(203) 227-9475

MISSION

Bookkeeping Services | Accounting Services

Bernard Roesch | MISSION

When To Upgrade To A New Version Of QuickBooks (Desktop)

By

4052625960_0716310f7a_z-1It’s important to keep the software your business uses up to date. But updating your software including QuickBooks has real costs associated with it. In this episode of MissionBusinessPodcast.com, Bernard Roesch explains when you should upgrade QuickBooks including situations when you’re forced to upgrade QuickBooks even if you don’t want to.

If you have any questions about this podcast episode, please feel free to contact us.

[Read more…] about When To Upgrade To A New Version Of QuickBooks (Desktop)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

IRS Scams To Be Aware Of

By

4402276445_0c4607230e_zIRS filings have secure information about you or your business. When you file with the IRS, you might be due for a refund payment. Because of this, scams are popular involving people claiming to be the IRS that are trying to collect your refund on your behalf. In this episode of MissionBusinessPodcast.com, Bernard Roesch explains common IRS scams to be aware of and how to avoid them.

If you have any questions about this podcast episode, please feel free to contact us.

[Read more…] about IRS Scams To Be Aware Of

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

QuickBooks Enterprise Delivers the Reports Your Business Actually Needs Right Now

By

If you’ve been managing your financials through QuickBooks Pro or Premier, you know that it’s a great tool for basic report generation to answer standard questions. However, there are many significant restrictions that you’ve likely come up against such as lack of reporting capabilities or list size limitations.

That leaves a lot on the table, and forces many of the businesses we work with to head to Excel to actually build the reports that make the most sense for their daily operations and long-term goals. It can be a frustrating process with plenty of opportunity for human error.

But now, a simple upgrade to QuickBooks Enterprise can expand your reporting capabilities to meet today’s most demanding business needs.

Welcome to my first blog post in a series discussing the benefits of QuickBooks Enterprise. I’ve found it a useful way to help businesses like yours solve their most pressing financial and accounting pain points. Let me know what you think and stay tuned for Part 2 on relieving power and size limitations and Part 3 on improved inventory and pricing options with the upgrade.

Subscribe for the Report Functions You Need and Want

Included in the QuickBooks Enterprise subscription is the new Advanced Reporting tool that helps you customize reports to your business from the first moment.

Templates for the most common reports are readily available while you have some greater capabilities such as forecasting by sales item, sales profitability that you can adjust by customer or category, and support for more inputs.

Custom Capabilities

This is more than just your standard reports too! Do you have a Christmas/Holiday card customer list or want to sort customers and potential customers based on a specific region? Would you like to list your top 20 SKUs? All of these reports can be produced using QuickBooks Enterprise’s Advanced Reporting tool, instead of pushing your team to spreadsheet programs to manage business metrics.

Industry-Specific Toolkits

The Advanced Reporting system gives you a list of industry options to select from that will provide you with the most common business metrics and reports for businesses like yours. Each of these is customizable, plus you’re able to build brand new reports that work with other industry-specific tools and reports.

Save Your Business Time and Money

One of the biggest benefits my customers have seen by upgrading from Premier or Pro to Enterprise is a significant reduction in the time it takes to generate all of these reports. They’re able to discover business intelligence through reporting and analysis all within QuickBooks Enterprise.

Your team only has to work on a single platform, which reduces the risk of human error moving details, using the wrong data, or data loss as information is transferred between files.

With the expansion of capabilities in multi-user mode, your team can also perform more reporting while multiple team members access your data. That means no more walking around the office or shooting an email to everyone to make sure they’re logged out when you need access. Data is protected, and your operations run smoothly.

Invest in the Most Complex Reporting

QuickBooks Enterprise frees your team up by making it easier to build the reports you commonly need. Advanced Reporting gets you directly to the information you need and gives you visualization tools put everything in a context your team can understand.

That’s why we at MISSION are providing support for you to upgrade to the QuickBooks Enterprise subscription model.

And if you have specialty reports that you need recreated, want to automate them in QuickBooks, or want to push the boundaries of Enterprise to learn the most about your business, reach out to me directly. I’m here to help you discover what great things are hiding in your QuickBooks right now.

Overcome QuickBooks Slowdowns, Burdens, and Limits When You Upgrade to Enterprise Today

By

I’m a firm believer that sales should be the only thing that dictates a company’s growth. Nothing else should be holding you back, especially not your accounting software. That’s why I wanted to provide you with this second look at QuickBooks Enterprise and show why it’s becoming the package I recommend most: it doesn’t stifle you with limits.

There are three big limiting factors that QuickBooks Pro and Premier impose on their users that a business in its growth phase, plus those reaching market maturity, should avoid. Here’s a quick look at how QuickBooks Enterprise can help you:

  • Make the most of your data through better database processing.
  • Improve your handling of larger data and report lists.
  • Give everyone access to the information they need when they need it.

A More Robust Database

One of the chief reasons I recommend QuickBooks Enterprise is that it can handle a significantly larger database than QuickBooks Pro or Premier.

In Pro/Premier, the more vendors, files, transactions, items, and other components you added, the slower the software become. It often gets painfully slow for companies who have outgrown Pro/Premier but haven’t made the jump to QuickBooks Enterprise.

Enterprise can handle significantly higher volumes of information, and the cloud model provides you with the extra power you need to process it quickly and efficiently. Plus, you get a variety of tools that deliver deeper insights and more significant intelligence because they can access that larger, more robust dataset.

QuickBooks Enterprise allows you to avoid the need to archive portions of your existing data or start new files and risk missing out.

Unlimited Lists

How can you have a robust look at your data across the life of your company when you must continually remove and change the lists you use? The limit of 14,500 active or inactive entries often causes QuickBooks Premier users to lose legacy data that could point to long-term trends in their business and their industry.

Maintain the robust data you need for these detailed analyses and have no worries with scaling your operations to new markets on new continents with the limit-free QuickBooks Enterprise.

Not only can QuickBooks Enterprise handle lists of customers and items that extend beyond 100,000 items, but it also has the speed and power to manage this quickly and efficiently, so slow reporting doesn’t delay your business.

Get the data you need when you need it. Speaking of which, QuickBooks Enterprise has other benefits related to overcoming hurdles for accessing your information.

Up to 30 Users

Many growing businesses can get stuck at the cap of 5 concurrent users that’s set in QuickBooks Premier. This often means they have to coordinate departments for reviewing financials, generating reports, and taking a closer look at their business intelligence.

Don’t stifle your team or limit your ability to access the data and reports you need. QuickBooks Enterprise can scale to up to 30 concurrent users so your accountants and individual team members can all look at the same data when they need it, or review it together during training and meetings.

This is the second part of my three-part series on the benefits of upgrading to QuickBooks Enterprise for growing businesses. See the first part here and stay tuned for my final look at its Advanced Inventory capabilities.

Is Your Accounting Software Helping You Deliver Better Customer Service? Here’s How It Can

By

Thanks for joining me in this final piece of my three-part series on the benefits of upgrading to QuickBooks Enterprise. Today, we’ll be looking at the improved inventory and pricing functionality it offers that deliver you more control over your operations, empowering you to provide better customer service and quickly respond to opportunities.

You can also check out my previous posts on its Advanced Reporting benefits to help understand your business and why QuickBooks Enterprise can make your accounting life easier thanks to fewer limits on the QuickBooks database.

Now, let’s take a look at what improved inventory features are available to your operations in QuickBooks Enterprise.

Multi-Location Inventory

If you have more than one location, you’ve probably gotten a major inventory headache from QuickBooks Pro/Premier. It’s a limitation that just doesn’t cut it.

QuickBooks Enterprise can link all your stores, warehouses, and other inventory locations to let you know what you have on hand, on sales order, or purchase order, and even your reorder points relative to that location and your overall business.

Set up locations based on their place in your operations. Options include staging areas in the warehouse, tracking on service trucks, goods on consignment, new warehouses, and goods currently being imported on ocean lanes.

QuickBooks Enterprise can even create automatic calculations to let you know what you need to reorder and restock today.

Smarter Bin Tracking

Tracking inventory across multiple locations is even more useful when combined with QuickBooks Enterprise’s ability to track inventory items down to bin location level within any of your warehouses.

The system also automatically generates quantities in your forms and provides serial/lot numbers for the bins you’re using. You’ll generate a better pick list and know what you can deliver to your customers based on their demand and their location.

That’s a core element of better customer service because you can prevent over-promising and under-delivering.

The new recall report can also track defective lots through assemblies and subassemblies plus look for impacted items in stores or customers’ hands, helping you stay on top of any problem.

Barcode Creation and Scanning

QuickBooks Enterprise has improved its barcode support to allow you to scan codes and send the information directly to QuickBooks without any additional input from a keyboard. You set it up once, and after that, the right data populates the right field each time.

If you don’t have existing barcodes or are just picking up your first USB barcode scanner, QuickBooks Enterprise can generate a new barcode for internal use to give you better inventory control and visibility right away.

Integration with Advanced Pricing and More

The inventory benefits of QuickBooks Enterprise are often best understood when it comes to your pricing options. Now, your accounting can adjust to handle discounts based on a wide range of elements from quantity discounts to new support for manufacturer markdowns based on date ranges.

Schedule promotions with future start dates and position your inventory to account for increased sales and orders through smarter positioning all within the same system.

Getting Started Today

There are a lot of tangible benefits you can achieve by adopting QuickBooks Enterprise to manage your inventory, accounting, and more across all of your locations.

MISSION wants to be your partner to help you in the upgrade process as you move away from Pro/Premier and provide any assistance you need during migration, including verifying that your QuickBooks database is in good order, or even creating customized reports designed to show your most significant competitive advantages.

By working together, you’ll put your best foot forward to every customer who’s ready to order.

Red Flags That Cause IRS Audits

By

Filing taxes is part of running a business, but getting audited by the IRS is sometimes also something a business has to deal with. There are certain red flags the IRS looks for to determine who gets audited. So it’s best to avoid those red flags when possible. In this episode of MissionBusinessPodcast.com, Bernard Roesch describes red flags the IRS looks for and how to avoid them in your business if possible.

If you have any questions about this podcast episode, please feel free to contact us.

—

How Does The IRS Determine Who Gets Audited

There’s a number of ways the IRS chooses who to audit. In some cases, the audit is completely random, selected by randomly choosing from all the businesses in the IRS system. While some audits are random, the majority are triggered based on patterns in the tax returns. Below are a few patterns that the IRS system looks for to determine who to audit.

Odd Looking Expenses

Businesses frequently have expenses but the amount or type of expenses businesses have are usually similar when you review tens of thousands of the same type of business operating in the same industry.

If your business has expenses that look odd to the IRS system compared to the many other similar types of businesses in their system, then that can trigger an audit.

Consistently Losing Money

Business is difficult and losing money sometimes happens. But many businesses claim losses on their tax returns to shield income and avoid paying taxes. The IRS looks for patterns of losing money, especially consistently over time.

Owner’s Compensation

How you pay yourself as a business owner determines how much taxes you pay. For example, depending on the structure of your business, you may pay taxes on your salary income as well as the income of the business.

  • Businesses often use owner’s compensation levels as a way to control the amount of taxes they pay. If you pay yourself too little to avoid paying taxes on that salary income, then the IRS may audit you.
  • The IRS looks for appropriate levels of owner’s compensation in your type of business and if yours seems to low, then this may trigger an audit.
  • Similarly, if you pay yourself too much for certain reasons either as salary or distributions, then that could also trigger an IRS audit.

Work with your accountant to understand the appropriate level of owner’s compensation for your type of business, your role in the business and the size of your business.

Odd Looking Charitable Deductions

While giving to charities is the goal of many businesses, it’s also a common way that some business owners try to shield income from taxes.

The IRS looks for specific types of charity contributions and the level of contributions relative to your other business economics. These patters are usually simple for the IRS to spot since they have a large data set of business charitable contributions to analyze.

Mistakes On Your Return

While the above patterns are things the IRS looks for to find businesses intentionally trying to shield income, another pattern the IRS looks for is simple mistakes on your returns.

If your returns have mistakes that the system catches, it will usually trigger a human audit to review your return and figure out what should be done regarding the mistakes. This can lead to a simple correction with the IRS or a full scale audit since a human will now review multiple parts of your return.

We Can Help You

If you need help organizing your financial data and preparing for filing taxes at the end of the year, contact Bernard today. You can also visit MissionBusinessPodcast.com for more insights that Bernard has been sharing with us in the previous episodes.

[Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/86530412@N02/8194658323/]

Employee Expenses – How to Manage in QuickBooks

By

As your company grows, the number of expenses and purchases grows. At a certain point, it may make sense to give employees the ability to make purchases on behalf of the company. But it’s important to manage this process carefully. In this episode of MissionBusinessPodcast.com, Bernard Roesch explains the logistics of how to run an employee expense process, including some of the risks involved and software to use.

If you have any questions about this podcast episode, please feel free to contact us.

[Read more…] about Employee Expenses – How to Manage in QuickBooks

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Outsource Payroll – When, How, and Issues to Be Aware Of

By

14556080969_14a6bb2165_oAs your business grows, you will have more and more things to manage. Running your employee payroll might make sense at the beginning of your business, but eventually, it’s something you should outsource. In this episode of MissionBusinessPodcast.com, Bernard Roesch explains why you should outsource your payroll and how the process of outsourcing payroll works.

If you have any questions about this podcast episode, please feel free to contact us.

[Read more…] about Outsource Payroll – When, How, and Issues to Be Aware Of

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Managing and Improving Your Cashflow Situation

By

11322953266_db29ce0659_zCash flow is one of the most important metrics in your business.

In this episode of MissionBusinessPodcast.com, Bernard Roesch explains why cash flow is so important, how you can use QuickBooks to understand your cash flow situation, and what you can do to improve your cash flow.

If you have any questions about this podcast episode, please feel free to contact us.

[Read more…] about Managing and Improving Your Cashflow Situation

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS