QuickBooks - Where to Start...and Why?

Your 2011 tax return is complete, or at least an extension has been filed. You are now looking at your calendar and realize it’s already May. Where has the time gone?! You further realize you now have four months of “catch-up” work to do to bring your 2012 financial reports up to date. Where to start…and why!? QuickBooks! QuickBooks makes keeping up with your financial transactions simple and easy.

 

Here are a few reasons why you should stay on top of your financial record-keeping with QuickBooks.

1. Improve Efficiency

With a point and click you can pay your bills and do on-line banking, while recording your transactions in QuickBooks. QuickBooks enables you to print and record checks, do direct deposit functions, and download your monthly statement for easy bank reconciliation. In addition, you can e-mail invoices and statements with QuickBooks Online Billing and your customer can easily pay you with a credit card or bank account transfer. No more waiting for the check to come in the mail. As a business owner, you are always looking for ways to decrease time spent on a project and increase efficiency.

2. Minimize Errors and Mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes. You may have paid a vendor twice, received payment from a customer that was less than it should have been, or the bank may have cleared a check for a different amount than written. These all occur more frequently than you may realize. If you enter and reconcile your bank transactions on a regular basis, these mistakes and errors can be caught and corrected in a timely manner. With QuickBooks, transactions are entered with ease and bank reconciliations are done with a few simple clicks.

3. Stay Within Your Budget

Create a budget and stick to it. Without updated financial data, how do you know if you are following your budget? Budgets help you stay within a certain spending limit and assist with managing cash flow requirements. Budgets can be entered into QuickBooks and can be compared to your actual spending at any point in time during a period.

4. Access Financial Statements Easily

Can you produce a balance sheet or profit and loss statement at any moment in time? After entering all your transactions, financial statements are available at any point in time for any period. The availability of financial statement data is imperative to the functionality of your business.

5. Monitor Customer Billing

Have you ever had to look-up how much you paid a vendor and when? Or needed to know how much you have outstanding from a customer? By keeping track of this financial data in QuickBooks, you never have to look through stacks of paper, locate a check online or dig in your file drawers. Through customer invoicing and vendor bills, you are able to keep track of who, when and how much on a daily basis. This information is then available for future data reporting as needed.

QuickBooks will give you the efficiency and financial data you need to run your business on a daily basis. At McGowen, Hurst, Clark & Smith, P.C. we have several certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors on our team. We can help you install your new QuickBooks software, offer technical support, conduct training seminars and provide one-on-one consulting. You will be amazed at the results when you begin to use the full potential of the program. Call us today at 515-288-3279 to determine how we can help make your business run smoothly, more efficiently and save you money.

Tara Raymond, QuickBooks ProAdvisor, is a supervisor in the Tax Department at MHC&S. With more than 10 years of experience, Tara provides individual QuickBooks Consulting and facilitates group training.