Category Archives: QuickBooks Software

Education, QuickBooks Software, Tips

Income Statement (Profit & Loss) Template, Example and Guide

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A colleague recently shared this link on her facebook page — first, I was just curious — and then, I was actually pretty impressed. Most of the Income Statement (also known as a Profit & Loss) descriptions I’ve read have been entirely too technical, assuming not only a familiarity with accounting, but also an old-world understanding of manual ledger-keeping. As a result, I developed my own way through the years of explaining the Income Statement to clients.

I felt this description, provided (surprisingly) by Intuit, the company that produces QuickBooks, did a nice, succinct job of explaining the relationship between the three main financial statements: Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Statement of Cash Flows. It also walks through a few examples of how real financial data is expressed on each of the reports, and then how the Income Statement itself is organized between Operating and Non-Operating income.

They offer a free template for all three statements for those using the DIY approach or want to familiarize themselves with the structure before starting their own business. A guide to financial reporting is among the many resources on the site.

Source: Free Income Statement (i.e. Profit and Loss Statement) Template, Example and Guide

IRS, QuickBooks Software, Software, Tips

Short-Term Rental Clients Need To Navigate Tax Concerns

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Rob Stephens of The Progressive Accountant recently shared his top four recommendations when advising clients to make sure they avoid costly mistakes when working with short-term vacation rentals:

1. Listing quality and rental rates.
2. Hotel occupancy taxes.
3. Get organized and find the right tools.
4. Administrative risk around taxes and regulations.

And I’d like to add that there’s an additional concern folded into the above, which is whether this is truly a Schedule C hotel operation business or a Schedule E rental property — a entire topic on its own.

He points out that:

More and more people are renting their homes, which triggers new and unique tax requirements. Being on the alert for these pitfalls can protect your client (or you) from hidden tax liability and operational problems.

He is recommending Avalara’s MyLodgeTax as a hotel occupancy tax solution. (Though, full disclosure, he sold his compliance software to them and it is currently being rebranded. Still, as Avalara is a trusted name in sales taxes, I feel confident sharing the recommendation.)

Source: Helping Your Short-Term Rental Market Clients Navigate Tax Concerns and Avoid Costly Mistakes | Sales Tax & Compliance

IRS, QuickBooks Software, Tips

Why Small Businesses Should Have an Accountant on Their Team

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QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisorYou may not know that Intuit, the owner of popular small business accounting software QuickBooks, has a resource center for small businesses on its website. And tucked away in there is a great article on the reasons to bring an accountant onto your team.

Now, I’ve often complained about Intuit’s sales pitch — whether it’s hawking QuickBooks Desktop, Online, Mobile or even one of its tax preparation solutions such as TurboTax — they make it sound like anyone can do their own books or taxes as long as they have the right tools. And it’s simply not true. To clarify: this is not a problem with the tools themselves — it’s an issue with the marketing and advertising. (The tools tend to be pretty great, in fact.)

The issue is that you need to know not only how to use the tools, but how the internal systems for using those tools should be customized to suit your specific situation. Accounting and bookkeeping rules — the basics, anyway — are pretty solid; but the workflow is extremely specific to each company. This is one reason it’s essential to work with a professional bookkeeper or accountant to interview you, get your books set up right, train you, and then review things on a periodic basis.

I’m not saying any of this because I’m trying to get more work — I have a waiting list that’s too long already. I share this because over and over, I’ve watched small businesses spend more time and money on clean-up or mistakes (some of which involved the IRS or state agencies) than they ever would have spent on proper set-up and training in the first place.

Intuit lists some specific reasons to engage the services of a professional bookkeeper or accountant:

  1. Getting Your Business Properly Set Up
  2. Spending Your Time Wisely
  3. Providing Expert Advice and Help
  4. Focusing on Growth
  5. Staying Up-to-Date on Tax Laws
  6. Reducing Your Tax Bill
  7. Audit Prep and Representation
  8. Accounting Mistakes Are Expensive

So if you haven’t made the commitment to seeking at least an initial professional consultation yet, maybe this is the time. Ask around within your neighborhood or industry and see if other business owners are happy with their bookkeeper or accountant and schedule an initial session where you bring a list of questions and get some answers. If you feel a connection, then maybe this is the right person for your team. If you don’t — at least you got some questions answered, and you’re better off for the experience.

Source: Why Small Businesses Should Have an Accountant on Their Team – QuickBooks

QuickBooks Software, Software, Tips

Report Comparison Chart for Different Types of QBO Subscriptions

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QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisorA colleague recently shared this wonderful link that compares each type of QuickBooks Online subscription and which reports are available in each one:

Report comparison between QuickBooks Online subscriptions (US) – QuickBooks Learn & Support

Her note was, “Here’s a handy chart comparing all of the reports available in the different versions of QBO. I know I can use this reference all the time!”

I had no idea it existed and I was glad to see it… so I thought I’d pass along this convenient summary. Use it in good health. :)

QuickBooks Software, Software, Tips

How To Permanently Delete A Client In QBOA

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Great news from a thread with some of my favorite ProAdvisor colleagues today. So few of us knew this option had been added that I want to make sure I share the info here.

The question was posed:

“If someone had added you to their QBOA (QuickBooks Online Accountant) company as a team member, and you no longer work with them, can you remove yourself somehow? Or do you need to request that they take you off their team?”

The answer used to be that you either had to ask the client to take you off their team, or you could make the client “inactive”. But there was no option to delete the client from your list in QBOA.

Now there is! With a few caveats and tips.

  1. Click on the name of the client in your client list; then click the drop-down button next to “edit client”. You should see a “delete permanently” option.
  2. If you are the master admin or billing contact for the file, it won’t let you delete them.
  3. You have to do the delete in a browser incognito mode for it work. It doesn’t work in Mac desktop app.
  4. The email confirmation notification is very generic and doesn’t tell which client’s file you removed yourself from. It just says “my Firm has removed access their accountant access to your QuickBooks Online account”.

https://community.intuit.com/articles/1456507-make-a-client-active-or-inactive-or-delete-them-permanently-in-qboa

Note: Many reps in QBO Support do not even know this function exists, and they keep telling us to just make them inactive.

Thanks to Ufuoma Ogaga and the entire Business Workflow & Management community for this!

Source: Make a client active or inactive or delete them permanently in QBOA – QuickBooks Learn & Support

Illinois, QuickBooks Software, Tips

Important Changes to Illinois Business Tax Payment Forms On 1/1/19

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A quick note about something all Illinois businesses and tax preparers should be aware of — starting 1/1/19, IDOR is going to have all businesses make all tax payments via one type of voucher per entity.

So that means whether you are making:

1) quarterly tax “pre-payments”;

2) extension payments; or,

3) tax due payments;

they’ll all be submitted on one type of voucher for C-Corps (IL-1120-V), one type of voucher for S-Corps (IL-1120-ST-V), one type of voucher for Partnerships (IL-1065-V), etc.

It’s not a big deal in terms of execution — in fact, it makes that part a bit easier — but it’s still really important to know about the change.

It means that when accountants and their clients (or staff members) are referring to tax payments of any of those three kinds, we need to be especially clear about which type it is — since we can’t presume the other person will know what we’re talking about based solely on the form number. (It used to be IL-516-B for most pre-payments, IL-505 for extensions, and then form/entity-specific for tax payments made with the return, so one could just refer to the form number… and the other party would understand what type of payment was being made — and therefore how to log it accordingly).

Also, if clients or staff are going through client memos in QuickBooks or looking through files to figure out what they paid and when, it will be a little harder to determine, since we will no longer have the additional meta-data of the name of the form, in a sense helping us figure it out. Another reason to get better about making sure to enter accurate descriptions in the memo field in your accounting software.

More information here:

http://tax.illinois.gov/Publications/Bulletins/2018/FY-2018-29.pdf

Just wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page! Or rather, the same tax form.

Source: Fiscal Year Bulletins – 2018

Education, IRS, POS - Point of Sale, QuickBooks Software, Site News, Software, Tips

My Three Top Accounting Tips

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I recently received the honor of being named one of the Top Accounting Influencers of 2018 by Fit Small Business. As part of the interview process, they asked me for a list of three “top accounting tips” — and they picked one for their article. I figured in announcing the award, I should share all of the tips I provided in a related post, so here you go!

1) Involving an accountant in your business should be one of the first steps a business-owner takes, well before taxes are due. (I’m not saying this just because I’m a CPA; I’m saying it because I see the results of this oversight regularly.) This doesn’t mean you can’t file your own taxes… but if you take the time to consult with an expert first, you’ll make way fewer mistakes when you do. A qualified accountant who specializes in your industry can help you with so many of the key issues that otherwise might come back to haunt you at tax-time — from entity choice to software selection to funding your business.

2) Selecting the right type of entity (sole proprietor, LLC, partnership, S-Corp, etc.) can make a huge difference in both liability and taxation issues. It’s important to understand the rules of the entity type you choose — for example, if you’re an S-Corp, pay yourself “reasonable compensation” via payroll; it’s the law. With the changes in the new tax law, this piece of the puzzle has become even more complex and more important.

3) Technology should play a role in every aspect of your business — accounting, tax and bookkeeping are no exception. Find a CPA who understands and embraces the ways in which tasks can be automated, with an eye toward improving efficiency, accuracy, and audit-proofing your company. The right technology stack can improve inventory and ordering, point of sale, collections, payroll, workflow, forecasting and cash-flow. Almost every system can be leveraged such that the books become a daily source of information for making real-time management decisions… not just a requirement for tax compliance.

Follow these three tips, and in my opinion — the rest will follow.

Source: Accounting Software Reviews You Can Trust: Top Accounting Influencers

QuickBooks Software, Tips

Hidden Feature: Calculator Within QuickBooks

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It feels a little odd to consider the in-app calculator within QuickBooks a “hidden feature”, but in a recent QB Power Hour with Hector Garcia, he mentioned that it’s the one feature that clients are most stunned and enthused by… so I figured I should mention it here as well so that my own clients (and maybe colleagues) can make use of it if they’re not already aware of its power or existence.

In particular, I think that folks may not know the same calculator functions that exist in QB Desktop also exist in QB Online, since that wasn’t always the case. But it does support not only simple calculations, but also order of operations punctuation, such as the ability to calculate quantities in parentheses before any other arithmetic.

Try it out!

Source: Hidden Feature: Calculator Within QuickBooks — Go Get Geek!

QuickBooks Software, Tips

Speeding Up Access to QBO Reports in Excel

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If you’re a QuickBooks Online user — be it accountant or business-owner or bookkeeper — then you know that when you download a QBO report to Excel using Chrome or Firefox, the resulting file name appears at the bottom of the browser window. Usually the next step is to click the file name to open the report in Excel.

However, today I learned a great new trick from David Ringstrom, contributor to the AccountEx Report and Excel guru.

Going forward, Chrome and Firefox can open Excel files automatically for you. The next time you download a QBO report to Excel, once it’s sitting at the bottom of your browser window, just click the arrow adjacent to the file name and select “Always Open Files of this Type”. Magic.

As he notes, however:

Unfortunately, this ability to open files automatically after download is not available in the Edge or Safari browsers. You’ll also have to open reports manually if you use the QuickBooks Online desktop app. The app will prompt you to choose a name for your report, but you’ll then need to manually open the report in Excel by navigating to the folder where you saved the workbook.

He also has some nice tips for unraveling automatic downloads (which I don’t personally allow — I have my system set up to prompt me each time a report is downloaded so that I can rename it and save it where I need it). For those who defer to most browsers’ default “downloads” folder, this later section of the article is particularly handy.

Give it a try! Read the entire article here:

Speeding Up Access to QuickBooks Online Reports – Accountex Report