Scott Gregory, QuickBooks Expert

Continually Resizing Column Widths in QuickBooks Desktop Screens?

Are you as frustrated as I am by having to constantly resize your screen widths in QuickBooks desktop products (Pro, Premier and Enterprise)?

If you are, please take just a moment and share your thoughts on this topic with the developers at QuickBooks by clicking Help > Send Feedback Online > Bug Report (these clicks are to be done directly within your QuickBooks when it is running...)

Do it now while you're thinking of it!

Maybe, just maybe, this issue will get into the programming queue and be fixed once and for all (I have no idea as to why it has taken years and is still not resolved - @Intuit, any feedback you can share here?)

We can dream, can't we?

If anyone has found a solution to this ongoing problem with QuickBooks, please share it with us. Please....

The QuickReport in QuickBooks - See the History of a Customer, Item or Vendor Instantly

Ever found yourself trying to figure out why the on-hand quantity of an item went negative?

Wanted to see the invoices and payments for a customer during a particular period of time?

Been in search of the transaction details for inventory, customers or vendors?

If so, the QuickBooks Quick Report is something you'll want to have in your tool kit! (this is found in QB Pro, Premier and Enterprise - if it exists in QuickBooks Online, I don't see it...)

ACCESSING THE QUICKREPORT

For example, let's say that you want to see the history for an inventory part in QuickBooks.

Simply find the part in your item list, highlight it, click the Reports box at the bottom of the item list, then click QuickReport (or CTRL + Q if you prefer keyboard shortcuts). You'll get a report that looks like this:

As you can see, this provides a great way to visualize exactly what happened with this item during the period.

The same concept applies if you want to see what happened with a customer and/or jobs. Simply find the customer/job, right click on the name, choose QuickReport, and you'll get a report that looks like this (in this example, I did a QuickReport on the main customer and all the jobs for that customer):

 

Hopefully having this report in your tool kit will help you save time while working in QuickBooks each week!

Improve Your Profits and Cash Flow in 2018!

You're invited to my Crankin' Up Your Cash Flow! webinar series that starts in just a few weeks!

Crankin' Up Your Cash Flow! will show you how to manage and improve the cash flow that runs through your small business.

This webinar series provides you with tools, tips, and ideas on how to make this new year the best it can be when it comes to profits and cash flowing through your bank account.

The webinars will be offered over a three week period (each will be recorded of course!). Also, I'll be setting up a private forum for participants to interact with me as well as other small business owners taking part in the Crankin' Up Your Cash Flow! sessions (participation here is completely optional).

There are a very limited number of slots available so we can have a nice small group!

Learn more about how Crankin' Up Your Cash Flow will help your business...

Reconcile ANY Asset, Liability or Equity Account in QuickBooks

Here's a tip to simplify your accounting even more...

Take advantage of the fact that QuickBooks will allow you to reconcile ANY asset, liability or equity account balance!

Many businesses are already taking advantage of the QuickBooks reconciliation feature for their bank and credit card accounts (if you're not doing that, you should be!). But it can offer even more to you.

Here's how...

When you get into the reconciliation window, you can choose ANY balance sheet account from the drop down list that appears, as shown in the sample below:

Where could this come in handy?

Pretty much any account where you are tracking activity in and out of the course of a month, including:

• Reconciling prepayments of inventory or other prepaid assets
• Employee advances
• Reconciling accruals and payments of payroll taxes
• Reconciling partner distributions and payments

Once you've completed the process, if you go to look at the account register for the account you just finished, you'll note the familiar "check box" to indicate the transaction has been properly reconciled and the account is up to date:

That's all there is to it!

Note that this trick works in both the desktop and online versions of QuickBooks.

 

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!

Stop Inventory Balances from Going Negative with QuickBooks Enterprise

Have you been wishing that QuickBooks would add a feature that would stop your inventory on-hand balances from going negative?

Your wishes have been granted!

Learn more about how the Enterprise edition (2015 and newer!) stops this annoyance from occurring...

In case you didn't know it, by having inventory go negative in QuickBooks, it is known to cause all sorts of issues and concerns with the average cost of items getting totally whacked out as well. My friends over at the Intuitive Accountant have a great article that discusses the impact of negative on hand on QuickBooks average cost.

ADDTIONAL RESOURCES

• What's new in QuickBooks Enterprise 2017 and newer versions? (PDF)

• Advanced Inventory and QuickBooks Enterprise
• Can QuickBooks Handle my Inventory?

Automatically Create Purchase Orders in QuickBooks Enterprise

QuickBooks Enterprise provides the functionality to automatically create purchase orders to your vendors with just a couple mouse clicks.

My video will show you just how it works:

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

• Get a 20% lifetime discount on your QuickBooks Enterprise subscription

• FAQ about QuickBooks Enterprise subscription pricing

• Key differences in QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise

 

Pending Credit Memos for Returned Materials (RMA) in QuickBooks

Since QuickBooks doesn't have any type of "returns module" to handle customer returns or RMAs (returned material authorizations), here is a way your business could track those pesky returns...

CONSIDER THE PENDING CREDIT MEMO

Let's say you get a call today from a customer that needs to return a defective product, but you don't want to issue the credit to them until the product is received and cleared for refund.

You'd click on Customers > Create Credit Memos/Refunds to open up the Credit Memo form. Complete the form as needed to reflect the customer, item(s) being returned, etc.

BEFORE you save this credit memo, click Edit > Mark Credit Memo as Pending, and you'll see something like this (note the Pending stamp that has been added):

Once this credit memo has been saved, it becomes a tracking document that sits open while you await the arrival of the returned products.

Since it has been tagged with the "Pending" status, this transaction does NOT post to the customer account or the ledger in QuickBooks (so that is why it also says "non-posting" in the example above.

Bonus - you could even send this document to your customer as their "authorization" to return the products!

VIEWING A PENDING CREDIT MEMO REPORT FOR TRACKING RETURNS

Now that you have the pending credit out there, you may want to see a report of all open/pending credits that have been issued.

Here's how to get one - click Reports > Sales > Pending Sales. You will see something like this:

Now you can quickly and easily see all open/pending credits. Remember, you can hover over any listing in this report, and you can easily double-click directly on that listing to take you directly into the actual credit memo.

ONCE THE PRODUCTS ARE RECEIVED

After you have received the product from the customer and cleared it for credit, simply return to that particular pending credit memo, click Edit > Mark Credit Memo as Final.

This step will remove the pending stamp as shown above, and once you save it, there will be a live credit memo that has posted to the customers account and QuickBooks ledger!

HOW ARE YOU TRACKING RETURNS TODAY?

I'd love to know how your business is handling customer returns. Please drop me a line and let me know!

Procurify: Online Purchasing Management for QuickBooks

Has your business outgrown the purchasing module found within QuickBooks desktop software?

Looking for ways to streamline the purchasing process?

Need to add an approval process to your purchasing management? (not found in QuickBooks!)

Have people in different locations and all they need is access to purchasing (and not the entire QuickBooks package)?

 

 

 

 

 

INTRODUCING PROCURIFY

Procurify is an add-on application to the desktop versions of QuickBooks (Pro, Premier and Enterprise). By "add-on", I mean it is a separate piece of software that connects to QuickBooks and syncs information between the two programs.

It can bring a lot of functionality to your business that is not found within the basic purchase order module of QuickBooks.

Here is the suggested Procurify workflow...

1. Request - electronically submit new purchase requests using your web browser or mobile device (notice - this doesn't have any mention of the staff person needing access to QuickBooks?)
   
   
2. Approve - create automated approval routing based on your business needs. Establish direct lines of communication between the right people.
   
   
3. Create the PO - Procurify automatically tracks, manages and organizes your purchase orders in one place. Instantly deliver approved requests for PO creation.
   
   
4. Receive the items - intuitive and easy to understand interface lets you accurately document received items through your web browser or mobile device. 
   
   
5. Set up to pay your vendor - enable complete transparency throughout your purchase order workflow. Keep on top of payments and eliminate duplicate or unnecessary spending.

EMPOWERING YOUR STAFF

Procurify helps simplify operations across all the functional areas of your business:

• Buyers - funnel all of your purchase requests from all locations into a single, easily managed bucket. We facilitate the internal back-and-forth communication, allowing requesters to check the status of their orders at any time. Improve supplier relationships and standardize the goods you buy.
  
  
• Operations - get through purchase approvals faster. Reduce the amount of bottlenecks and improve efficiency for your operations. Define and structure each role within your organization’s purchasing process with complete clarity.
  
  
• Finance - establish and easily ensure enforcement of controls and policies (IE. use purchase orders, ensure approvals, three way matches), while not increasing your headcount. Empower people to stay accountable to their budget, by giving them real time information instead of monthly reports. (Visibility into spending in real time)
  
  
• IT - Gain full adoption organization wide by implementing tools which are easy to learn and fun to use. Procurify worries about the infrastructure and security and reduces the load on your team and it integrates with select tools, and seamlessly passes data between them.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Be sure to tap into all of these additional resources that are available to learn more about Procurify and how it can benefit your business or organization.

NEED HELP TYING IT ALL TOGETHER?

My consulting practice specializes in helping businesses retain their investment in QuickBooks as their core accounting package, while extending the features and functionality through various add-on packages. Tap into my 30+ years of accounting, finance, inventory, and QuickBooks experience.

If you would like to discuss Procurify or other QuickBooks add-ons in more detail, please contact me.