As a small business owner, it’s essential to do what you can to optimize every dollar you spend. By managing your own finances, you can keep a pulse on the money flowing in and out of your business.
In the US, 29 million small business owners rely on QuickBooks to help them manage their finances. It’s no coincidence that so many people rely on this tool to help their businesses succeed.
While there are plenty of business owners reaping the full benefits of QuickBooks, many are not taking advantage of its full potential.
Luckily, we’ve compiled a few tips to help you get the most out of QuickBooks.
Learn the Basics
The first step in using QuickBooks is to take some training courses. This will give you more knowledge on how to use QuickBooks and help with speed and efficiency. QuickBooks offers plenty of free training and tutorials to help the learning process go more smoothly. You will be able to understand the ins and outs of QuickBooks when you have the basics down pat, simply by going through training.
Have you used QuickBooks in the past and think you are ready? Not so fast! Things that are updated from previous versions are covered in the new training modules. These trainings are updated with current accounting practices and regulations to ensure your records meet requirements. This is incredibly useful if you are running your own business.
Set Up Recurring Transactions
In your line of work, you have bills you pay on a regular basis. QuickBooks allows you to set up recurring transactions, making record keeping a breeze. The accounting software, in essence, memorizes your recurring transactions including:
Checks
Bills
Invoices
This function means you can automate transactions on a month-to-month basis, eliminating the need for you to keep track of due dates.
Additional features let you schedule daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly posts. Quarterly payments are ideal for managing tax payments as a company owner. You may likely use weekly payments to handle payroll for employees. Daily posts can account for those one-off posts that happen sporadically, or for a few days in a row, but not every week, month, or quarterly.
This way, you don’t have to remember to pay them individually. This also alleviates room for error. Instead of having unexpected late fees pop up, you may qualify for a cost reduction thanks to automated payments.
Enable Custom Reporting
Did you know that you could set up custom reporting on QuickBooks? You can, and it’s an excellent feature! It allows you to select what reports you want to run so that you have all of the info you need to make sound financial decisions. The fields are customizable, freeing you up from mundane bookkeeping tasks, and allowing you to collect your ideal data.
For small business owners who are diligently trying to save money, custom reporting will help with setting up goals and milestones. You can pull:
Budget reports
Forecasts
Cash flow statements
And more
To use as benchmarks for helping your business reach new heights. With QuickBooks, you’ll be able to turn to your reports and easily identify where you need to make adjustments, and where you hope to expand in growth.
Receive Payments from QuickBooks
Whether you want to have a place to receive payments or to submit payments to vendors, you can do it efficiently in QuickBooks for a small convenience fee. This aids in managing your accounts receivable process. Instead of sifting through invoices, determining whether they’ve been paid, and then heading to the record books, QuickBooks will do it for you.
The organization tools also help you find missed payments and/or mistakes in reconciliation, smoothing out your books and saving you time in the long run.
Another advantage to using this QuickBooks feature is it allows you to keep everything in one place. These accounting services are accessible online from anywhere you are running your company, which is great for busy, on-the-go entrepreneurs.
Choose Other Tools That Work with QuickBooks
While QuickBooks does a lot, there are some accounting services and tools they don’t offer. When you go to automate other processes, make sure they are compatible with QuickBooks—most are.
You may also find yourself needing assistance in payroll management, accepting e-commerce payments, etc. Search for tools that work with QuickBooks so you can be sure everything will flow smoothly together.
Work with SIMPLY Financials PLUS
Here at SIMPLY Financials PLUS, we use QuickBooks to help us manage clients’ accounting. This means we can handle all of the above for you, so you don’t have to.
We are experts and know what works best to get the most out of QuickBooks. In addition, we also offer QuickBook training for busy professionals, so even if you decide to do your accounting on your own, we can still help.
Contact us to learn more about outsourcing your accounting and getting the most out of QuickBooks!