Creating Product and Service Records in QuickBooks Online

Creating Product and Service Records in QuickBooks Online

Apr 12, 2018

When you first started your business, you might have been able to keep track of your merchandise by counting manually. But as you and your product list grew, this became impractical. You might have recorded it all in a spreadsheet, or even a box full of notecards.

QuickBooks Online has a much better way. Whether you sell products or services or both, you need records of specific items to use in transactions and reports. Those records are especially important if you have physical inventory; they can store details that help you know, for example, when it’s time to reorder.

Building a database of your inventory is time-consuming work that requires a lot of detail. But the information it supplies will be of great significance as you make critical buying decisions.

Detailed Templates
It’s easy enough to create your individual records. To get started, click the gear icon in the upper right corner of QuickBooks Online and select Products and Services under Lists. A table will open that will eventually contain a comprehensive list of what you sell. Click New in the upper right corner, and the Product/Service information pane slides out. You’ll see your four options here:

  • Inventory: Products you buy and/or sell
  • Non-inventory: Products you buy and/or sell that don’t require tracking
  • Services: Services you sell
  • Bundle: Products and/or services that you sell together

We’ll focus on the first option. Click Inventory. Enter the product’s Name and SKU (if there is one) and click the pencil icon to upload a photo if you’d like. If this item is going to be a sub-product or service of another, you’d click the box in front of that option and select the “parent” product or service from the drop-down list.

To create an Inventory item record in QuickBooks Online, you’ll have to fill in several fields.

 How many do you currently have of that item? Enter the number in the field to the right of Initial quantity on hand, and then enter the As of date in the next box. When your stock level hits a certain number, you’ll want to reorder more. Enter that number in the box to the right of Reorder point.

Your item needs to be assigned to an Inventory asset account for tracking and reporting purposes. This field should default to Inventory Asset. If it doesn’t, or if you want a more thorough explanation of this element of accounting, contact us.

Enter a description of the item in the Sales information box; this will appear on sales forms. What will your customers be charged for it? This is the Sales price/rate. The Income account should automatically display Sales of Product Income, and you should click in the box in front of Is taxable if that’s the case.

If you buy the item to resell, enter a description in the Purchasing information box, and provide your Cost, the price you pay when you buy the item from another source. The Expense account should default to Cost of Goods Sold.

When you’re done, save the record.

Viewing Your Records

Once you create a record for an item or service, it will appear in this table.

You don’t have to create records for absolutely every product or service you sell before you start using them. When you create an invoice, for example, and you open the drop-down list under Product/Service, the option at the top of the list will be + Add new. Select that, and the Product/Service information pane opens. You can create a record on the fly.

To get to the list of the product and service records you’ve created, click the gear icon in the upper right and select Products and Services, like we did early on here. You’ll see a screen similar to the one pictured above. You’ll also notice that you can link to several action screens from each entry.

If you maintain careful item records, you’ll be able to create a number of reports that can advise you on the state of your inventory. Click on Reports in the toolbar, and then All Reports | Manage Products and Inventory. These reports are fairly self-explanatory, but by customizing them, you can get even more focused insight. We can help you with this. We’d also be happy to go over any other aspect of inventory-tracking and management that’s confusing. Just let us know when you want to get started.

Looking for a QuickBooks Expert?

Working with a QuickBooks ProAdvisor is the best way to learn how to use QuickBooks to help your business grow and flourish. You won’t find a better way to get the support you need anywhere else.

As a small business owner, we realize that you may not have the budget to hire a QuickBooks expert. If you’re looking for a more economical way to get set up on QuickBooks, we provide cloud bookkeeping programs to match any business requirement. Here are our Quickbooks Services; QuickBooks Setup, QuickBooks Training, and QuickTune-up.

You can feel confident in knowing that our STAC Bizness Solutions team are Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors. Meet Our Team.

If you would like to learn about all the benefits that STAC offers, just give us a call and we’ll provide you all the details. Call us at (844) 424-9637.

Getting Ready for Payroll in QuickBooks Online

Getting Ready for Payroll in QuickBooks Online

Mar 21, 2018

Payroll is probably the most complex element of small business accounting. Not only are you directly responsible to your employees, but you also have to make sure you’re handling everything related to benefits and payroll taxes correctly.

Whether you’re switching from a manual system to QuickBooks Online, or you’ve just hired your first employee, you’ll soon discover that the site can make your payroll-related tasks much more organized and accurate – speeding up the process tremendously.

But before you start getting ready for your first payroll run, you have a lot of setup work to be done. Be sure to leave yourself time before those first paychecks are expected.

Our Purpose Here
We’ll provide some step-by-step instruction, but initially, we just want you to see what information you’ll need to have available and how QuickBooks Online handles it. This is not meant to be a payroll setup tutorial.

Building a Backbone
There’s no particular order set in stone for your payroll preparation tasks, although you will need to provide some background information about your company and its policies before you can start creating employee records.

QuickBooks Online doesn’t walk you through the steps required. It does though display a page with links to all of the data you’ll have to enter. Click the gear icon in the upper right, and then click Payroll Settings. You’ll see this screen:

QuickBooks Online’s Payroll Settings screen displays links to the pages where you’ll manage your setup tasks.

You would have entered information about your Contact Information and Work Locations (under the Business Information heading) when you first signed on to QuickBooks Online. At the same time, you would have been exposed to the Chart of Accounts, which already has accounts designated for payroll. You can see them by clicking Preferences | Accounting, but please do not customize these. If modifications are needed, we’ll do them for you.

Payroll Policies
How often will you pay your employees? Go up to the Payroll heading in the upper left and click on Pay Schedules. Click Create and open the drop-down list next to Pay Period to select the frequency desired. Then enter the date for the first payroll you’ll run in QuickBooks Online and the end date for the period that it covers. Click the box below if you want this to be the default setting for all employees. Then click OK to return to the previous page.

Open the Vacation and Sick Leave Policies window. If you don’t yet have accrual rules for these paid days off, let us help you here. It’s complicated. When you’re done, click the back arrow to return to the Pay Policies window and select Deductions/Contributions. Are you offering benefits like health insurance? You’ll need to have your paperwork and information handy before you start completing this section.

Before you can pay employees, you’ll need to have entered information about the benefits you offer so you can withhold dollars for them.

Click the plus sign (+) in front of Add a New Deduction/Contribution and complete the fields here, then click OK. You’ll assign these deductions to employees on their individual records in QuickBooks Online. If there are any Employee Garnishments needed (like child support), click the down arrow next to Add Garnishment for and select the worker from the list. You’ll provide details for these in the window that opens. This information was most likely provided to you by the agency requesting it. When you’re done, click OK.

Taxes and More
If you’re new to payroll and have never dealt with payroll taxes before, you’re going to need our help getting this complicated element set up correctly. Even if you have, we’d recommend that you let us work with you. QuickBooks Online does a good job of providing guidance here, but failure to submit payroll taxes (or pay them incorrectly) can lead to penalties and fines – or worse.

There are other setup tasks you’ll need to complete, like:

  • Connecting your payroll bank account to QuickBooks Online.
  • Creating employee records.
  • Setting payroll production preferences.

Setup is by far the most challenging part of processing payroll in QuickBooks Online. Once that’s done, you’ll just be entering hours and making modifications. Please do connect with us if you’re planning to take this on, and we’ll make sure you get a good start.

Hire a QuickBooks ProAdvisor

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Customize QuickBooks Online Using Settings

Customize QuickBooks Online Using Settings

Feb 6, 2018

You can start using QuickBooks Online the first time you sign in. However, your tasks will be easier and faster, if you customize it for your company.

QuickBooks Online was designed to be used by a variety of business types; that’s one reason why it’s such a popular small business accounting website. It was built to be versatile. That is, whether you sell hard drives or you service HVAC systems, you can customize it to “fit’ your company.

This is why your first order of business when you start using QuickBooks Online should be to click on the small gear icon in the upper right corner. The window that opens displays links to all of the site’s options – a collection of choices that’s called “Preferences” in desktop QuickBooks.

When you click on the small gear icon in the upper right corner of QuickBooks Online, this window containing the site’s many options will open.

Global Settings
The first screen you should visit is Account and Settings. This page is divided into five sections, accessible by clicking on one of the tabs below:

Company – Your company’s name and contact information appears here, as well as identifying details like the tax form you file, as well as your industry.

Sales – You can do a lot of customizing here that will affect your company’s selling activities. For example, you can specify preferred invoice terms and delivery method, and indicate whether to turn on features like:

  • Shipping
  • Custom fields and transaction numbers
  • Discounts
  • Quantity and price/rate
  • Inventory quantity on hand

You can also access the site’s tools for customizing the design and layout of your sales forms (invoices, receipts, etc.).

Expenses – You’ll toggle expense-related tools on and off here. You can choose to, for example, track expenses and items by customer and make them billable. Will you be using purchase orders? What will your default bill payment terms be?

Payments – Here, you’ll be able to set up a merchant account so you can accept credit cards and bank transfers from customers through QuickBooks Online. If you already have a merchant account, you can connect it here.

Advanced – There’s a good reason why this section is named “Advanced.” You may not be familiar with some of the concepts here, like “closing books” and specifying default accounts for items like Markup. We can go over these things with you and help you make decisions.

Other entries in this list are easier to complete, though you may still want some guidance. Will you support multiple currencies? Automatically apply credits and invoice unbilled activity? Make individually-tracked time activities billable to customers?

Other Preferences
There are many other areas in this window that you’ll want to explore before you start processing a lot of transactions in QuickBooks Online. If more than one person will have access to the site (we’ll assume you’re the Administrator), you must click on Manage Users. Here, you can set limits of what other employees can access. Click New on the screen that opens to launch this mini-interview, and follow its instructions:

You can restrict users to specific areas of QuickBooks Online.

Other preferences you should look at include:

  • Chart of Accounts – only to familiarize yourself with the accounts that make up the backbone of your accounting data. You’ll use these in transactions. Please do not make any changes here without talking to us.
  • All Lists – to see what’s available here, like Classes, Recurring Transactions, and Payment Methods.
  • Products and Services – to start building records for the items and services you sell. If you carry inventory and have never worked with a website that helps you manage it, please let us go over these concepts with you.
  • Budgeting – if you plan to create a budget. QuickBooks Online contains a tool that will accommodate this critical task.
  • Audit Log – if multiple people will be using QuickBooks Online. It tracks all activity by date and user.

QuickBooks Online is easy to use, but there’s a lot to learn upfront about customizing it to meet your company’s accounting needs. It’s natural to feel a bit overwhelmed at first. Let us help you get through those early days of use.  Connect with us, so we can walk you through the basics.

Hire a QuickBooks ProAdvisor

To schedule an initial consultation with us, please click the button below.

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What Records to Keep in a Personnel File?

What Records to Keep in a Personnel File?

Oct 23, 2017

It can be difficult to know what employee records a small business should keep in a personnel file. Should it only hold onto the bare minimum and risk not having enough documentation to protect itself should it need to in the future, or should it keep everything and files become so thick that it is impossible to find anything efficiently? Ultimately, a practical compromise is necessary.

Below is a brief list of the essential documents a small business should keep in a personnel file. However, please remember that this list is a guideline, a template and that ultimately it is up to the specific needs of the small business to determine what stays and what goes.

 Employment Agreement Records

The most basic of personnel file documents that need retaining should center on the professional relationship between the employee and employer. These documents would include the employee’s application and resume, the description of the job as given to the employee, the offer of employment, and the signed receipt of the employee handbook.

 Legal Documents

The most important of the legal documents that need retaining should be the ones related to taxes. These would include W-4s and state withholding forms. Obviously, the tax forms required by your business may not be the same as other businesses, but the idea is to make sure that a copy of whatever tax forms is required always are kept in the employee’s file. Also, legal documents may include next of kin information, emergency contacts, and forms relating to employee benefits.

 Employee Performance Documents

An essential collection of documents is how the employee performs their job. Primarily, this documentation will provide the necessary empirical data to justify an employee’s review. A short list of such records would include awards, reprimands, notes on attendance, certificates of successful completion of training programs, and why and under what conditions the employee left. In essence, these documents should give a stranger an understanding of what this individual was like as an employee.

Unnecessary Documents

However, there are records that you should avoid including in an employee’s personnel file. These would include an I-9 as a government official who may need access to this record does not need to leaf through all the other personal information to find it, and medical records as a small business are legally required to keep this information confidential and available to only a select few.

Paper Timesheets versus Time Tracking Apps

Paper Timesheets versus Time Tracking Apps

Sep 23, 2017

Many businesses continue to rely on the conventional paper timesheets for their employees to track their attendance. Paper timesheets require a lot of dedication in the creation process and it can also increase your monthly cost. So why not go for a simpler solution that will make things easier for you? Here’s a quick look at some reasons why you should stop using paper timesheets and start using time tracking apps.

 

1. Reduce Clerical Mistakes

Paper timesheets require writing out the details of employees attendance and sometimes the words or numbers don’t appear clear. However, with time tracking apps, names and time tables are so clear that you will not have an opportunity to mix up things.

 

2. Save Time

The truth is that paper timesheets can be poured over for hours by employers. This is simply inefficient and costly for the business because that time could be used for other business dealings instead. A digital timesheet is non-negotiable as the employer can see when the employee logged in and out of the computer.

 

3. Increase Visibility

The pendulum swings both ways and the employer can be at fault with messing up paper timesheets. The employer can be accused of adjusting the paper timesheets. There is room for debate with paper timesheets that no employee would welcome.

Time tracking apps are more reliable and they include audit trails. The employees have digital records to back up their claims as to when they signed in and signed out for the day. This can really help when an employee has a dispute regarding the hours that they were paid for. There is that added bit of proof that an arbitrary piece of paper cannot provide.

 

4. Added Features

An employer can do more with digital timesheets than a piece of paper can provide. They can delegate some of their managerial responsibilities to the program’s features such as approvals, reporting, automatic reminders and online scheduling. The entire workplace operation process is streamlined.

These reasons are just a few of the advantages that time tracking apps, such as TSheets, provides over paper timesheets. The choice of using a virtual process is a no brainer in this digital age.  

We love TSheets time tracking and think you would too. Employees can track time on any device, you can easily integrate with various payroll programs, and the customer experience team is phenomenal! There are tons of amazing features, try it free for 14 days by clicking here:

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What Is a Vendor Credit, and How Do You Record One?

What Is a Vendor Credit, and How Do You Record One?

Sep 18, 2017

Whether you’re getting a vendor credit for a refund or a return, you can record it in QuickBooks Online.

When you’re dealing with your company’s vendors, you’re probably accustomed to money flowing in one direction: theirs. Maybe you send them to purchase orders and they send you invoices. Or they send you bills and you pay them. Or you walk into a store and buy something your business needs.

Sometimes, though, vendors owe you money. Probably the most common scenario is a return of merchandise, products that you’ve sent back to the supplier for any of a variety of reasons. You may be issued a credit of some kind simply because you’ve been a loyal customer, and a vendor wants to reward you. You might also get a rebate for an item you bought.

In these cases, you’ll enter a Vendor Credit in QuickBooks Online, which you can apply the next time you buy something from that supplier. Usually, the process is pretty straightforward, but sometimes situations arise that may make it hard for you to know how to record a vendor credit accurately. We can help if this happens.

Simple Steps

Let’s start with a simple example. Let’s say you received a shipment of pens that you’d planned to use as promotional items for your salespeople. The ink on some of the pens had gotten smudged, so your company email address printed on them was illegible. The supplier issued you a credit of $50.00 for future purchases and sent you a reference number to use.

It’s easy to complete a Vendor Credit form in QuickBooks Online for a simple credit. But other situations are more complicated.

Here’s how it would work. Click the + (plus) sign in the upper right corner of the screen and select Vendors | Vendor Credit. A screen like the partial one pictured above would appear. These are the fields you would need to complete:

Vendor – Click the down arrow in the field in the upper left corner and select the correct vendor, or + Add New.

Payment date – Change the default date if it’s not correct.

Ref no. – Enter a reference number if applicable.

Under Account details, click in the field under Account, and open the drop-down list by clicking the down arrow on the right. Select the account you used when you created the original expense. Enter a Description and the Amount of the credit.

You can add a Memo in the box at the bottom of the screen if you’d like, and select any Attachments to include from your file directories. Otherwise, click Save and close or Save and new.

Additional Input

There’s much more to the Vendor Credit screen that you didn’t need to consider for this example. The row where you entered Account, Description, and Amount contains several additional fields that you may need to complete in some cases. They are Billable, Markup %, Tax, Customer, and Class. If you’re not sure when these fields are required, ask us to go over these concepts with you.

There’s also another section under Account Details you may need to address: Item Details (click the arrow to open if necessary). You would only enter information here if you’re returning items to a vendor. Fields displayed there include Product/Service, Qty (quantity), Rate, and Sales Amt (amount). We don’t recommend that you do this the first time on your own; let us help.

Using Your Credit

How do you redeem this credit? QuickBooks Online reminds you to use it.

QuickBooks Online records your Vendor Credits and reminds you that they’re there when you go to pay that vendor again.

The next time you enter a transaction that involves—or will involve—sending that vendor some money, you’ll see a record of that credit to the right of the Check or Expense screen, for example. In the image above, a small box has opened as soon as the vendor’s name was selected. You can Add that credit to the current transaction or Open it if you want to see the original screen.

Not everyone uses Vendor Credits. Some businesses find workarounds. But we recommend you at least understand when and how they’re used so your bookkeeping is accurate and precise. We’d be happy to spend some time with you going over your financial relationship with vendors, and how QuickBooks Online helps you document it.

 

Looking for a QuickBooks Expert?

QuickBooks ProAdvisor Houston TxWorking with a QuickBooks ProAdvisor is the best way to learn how to use QuickBooks to help your business grow and flourish. You won’t find a better way to get the support you need anywhere else.

As a small business owner, we realize that you may not have the budget to hire a QuickBooks expert. If you’re looking for a more economical way to get set up on QuickBooks, we provide cloud bookkeeping programs to match any business requirement. Here are our Quickbooks Services; QuickBooks Setup, QuickBooks Training, and QuickTune-up.

You can feel confident in knowing that our STAC Bizness Solutions team are Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors. Meet Our Team.

If you would like to learn about all the benefits that STAC offers, just give us a call and we’ll provide you all the details. Call us at (844) 424-9637.