QuickBooks tips you may want to know

Tip #1: QuickBooks 2016 Sunset

Important: QuickBooks 2016 is “sunset” May 31, 2019.  QuickBooks 2016 will continue to work BUT many features will no longer function or be support by QuickBooks.  Some concerns:

• No Live Support
• No Critical security updates
• Desktop Payroll will no longer be functional
• QuickBooks Merchant Services will no longer process credit card transactions
• Online Banking will no longer work

My recommendation: I understand my clients want to extend the life of software as long as possible, but just upgrade.  Also, note that if you continue to wait years to ultimately upgrade, it may not be as easy and it may be quite a project.

There are a variety of places to purchase QuickBooks desktop.  One is Amazon.

Tip #2: QuickBooks new 2019 new feature

There are several new features in QuickBooks 2019 but one of the great ones: Invoice Status Tracker. If you have 2019, check it out.

Each Invoice will now have a history.  When you open an Invoice, you will see a link for “See History”.  With one click you can then see when the invoice was created, when it was emailed and who it was emailed to, when payment was received and when the money was deposited.  Yes, one click and you see the history.

P.S. If you use the built in QuickBooks email (check your Preferences), this history will even tell you when the invoice was opened by the client!

Tip #3: QuickBooks why 2018 and 2019 got better

Search Bar

Sometimes “little” things are more important than we first realize.  One of the features that came out in 2018: Search box on the Chart of Accounts window.  For non-accountants, the chart of accounts is a list of all your accounts (revenue accounts, expense accounts, etc.)

I find that as I continue to work with clients, we fine-tune the chart of accounts so they, as business owners, get reports customized for them.  The search bar has been something that I have used over and over again as I tweak the Chart of Accounts.

Invoices now have a Past Due Stamp

Starting in 2018, we can choose to have “Past Due” printed on invoices.  This can be very helpful if we send reminder invoices for those not paid.  It is one more customization that we can use!

For a little help:  Click Lists / Templates / find your customized invoice template / then add the customization “Print Past Due Stamp”.

P.S. A cool option on this is that we can customize the template so invoices will by default show the Past Due Stamp, but then we can later choose to turn off the visibility on individual invoices when printed or emailed.

Tip #4: Cash / Accrual toggle on Reports

This is just … well … great!

As I work with clients, we usually do the books on the accrual basis.  (If you are not sure what “Accrual” is, ask your accountant.  Just know that many times accounting records use the Accrual method).

But business then use the “Cash” basis for taxes.

One click and we can now see both reports in seconds and send the reports to the tax CPA much more quickly.

This feature was rolled out in the 2018 version.

Tip #5: Search

We can thank version 2017 for improving the search tool.  If you have ever searched for a check, credit card, invoice, etc. then hopefully you have headed over to the search tool.  Many times I put this as a shortcut for clients.

There are many ways to search but we can now search for an amount within a range.   Previous version allowed us to search for amounts that were  equal to a given amount or less than or greater than a given amount.  But we can now set a specific range, for example:  From $100 to $250.