Month: June 2018

5 QuickBooks Online Reports You Should Run Regularly 

There are numerous QuickBooks Online reports that you should be consulting at regular intervals. But you need these five at least every week. 

QuickBooks Online’s Dashboard, the first screen you see when you log in, provides an effective overview of your company’s finances. It contains at-a-glance information about your recent expenses, your sales, and the status of your invoices. It displays a simple Profit and Loss graph and a list of your account balances. Scroll down and click the See all activity button in the lower right and your Audit Log opens, a list of everything that’s been done on the site and by whom. 

 You can actually get a lot of work done from this page. Click the bar on the Invoices graph, for example, and a list view opens, allowing you access to individual transactions. Click Expenses to see the related Transaction Report. Below the list of account balances, you can Go to registers and connect new accounts. 

 Other Pressing Questions 

 The Dashboard supplies enough information that you can spot potential problems with expenses and sales, accounts, and overdue invoices. But you’re likely to have other tasks that require attention. How’s your inventory holding up? Are you staying within your budget? How about your accounts payable – will you owe money to anyone soon? 

 QuickBooks Online offers dozens of report templates that answer these questions and many more. If you’ve never explored the list,  I suggest that you do so. It’s impossible to make plans for your company’s future without understanding its financial history and current state. 

QuickBooks Online has many reports that can provide real-time, in-depth insight    into your company’s financial health. 

Comprehensive and Customizable 

 When you click Reports in your QuickBooks Online toolbar, the view defaults to All. The site divides its report content into 10 different sections, including Business Overview, Sales and Customers, Expenses and Vendors, and Payroll. Each has two buttons to the right of its name.  

 Click the star, and that report’s title will appear in your Favorites list at the top of the page. This will save time since you’ll be able to quickly find your most often-used reports. Click the three vertical dots and then Customize to view your customization options for that report (you’ll have access to this tool from the reports themselves). 

 Necessary Knowledge 

 You can, of course, run any report you’d like as often as you’d like. Most small businesses, though, don’t require this frequent intense scrutiny. But there are five reports that you do want to consult on a regular basis. They are: 

1.  Accounts Receivable Aging Detail. Displays a list of invoices that haven’t yet been paid, divided into groups like 1-30 days past due, 31-60 days past due, etc.  
2. Budget vs. Actuals. Just what it sounds like: a comparison of your monthly budgeted amounts and your actual income and expenses. 

Warning: Some reports let you choose between cash and accrual basis. Do you know the difference and which you should choose? Ask Me. 

You can customize QuickBooks Online reports in several ways. 

3. Unpaid Bills. Helps you avoid missing accounts payable due dates by displaying what’s due and when. 
4. Sales by Product/Service Detail. Tells you what’s selling and what’s not by displaying date, transaction type, quantity, rate, amount, and total. 
5. Product/Service List. An accounting of the products and/or services you sell, with columns for price, cost, and quantity on hand. 

 Customization, Complex Reports 

 Note that there’s a category of reports in QuickBooks Online named For My Accountant. That’s where we come in. The site includes templates for reports that you can run yourself, but that you’d have difficulty customizing and analyzing. These standard financial reports—which, by the way, you’ll need if you create a business plan or try to get funding for your business—include Balance Sheet, Statement of Cash Flows, and Trial Balance. 

 You don’t need to have these reports generated frequently, but you should be learning from the insight they provide monthly or quarterly. I can handle this part of your accounting tasks for you, as well as any other aspect of financial management where you need assistance. Contact me, and I’ll see where I might help provide the feedback and bookkeeping expertise that can help you make better decisions for the future of your business. 

 Social media posts 

 QuickBooks Online reports pick up where the Dashboard leaves off, providing dozens of templates ready for your company data. Do you know how to best use them? 

 You can create some QuickBooks Online reports using either cash or accrual basis. Do you know the difference? Ask me if you don’t. 

 Overwhelmed by the number of reports QuickBooks Online offers? Click the star next to the ones you run most often, and they’ll appear in Favorites. 

 QuickBooks Online contains several reports in a section titled For My Accountant. These are complex financial reports that I can run and analyze for you. 

• Remember seasonal upswings and downswings.
• Make your goals as realistic as possible. You might want to create separate budgets for “needs” and “wants.”
• Track your expenses carefully for a period of time so you can estimate more confidently.
• Create reports regularly that compare your budget vs actuals.

Last month, we created product and service records in QuickBooks Online. This month, we’ll explore how they’re used on the site

If you ever did your accounting manually, you probably remember how tired you got of writing or typing the same things over and over. You may have had your customers’ addresses practically memorized, and your product price list was always close at hand, though you knew that by heart, too.

QuickBooks Online eliminates that duplicate data entry, saving time and reducing errors dramatically. Because of the product and service records you’ve created, completing sales and purchase forms can now be an easy, accurate task. You’ll also have fast access to information about your inventory levels and the profit you make on items. You’ll know what’s selling and what’s not, and when it’s time to reorder.

Here’s how.

Picking Products

Much of your accounting work probably consists of filling out forms. Whenever you create one of these invoices or sales receipts or purchase orders, you already know that you can open a drop-down list and select the name of a customer or vendor. QuickBooks Online lets you enter data about what is being bought or sold in the same way.

To see how this works, open an invoice form and complete and/or verify the fields at the top (customer, date, terms, etc.). Click in the first PRODUCT/SERVICE field, and then click the down arrow to see the list of items and services you sell.

When you create a sales or purchase form, you’ll be able to select the appropriate product or service from the drop-down list – or add a new one.

When you select an item, the description and price will fill in automatically. You’ll have to add the quantity and click in the box below the column labeled Tax (if applicable). QuickBooks Online will calculate the total cost of the product or service on that line. If you need to enter additional sales, proceed to the PRODUCT/SERVICE field in the second line and repeat those actions until you’re done and can save the transaction.

Working with Items

What do you do when you need more information about a specific product than just its description and price? Do you have to return to its individual record?

No. QuickBooks Online includes a great tool that provides real-time updates on your inventory items and lets you work with them. Click the Sales tab in the left vertical menu, and then on the Products and Services tab at the top. The table that opens displays numbers for every item’s quantity on hand and reorder point. Look at the end of each line, and you’ll see a drop-down list labeled Edit that looks like this:

QuickBooks Online’s Products and Services page provides real-time inventory updates, as well as item-management tools.

As you can see, there are a number of actions you can take here on individual products.

Warning: If you think there’s a reason you should Adjust quantity or Adjust starting value, please talk to us first. Your inventory records need to be precise. We can schedule a session to go over this and other concepts you need to understand in order to keep inventory counts accurate.

You can take some of these actions on multiple items simultaneously. Click the down arrow in the Batch actions field above this Edit menu. Click the boxes in front of the products you want to work with and select the desired activity (unavailable ones will be grayed out in the list). Take extra care with this mass modification tool.

Multiple Reports

QuickBooks Online contains templates for numerous inventory-related reports that you can customize.

QuickBooks Online’s Product and Services screen may be all you need in your daily work, but there will be times when you need more analytical assistance. You can turn to the site’s specialized reports for more in-depth scrutiny. Click the Reports tab in the left vertical pane. Make sure the All Reports list is active and select Manage Products and Inventory to see what’s available, including:

• Inventory Valuation Detail.
• Sales by Product/Service Detail.
• Physical Inventory Worksheet.

Reports are easy to run but can be difficult to customize correctly and interpret. If we’re not working with you already on the complex standard financial reports that should be reviewed monthly or quarterly, talk to us. The more you understand about the financial status of your company, the better your decisions will be.