access. It can also save you time and improve the accuracy and thoroughness of your transactions and reports. Let us know if we can help you with any element of vendor management or if we can assist with your use of QuickBooks in other areas.
Reports are key to getting accounting work done in QuickBooks Online
You should be running reports in QuickBooks Online on a weekly—if not daily—basis. Here’s what you need to know.
You can do a lot of your accounting work in QuickBooks Online by generating reports. You can maintain your customer and vendor profiles. Create and send transactions like invoices and sales receipts and record payments. Enter and pay bills. Create time records and coordinate projects. Track your mileage and, if you have employees, process payroll.
These activities help you document your daily financial workflow. But if you’re not using QuickBooks Online’s reports, you can’t know how individual elements of your business like sales and purchases are doing. And you don’t see how all of those unique pieces fit together to create a comprehensive picture of how your business is performing.
QuickBooks Online’s reports are plentiful. They’re customizable. They’re easy to create. And they’re critical to your understanding of your company’s financial state. They answer the small questions, like, How many widgets do I need to order? And the more extensive, all-encompassing questions like, Will my business make a profit this year?.
Getting the Lay of the Land
Let’s look at how reports are organized in QuickBooks Online. Click Reports in the toolbar. They are divided into three areas that you can access by clicking the labeled tabs. Standard refers to the comprehensive list of reports that QuickBooks Online offers, displayed in related groups. Custom reports are reports that you’ve customized and saved so you can use the same format later. And Management reports are very flexible, specialized reports that company owners and managers can use.
A partial view of the list of QuickBooks Online’s Standard reports
Standard Reports
The Standard Reports area is where you’ll do most—if not all—of your reporting work. The list of available reports is divided into ten categories. You’re most likely to spend most of your time in just a few of them, including:
Favorites. You’ll be able to designate reports that you often run as Favorites and access them here, at the top of the list.
Who owes you. These are your receivables reports. You’ll come here when you need to know, for example, who is behind on making payments to you, how much individual customers owe you, and what billable charges and time haven’t been billed.
Sales and customers. What’s selling and what’s not? What have individual customers been buying? Which customers have accumulated billable time?
What you owe. These are your payables reports. They tell you, for example, which bills you haven’t paid, the total amount of your unpaid bills (grouped by days past due), and your balances with individual vendors.
Expenses and vendors. What have I purchased (grouped by vendor, product, or class)? What expenses have individual vendors incurred? Do I have any open purchase orders?
The Business Overview contains advanced financial reports that we can run and analyze for you. The same goes for For my accountant reports. Sales tax, Employees, and Payroll will be important to you if applicable for your company.
Working with Individual Reports
Each report in QuickBooks Online has three related task options.
To open any report, you click its title. If you want more information before doing that, hover your cursor over the label. Click the question mark to see a brief description of the report. If you want to make the report a Favorite, click the star, so it turns green. And clicking the three vertical dots opens the Customize link.
When you click the Customize link, a vertical panel slides out from the right, and the actual report is behind it, grayed out. Customization options vary from report to report. Some are pretty complex, and others offer fewer options. The Sales by Customer Detail report, for example, provides several ways for you to modify the content of your report, so it represents precisely the “slice” of data you want. So you can indicate your preferences in areas like:
Report period
Accounting method (cash or accrual)
Rows/columns (you can select which columns should appear and in what order, and group them by Account, Customer, Day, etc.)
Filter (choose the data group you want to be represented from several options, including Transaction Type, Product/Service, Payment Method, and Sales Rep)
Once you’ve run the report, you can click Save customization in the upper right corner and complete the fields in the window that opens. Your modification options will then be available when you click Custom reports so that you can rerun it anytime with new data.
You can customize QuickBooks Online’s reports in a variety of ways.
We’ll go into more depth about report customization in a future blog. For now, we encourage you to explore QuickBooks Online’s reports and their modification options so that you’re familiar with them and can put them to use anytime. Let us know if you have any questions about the site’s reports or if you need help making your use of QuickBooks Online more effective and productive.
Use QuickBooks reports to quickly gain deep insight into the health of your business
Have you explored what you can do with QuickBooks reports once you’ve created them? The insight reports can give you help you make better business decisions and plan for the future.
QuickBooks reports are your reward for tracking your business income and expenses conscientiously. Rather than scanning through lists of customer invoices to see which ones are past due, you can run an A/R Aging report with a couple of clicks. The same goes for your bills: A/P Aging. Need to know what items are selling well and which are not? Run Inventory Stock Status by Item.
The insight reports can give you don’t just tell you how many products you’ve sold and what you owe and who owes you. They help you make better business decisions and plan for the future.
A quick note here … If your business needs customized reports that you don’t know how to create, Peak Advisers can teach you how to create them or we can create them for you. Contact us to get started with our QuickBooks Advanced Reporting (QBAR) services.
You can do much more with QuickBooks reports than just absorb their information and move on with your day. You can modify them and share them and make comments on individual line items. Here’s how. (You can work with a QuickBooks sample file for most of these steps. Go to File | Open Previous Company.)
Memorizing Reports
Where does QuickBooks start when you create a report? How does it know, for example, what date range you want the report to cover and what customers and vendors and items should be included? It doesn’t. The pre-built reports that QuickBooks can create have default settings. That is, they just provide a starting place. To run the reports with the content you want to see, you have to modify them by clicking the Customize Report button in the upper left and specifying your preferences.
You can change numerous settings in QuickBooks’ reports, and then memorize those preferences for use again.
Once you’ve modified a report that you want to save, it’s easy to keep a copy of it with its new settings. With the report open, click the Memorize button at the top of the screen. When the Memorize Report window opens, give your report a Name that you’ll remember and will associate with its settings and content. If you’d like to save it in a Memorized Report Group, check that box and open the drop-down menu to select from the options there (Company, Customers, etc.).
Do you think other QuickBooks users might want to use the model you created? Click the box next to Share this report template with others. In the window that opens, you’ll need to give your report a Description. You can choose to share your name or post it anonymously.
Click Share, and you’ll be able to see your template in QuickBooks’ Report Center by clicking Shared with the Memorized tab highlighted. Other users will only be able to access the settings and use them with their own data. Yours will not be included.
Commented Reports
You can click the dialogue balloon next to any item and enter a comment about it in the box below.
QuickBooks’ Reports menu is a comprehensive listing of all of your report options. Click on it, and you’ll see that there’s a link for your Memorized reports right at the top. You’ll also see a link for Commented Reports. QuickBooks allows you to enter comments in reports.
To see this in action, open the Sales by Item Detail report. Click Comment on Report at the top of the screen. QuickBooks will open another copy with small dialogue balloons displayed next to every element of the report (Name, Qty, Sales Price, etc.) in every row. Click one you want to comment on, and a window opens below. Enter your comment.
The number in front of the comment (1) matches the correct location in the report. Click Save over to the right. You can now Print or E-mail the commented report or Save it after giving it a Name. To see the list of reports you’ve entered comments on, open the Reports menu and select Commented Reports. Your original report will not contain the comments, only the commented one you saved.
Scheduling Reports
You may be commenting on reports just for your own purposes, but you may also want to share them with colleagues or other business contacts sometimes. QuickBooks allows you to email selected reports on a schedule, as long as they’re memorized.
Scheduling reports isn’t such a complex process, but your system has to be set up precisely for it to work. For example, you must:
Be in single-user mode.
Have an email service connected to QuickBooks (if it’s Outlook, it must be open and running).
Not be in sleep or hibernation mode.
Have QuickBooks updated to the latest release.
Have QuickBooks running.
We strongly discourage you from trying this on your own. Your report data is very sensitive, and emailing it to the wrong person could be disastrous. We can walk you through this process if it’s important to you.
We’re available to help with all kinds of QuickBooks issues. We know the software, and we know small businesses and their needs. We encourage you to broaden your use of QuickBooks if you don’t feel that you’re using it to the fullest, but you may need assistance with that. Let us know if you want to schedule some time to address your concerns.
QuickBooks Online can help businesses hire independent contractors
Are you taking on a worker who’s not an employee? QuickBooks Online includes tools for tracking and paying independent contractors.
The COVID-19 pandemic created millions of self-employed individuals and small businesses. Whether they chose to, or circumstances forced them to, these new entrepreneurs had to learn new ways to get paid and to prepare their income taxes.
Are you taking on a worker who’s not an employee? QuickBooks Online includes tools for tracking and paying independent contractors.
If you’re thinking about taking on a contract worker, you, too, will have to educate yourself on the paperwork and processes required to comply with the IRS’ rules for his or her compensation. It’s much easier than hiring a full-time employee, but it still takes some knowledge of how QuickBooks Online handles these individuals.
You’ll also need to make certain that the person you’re hiring is indeed an independent contractor and not an employee. The IRS takes this distinction very seriously. If you’re at all unsure of your new hire’s employment status, we can help you sort it out.
Creating Records for Contractors
Once new contractors have accepted your offer, you’ll need to have then fill out an IRS Form W-9. You can download a copy here. Employees complete the more detailed Form W-4 so that the employer can withhold income taxes correctly, but you won’t have to withhold taxes for your contract workers. They will be responsible for calculating and paying quarterly estimated taxes and filing an IRS Form 1040 every year.
You, though, will be responsible for sending them an IRS Form 1099-NEC (Non-Employee Compensation) every January if you paid them more than $600 during the previous year. You do not need to send a 1099-NEC to a corporation or to an LLC that is treated as a C Corp or an S Corp.
You can complete the Vendor Information window for each independent contractor, checking the box in front of Track payments for 1099.
Using the information the contractors provide, you can create records for them in QuickBooks Online. If you don’t have a QuickBooks Payroll subscription, you can set them up as 1099 vendors. Click the Expenses tab in the toolbar and then on the Vendors tab. Click New vendor in the upper right to open the Vendor Information window. Complete the fields for the worker and be sure to check the box in front of Track payments for 1099, as shown in the partial image above.
The vendor records you create will appear in QuickBooks Online’s Vendors list (again, Expenses | Vendors). Click on one to open it. You can toggle between two tabs here. The first, Transaction List, will eventually display all your financial dealings with that contractor. Vendor Details opens the record you just created, which you can edit from this screen.
Paying Contractors
When independent contractors send you invoices, you’ll return to this same screen. There are three ways you can pay them. Click the down arrow next to New Transaction in the upper right corner to see your options (or look down at the end of the row while you’re in list view). You can record the debt as a Bill if you want to pay it later (or if that’s the way you structure your recordkeeping). If you’re paying it right away, you can create an Expense or write a Check.
You can choose an option from this vendor action menu to pay your independent contractors.
When you click one of these, QuickBooks Online opens a form with many of the contractors’ details already filled in. You’ll need to complete any additional fields at the top of the screen, and then either record the payment or debt under Category details or Item details, depending on how you do your bookkeeping. Either way, you’ll be able to enter the quantity and rate and/or amount and mark it billable (with a markup percentage, if you’d like) to a customer or project.
You’re probably going to want our help here, since there’s more than one way to pay independent contractors. If you subscribe to QuickBooks Payroll, you can use the service’s contractor features, which include the ability to invite your contractors to fill out their own records in QuickBooks Online. You may also want to add an account to your Chart of Accounts, and we’d want to offer guidance there. And you need to ensure that you’re classifying payments correctly, so they’ll appear in 1099 reports and 1099s themselves.
Creating records for independent contractors and paying these individuals seem like they should be simple operations. But anytime you’re dealing with payroll issues, you’re dealing with peoples’ livelihoods – and the IRS. We strongly encourage you to let us help you get this right. Contact us, and we’ll make sure you’re handling your worker payments with absolute accuracy.
QuickBooks Time: Time tracking software to simplify your business
Thousands of businesses use QuickBooks Time to track and manage employee time for payroll, invoicing, and scheduling. QuickBooks Time is the best automated time tracking software for construction companies, landscaping businesses, small businesses, large businesses, and more.
Thousands of businesses use QuickBooks Time to track and manage employee time for payroll, invoicing, and scheduling. Millions of employees use QuickBooks Time for accurate timesheets and project tracking each day. QuickBooks Time is the best automated time tracking software for construction companies, landscaping businesses, small businesses, large businesses, and more.
Save money and boost profits
Businesses that use QuickBooks Time save an average of 4% on payroll costs*.
Do you bill by the hour? You could add, on average, nearly 10% more billable time to your invoices with QuickBooks Time**
Time tracking software to simplify your business
As a cloud-based time tracking and scheduling solution, QuickBooks Time helps streamline your payroll and invoicing processes. This leads to savings in payroll costs, more accurate time tracking and billable hours, and flexibility via the cloud.
You are also able to keep teams in the know with robust project management and geofencing technology, and instantly see the status of all your projects at a glance. Get an overview in the short video below.
Time Tracking
Employees can clock in or out with just one click.
Take a break
Change job codes
Add timesheet details instantly
Mobile App
Download the time clock app for Android or iOS app to track, submit, and approve employee time from virtually anywhere.
Scheduling
Build employee schedules by jobs or shifts. Quickly and easily edit, publish, and share the schedule with your crew.
Integrations
Connect to your favorite accounting or payroll software to automatically sync accurate employee time tracking data for payroll and invoicing.
Team Management
Keep your teams in the know with robust project management and geofencing technology. See the status of all your projects at a glance. Set geofence boundaries to automatically remind employees to clock in and out.
Reports
Gain valuable business insight with real-time, interactive reports. Predict time needs for job costs, plan for payroll, and increase profitability.
Time tracking apps for all devices
Web
Unlock valuable business insight with QuickBooks Time online time tracker. Get real-time reports, customize company settings, and manage employee timesheets in one place. Then track, edit, and submit time from the QuickBooks Time web dashboard.
Mobile App
Employees and admins use the QuickBooks Time mobile time tracking app to capture, submit, and approve time from their smartphones. Push notifications remind employees to clock in and out, and mobile scheduling makes it easy to update and share employee schedules.
Time Clock
QuickBooks Time Kiosk is a simple way for employees to clock in from one device. A cost-effective alternative to traditional punch clocks, QuickBooks Time Kiosk works on any computer or tablet with an internet connection, is biometric, and is optimized for quick clock in.
Special Pricing
There are a couple of ways to get discount pricing on QuickBooks Time for your business. You can contact Peak Advisers at (303) 801-4772 and we will help get you started, or you can use this link to buy it now.
The other way to get special pricing is to upgrade to QuickBooks Enterprise 2022 Diamond version, which bundles QuickBooks Enterprise and QuickBooks Time together. we can help you with that as well.
Claims:
*Payroll Cost Savings: Based on a survey of 1,408 customers in the U.S. in August 2021. On average, businesses that report gross payroll costs savings save 4.00%.
** Increase Billable Time: Based on a survey of 1,408 customers in the U.S. in August 2021. On average, businesses that report an increase in billable time added 9.96%.