Scott Gregory, QuickBooks Expert

The Inventory Planner - An Inventory Forecasting Tool for Your Business

The inventory stock status report in QuickBooks is a good way to keep score on your inventory, and see what items you need to order.

But what if you want more than it provides?

Consider a closer look at the Inventory Planner software package to help with your QuickBooks inventory forecasting needs.

THE INVENTORY PLANNER APPROACH

Designed to help e-commerce businesses with their inventory management, Inventory Planner brings many helpful features to you, including:

• Automatic forecast and replenishment
• One click purchase orders
• Overstock analysis
• Tracking multiple sales channels in one central place

I really like the forecasting module, as it looks at both the sales history of an item as well as forecasted usage, as shown in the screen shot below:

The same applies to the overstock module, as Inventory Planner identifies slowly moving inventory and helps to take action on it. You will see if product is overstocked according to its current sales velocity. It can also analyze some common reasons why a product might not be selling well, for example the most popular sizes or colors are sold out.

CONNECTIVITY TO QUICKBOOKS ONLINE AND E-COMMERCE PLATFORMS

Currently, Inventory Planner connects to QuickBooks Online, as well as e-commerce platforms such as: Shopify, Amazon, WooCommerce and many others.

You can use Inventory Planner with the desktop versions of QuickBooks, but you'd have to use their CSV import tool in order to accomplish that. They currently do not offer a direct integration with QuickBooks desktop products (Pro, Premier or Enterprise).

FREE TRIAL AND PRICING

Inventory Planner provides a free 14 day trial of their software. At the conclusion of the trial, pricing starts at $99/month for tracking up to 1000 skus, and then scales from there based on the number of stores and number of skus being tracked.

I have found their support team to be exceptionally responsive and helpful as questions have popped up in working with their software.

If you've been looking for a tool to help you plan and manage your inventory more effectively, I encourage you to take a closer look at the Inventory Planner package.

Simplify Sales Rep Tracking, Reporting, and Remote Access with Crik-IT for QuickBooks

Do you find yourself constantly working to provide reports, details, and snippets of other information to the sales reps for your business?

Have you considered moving toward more of a "self-serve" approach and letting your sales reps access this information themselves without you being stuck in the middle?

If so, consider the Crik-IT sales rep/CRM portal for QuickBooks.

Their solution will provide sales reps (and customers too!) with access to current sales reports, dashboards, inventory, order and invoice information. Reps can also enter orders themselves as well if you want them to!

THE CRIK-IT PORTAL/CRM FOR SALES REPS

Here are some of the reports that your reps would have at their fingertips:

• Year over year sales comparisons for a 3 year period
• Monthly sales comparisons for the past 3 years
• Reports by SKU, customer, rep or product line
• And more...

The Crik-IT Portal/CRM can also help automate and streamline the administration of your sales reps in the following ways:

• Complete remote access - no need for them to be inside QuickBooks itself
• Lead and opportunity tracking
• Order entry
• Inventory availability

Here is a sample dashboard view from Crik-IT:

And here are samples of a few of the reports available for instant access:

 

FREE TRIAL FOR QUICKBOOKS DESKTOP OR QUICKBOOKS ONLINE

Crik-IT is compatible with both the desktop versions of QuickBooks (Pro, Premier and Enterprise) in addition to QuickBooks Online. You can grab your 30 day free trial today.

Take it for a test drive so you can get a deeper look at how it can solve common headaches when working with a team of sales reps.

PRICING FOR CRIK-IT

Crik-IT is offered in several different packages, which include:

• Customer Service Package
• Order Desk Package
• Sales Force Package
• Full Circle Package

For example, the Customer Service Package starts at $29/month for 1 user, and then an additional $15/month for additional users.

Features and functionality scale up as you move across the various package offerings. Just follow the Pricing link on this page for more details.

WHAT'S YOUR APPROACH TO SALES REP MANAGEMENT?

I'm curious - do you currently use CRIK-IT? Have any thoughts to share on it?

Using something else for managing your reps?

Please let me know how you're handling this aspect of your business - others will be interested as well!

Using the QuickBooks Cash Flow Projection Tool

Little known, but quite helpful, the desktop versions of QuickBooks (Pro, Premier and Enterprise) have a built-in cash flow projection tool.

Learn how to project your business cash flow in QuickBooks for a 6 week period with the video tutorial below:

NEED SOMETHING MORE ROBUST FOR YOUR QUICKBOOKS CASH FLOW PROJECTIONS?

The Cash Flow Projector Tool provides a good starting point.

However, many businesses need more than it provides. If yours is one of them, be sure to check out the CashFlowTool cash flow forecasting software for QuickBooks.

INTERESTED IN TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT YOUR BUSINESS FINANCES?

If so, you may be interested in learning more about my "Beyond QuickBooks: Making Sense of Your Numbers" program. Designed to help you feel a lot more confident and capable when it comes to managing the profitability of your business!

Online Order Management System and Customer Portal for QuickBooks

Does your business focus on the Business-to-Business (B2B) marketplace?

Want to spend less time on data entry and related non-value added tasks and are looking for one or more of these solutions?

• An easy way for your customers to enter their own orders, check order status and inventory levels?
• A solution for your sales reps so that they can enter their own orders so you don't have to?
• A link between your order system and your warehouse with full shipping integration?

AND have the ability to have all the above automatically sync with QuickBooks desktop software?

If so, you should take a closer look at Now Commerce.

 

CUSTOMER PORTAL

The Now Commerce customer portal feature brings the following possibilities to life for your business and allows your customers to:

• View real-time pricing and inventory levels
• Check shipping status
• View pending orders
• View account history

This is all done with customized order forms that can be tailored to the specific needs of each customer. These order forms can range from super simple to complicated matrix pricing.

SALES REP PORTAL

The Now Commerce sales rep portal brings many time-saving features into the way sales reps take care of your customers, including:

• View real-time pricing and inventory levels
• Check shipping status
• View pending orders
• View account history

As well as:

• Monitor customer activity
• Set customizable alerts
• Manage pricing and discounts
• Only see their own accounts, and not those of other reps

NOW COMMERCE FULFILLMENT PLATFORM

This module provides you the ability to:

• Share shipping information with your sales reps and customers
• Electronically transmit shippers from QuickBooks to your third party warehouse
• Automatically populate QuickBooks with critical shipping data

CHOOSE JUST WHAT YOU NEED

The Now Commerce products are set up in such a way that you can choose just the module(s) you want - if you only want the customer portal, that's all you'd pay for. If you want all three, they can do that as well.

Now Commerce offers a free trial so you can "kick the tires" before making any commitments. In addition, you can watch their video series to get a quick overview of just how these modules work, and the potential savings they can bring your business. You can also take a look at the wide variety of products they have helped their customers sell.

NEED HELP SORTING IT ALL OUT?

B2B businesses are at the core of my consulting practice, especially those in manufacturing and distribution. Feel free to contact me for more information on the Now Commerce set of tools as well as other QuickBooks and inventory concerns you may have.

New Feature in QuickBooks 2015: The Insights Dashboard

A new feature in QuickBooks 2015 called "Insights" is proving to be quite popular with those looking for a quick and easy "dashboard" view of their business.

The Insights screen sits just off the home screen, and looks like this:

FEATURES OF THE INSIGHTS SCREEN:

The following snippets of information can be turned on and off via the "gear" icon in the upper right hand corner of the screen:

• Profit and loss
• Previous year income comparison
• Top customers by sales
• Income and expense trend
• Business growth
• Net profit margin
• Previous year expense comparison

Even better, all of the graphical elements that appear on the Insights screen have full drill-down capabilities so you can see the specific details behind a value.

You can also print the contents of the Insight screen or save it as a PDF as well.

If you are so inclined, you can even launch the create invoice or enter bills screens directly from the Insights page.

ADDITIONAL QUICKBOOKS TIPS:

• Looking for even more horsepower and customization in a dashboard?

• Save up to $120 per copy on your upgrade to QuickBooks 2015

• Have you picked up your copy of "27 Power Tips Every QuickBooks User Should Know"?

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Powerfully Simple Dashboard for Your Small Business

Score some bonus points with your boss...

If you know they are frustrated trying to pull together reports and key metrics from a number of different sources, they will want to know about the Grow Dashboard (feel free to check it out yourself too!)

MEASURE WHAT MATTERS TO YOU

The Grow dashboard offers a simple way to select the metrics that are important to running your business...

• Need information from QuickBooks? (desktop or online)
• Want to pull information from a customized spreadsheet or database?
• Interested in pulling together information from Salesforce, Google Analytics, MailChimp, Facebook, Twitter and a host of other places?

If so, Grow is for you...

BUILD YOUR OWN DASHBOARD

If the built-in dashboard connections mentioned above are close, but not quite good enough, the support team at Grow can help you construct the perfect dashboard - no internal IT team required.

Grow allows you to connect your data, wherever it lives, and get the key metrics needed to monitor, manage and improve your business...

Take a closer look at the Grow dashboard solution today...

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Time Tracking Software that Connects to QuickBooks

If your business is looking for mobile timekeeping, ways to streamline the time tracking and reporting process, or searching for time tracking software that connects to QuickBooks, TSheets is for you.

Having recently joined their TSheets Pro program, I wanted to share some information about this product with you.

MULTIPLE WAYS TO CAPTURE TIME

TSheets offers an impressive array of methods to capture your employees time, including:

• Desktop or laptop computers connected to the internet (you can even work offline and upload when online)
• Smartphones or tablets (Apple or Android)
• Text message
• Even call-in capabilities to record time

And did I mention that they offer GPS time-stamping too?

But that is just the beginning...

JOB TRACKING AND PTO/VACATION TRACKING IS BUILT IN

TSheets provides the ability for you to capture this essential information when it comes to your jobs and projects:

• Where employees are working
• What projects they are working on
• How long they have been working on those projects

In addition, the software provides a "Who's Working" button that shows which of your employees are clocked in and working in real time.

Need Paid Time Off (PTO) and/or vacation tracking? You're covered there too.

THE REPORTS YOU NEED TO HAVE

TSheets offers you a wide variety of reports to help you manage, control, and streamline your timekeeping and payroll reporting processes.

These reports include:

• Real time report
• Payroll report
• Approvals report
• Project/job report
• Audit trail
• Data export report

EASILY CONNECTS TO YOUR QUICKBOOKS AND OTHER SOFTWARE

TSheets offers connections to the following:

• QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise (QuickBooks "desktop" versions)
• QuickBooks Online (sorry, no connection to QuickBooks for the Mac)
• Zen Payroll
• Zendesk
• Other payroll solutions such as Paychex, ADP and others (one-time fee applies)

For those that want to write their own software connections, TSheets also offers an open API to make the process seamless.

14 DAY FREE TRIAL AND PROMO CODE

It is important to know that the TSheets package gets high marks in the Intuit App Center - a 5 star (highest) rating to be exact!

If you'd like to take a closer look at how TSheets can help take the pain out of the timetracking and payroll areas of your business, take advantage of their 14 day free trial

Like what you see? Use promo code: BLASACCTG and save 10% off the subscription price of TSheets.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Currently using TSheets? Feel free to share your experience with it in the comments section below (or click here to access the blog post) - thanks!

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17 Things You Should Be Doing to Reduce Accounts Receivable

My friends at Anytime Collect have put together a terrific resource guide titled "17 Things You Should be Doing Right Now to Reduce Outstanding Accounts Receivable."

As you think about your accounts receivable (you are thinking about them, right?) and the systems you have in place to monitor them, one key fact stands out:

• Every dollar outstanding in your receivables is a dollar that is NOT sitting in your bank account to fund your operations!

WHAT'S IN IT FOR YOU?

Having an effective credit and collections strategy and related applications has been shown to have the following benefits:

• 10-20% reduction in days sales outstanding
• 25% reduction in past due receivables
• Better cash flow and more!

17 THINGS YOU CAN DO...

To get you started, here is a short list of ideas:

1. Create a plan - this becomes your road map to success in managing your receivables
2. Provide accurate and timely information - this step covers not just those internally that are managing receivables but also to your customers as well
3. Set up Key Performance Indicators (KPI) - your favorite NFL team is evaluated by their won-loss record and and other statistics, right? So should your credit and collections systems.

Here are 14 more ideas on how to reduce your accounts receivable.

GET WAY MORE THAN QUICKBOOKS OFFERS...

QuickBooks can provide you with some of the core reports to begin the process of managing your receivables such as:

• The A/R Aging Summary
• The Collections Report

However...

QuickBooks is really not so hot at handling the automation many businesses need to see real improvements in reducing the money they are owed.

Enter Anytime Collect.

Anytime Collect is a budget friendly and rich suite of tools you can rapidly implement to start putting a dent in your receivables and keeping them under control.

Anytime Collect has full integration with your QuickBooks as well, so put your worries about double-data entry to rest.

Get more information on Anytime Collect for QuickBooks today or contact me with questions.

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The Income Tracker "Dashboard" for QuickBooks

A great new tool called the Income Tracker has been introduced in QuickBooks 2014.

This little gem can help you get a "dashboard view" of your open estimates, sales orders and invoices - all in one handy place.

In addition, the Income Tracker will allow you to do a number of "batch options" such as printing or e-mailing invoices.

My YouTube video offers a deeper look at how the Income Tracker works. Take a quick look...

 

Remember, you can always save 20% on your QuickBooks upgrade at my web site!

 

RELATED POSTS:

• The WebKPI Dashboard for QuickBooks
• The QuickBooks Company Snapshot - An "Oh Cool" moment for your boss

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Time to Trash Your Multi-Colored Pack of Highlighters?

Ok, be honest...

When it comes to tracking your accounts receivable, you've probably got a well refined color coding system using your highlighters week in and week out on tens or even hundreds of pages of your aging reports, right?

It's very likely this system is actually costing your business a lot of money...

DIALING FOR DOLLARS

Open invoices are the foundation for future inbound cash for your business. It is essential to have a really solid and efficient system in place for tracking them.

QuickBooks is great at providing the core reports you need to see the big picture with your receivables.

Unfortunately, QuickBooks is not so great (some have said even worse things!) when it comes to the day-to-day follow-up that is crucial for an effective accounts receivable management system.

ANYTIME COLLECT TO THE RESCUE

What if you could have a system that automatically pulls data out of QuickBooks, and then gives you a completely modern set of tools to automate your accounts receivable collections process?

You can!

I was so impressed with the Anytime Collect accounts receivable management software for QuickBooks that I recently signed on as a referral partner with them.

TOOLS YOU NEED FOR EFFECTIVE RECEIVABLES MANAGEMENT

Anytime Collect comes pre-loaded with the following (this is just a short list of all the ways it can help you trash your pack of highlighters):

• Action Center - a tool that tells you who to call, when to call, what invoices are involved, etc. According to Paystream Advisors, this allows up to a 300% increase in the amount of time you spend on actual collections compared to businesses using a manual system. Just imagine how that translates into better cash flow!
  
  
• Communication Center - allows you to manage every piece of communication (phone, e-mail, fax, carrier pigeon - ok, just kidding about that) in one place.
  
  
• Dashboard/Intelligence Center - a live snapshot of just what is happening within each piece of your accounts receivable management processes and procedures.
  
  
• Full integration with QuickBooks - no double-data entry needed.

LEARN MORE ABOUT ANYTIME COLLECT

If you're looking to slash the amount of cash your business has tied up in accounts receivable or find ways to get more collections work done in less time, Anytime Collect needs to be on your radar...

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