Scott Gregory, QuickBooks Expert

QuickBooks Enterprise 2010 - Great New Feature: More and Better Custom Fields

QuickBooks Enterprise 2010 has a great new feature that didn't receive nearly as much fanfare as the new document management did...

It should have though!

To me, the ability to have more (and more functional) custom fields in QuickBooks Enterprise 2010 adds a great deal of functionality that many businesses have been searching for.

The "new and improved" custom fields come into play in several places:

• Item list
• Customer list
• Vendor list
• Employee list

We'll start with the Item List - once you open an item in QuickBooks Enterprise (any item), click the "Custom Fields" button, then click the "Define Fields" button, and you will see a window that looks like this:

I have filled in some of the fields above with examples to get your mind stirring about how you can adapt these new tools to the specific needs of your business.

Take note of the following enhancements - these are really great improvements to QuickBooks Enterprise:

• Use up to 15 custom fields instead of 5
• Pre-determine what type of data will be used in the custom field. In addition to the any text that has always been available, you can also choose from a variety of number options, phone number, date or even create your own custom list of options! (see the "what kind of data" column highlighted above)
• Require that the field be filled in either on a transaction OR when the item is being added to the item list for the first time (see the "required on" columns that are highlighted above).

That's right - you can require a field to be entered on a transaction! Think about how functional that could be to ensure that your order entry staff gets the order right the first time.

NOT JUST FOR ITEMS!

You also get more choices of custom fields when it comes to customers, vendors, and employees.

For example, in QuickBooks Enterprise 2010, if I am reviewing the details of a customer account, I can click the "Additional Info" tab within the customer account, then click the "Define Fields" button and then a window like this appears:

New and improved in this set of custom fields:

• You can have up to a total of 20 custom fields to be shared across your customer, vendor and employee lists
• You now have the same new choices when it comes to the type of data to be entered just as shown in the item list above.
• You can also make the entry of data into these fields mandatory on a transaction OR when setting up a customer, vendor or employee for the first time.

Think about the possibilities this opens up for capturing even more important data in QuickBooks. For example, you could easily set up two new custom fields and call them "Sales Contact" and "Purchasing Contact" - you have instantly doubled your number of fields available to hold important contact information.

How is your business using these new and improved custom fields in QuickBooks Enterprise 2010? Post a comment below to share your story with our readers!

RELATED POSTS:

• Let me provide you a customized quote on QuickBooks Enterprise 2010. It takes just a second to let me know what you need
• QuickBooks Enterprise 2010 - Free guide, FAQ, and other product insight

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Scott Gregory is a specialist with QuickBooks Enterprise, Premier and Pro accounting software. He has been helping businesses "think beyond the ledger" for over 25 years.

Accept Credit (and Debit) Cards in QuickBooks

Looking for ways to improve your cash flow? (and who isn't these days!)

If so, consider how one simple button within QuickBooks can improve your cash flow AND your efficiency as well. That button is the "Process Credit Card When Saving" option, which allows you to accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover card payments from your customers quickly and easily (the Visa example is shown in the screen shot below)

Once you have a merchant account set up with Intuit Payment Solutions, this button becomes active and ready to use for "one click" processing of credit card payments.

This solution is perfect for businesses that have have a fixed location. The process works exactly the same whether you swipe the card or just get the card details via mail order, internet, etc. (other solutions suggested below)

Watch a video on how to accept credit cards in QuickBooks using Intuit Payment Solutions

IF YOU NEED A MOBILE CREDIT CARD SOLUTION...

Let's say that you have a service business where you or your team is out on the road all day. Just because you are mobile doesn't mean you can't have a credit card processing solution that is simple too.

The Intuit GoPayment solution may be just what your CPA ordered to help improve your cash flow.

The GoPayment solution allows you to accept credit cards using your mobile phone. You can even get a Bluetooth card swiper and printer to complete your mobile credit card processing setup.

Watch a video on how the Intuit GoPayment solution works

POINT OF SALE (POS) USERS HAVE A SOLUTION TOO!...

Intuit has a solution for businesses that are using the QuickBooks POS too. It is designed to meet the unique needs of retailers and others that are tied into POS processing every day.

Watch a video on how the Intuit POS Payments solution works

THE KEY DIFFERENCE

Many of my clients have said the QuickBooks credit card solutions outlined above stopped them from having to do double work that is required if other credit card processing systems are used in addition to QuickBooks. In those cases, the data is entered twice. 

In the case of using the QuickBooks solutions, the data is entered once, and only once. Given this, be sure to factor in the value of your time when assessing proposals from various credit card processors.

In addition, be sure to carefully review the fee structure and costs of any credit card processing solution you may be evaluating.

GET A NO OBLIGATION CUSTOMIZED QUOTE ON THESE QUICKBOOKS SERVICES FOR YOUR BUSINESS

If you would like to get more information and/or pricing on one of these services for your needs, pick up the phone and dial my associate Kirstan Gides who works for the Intuit Payment Solutions Group. Her number is 800-601-4083 x 68287. You can also e-mail Kirstan to get a conversation going that way too.

Be sure to mention the discount code "bottomline" to Kirstan in order to get the best package possible that meets the specific needs of your business. 

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Scott Gregory is a specialist with QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise accounting software. He has been helping businesses "think beyond the ledger" for over 25 years.

QuickBooks Tip: Need More Report Options? Just a Click Away

Tucked away in the corner of the Report Center screen in QuickBooks 2010 is a button called "Find More Reports" - an often overlooked but very powerful button.

Clicking the "Find More Reports" button transports you to the new QuickBooks Reports Library...

 

Here you will find an entire library of new reports that have been created by other QuickBooks users and QuickBooks ProAdvisors.

Within the library, you can search by the same categories you are used to seeing in QuickBooks, such as "company and financial", "customers and receivables" and more. You also have the ability to sort by the most recent, the most downloaded, and highest rated reports using the "sort by" button in the upper right hand corner of the screen.

HOW TO DOWNLOAD THESE REPORTS

Once you find a report of interest, simply create a folder on your computer to store the reports, click the download button and save the report in your newly created folder. Go to your reports folder, double-click on the report, and it will be added to your memorized reports menu. The process couldn't be any easier.

Some reports you may find of interest:

• Payments by Vendor
• Overhead as % of Total Income and Expenses
• Unapplied Customer Payments and Credits
• Sales by State
• Cash Flow Forecast by Quarter
• Many, many more...

What is your favorite report? Post a comment below and share it with everyone - thanks!

Save 20% and get an instant download or free shipping if you prefer to upgrade to QuickBooks 2010

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Subscribe to this QuickBooks blog today!

Download Scott's free QuickBooks guides and learn more about QuickBooks.

Scott Gregory is a specialist with QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise accounting software. He has been helping businesses "think beyond the ledger" for over 25 years.

Using Custom Filters for Customers and Vendors in QuickBooks

There is a very powerful option within QuickBooks to help you quickly filter and find customers and/or vendors that match certain criteria (i.e. zip code). It's unfortunate that this option isn't as obvious as it could be within the software.

When browsing your customer list in the Customer Center, there is a drop-down menu at the top of the list that provides several choices:

• All customers
• Active customers
• Customers with open balances
• Custom filters

In this post, we will focus on the custom filters option.

 

Once you select the custom filter option, another box appears. This box is where the power and functionality of this feature lies:

As you can see, you have the ability to search and filter by:

• Name fields
• Address fields
• Phone fields
• Customer: Job name
• Company name
• City
• State
• Zip
• E-Mail
• Accounts number
• Custom fields
• Memo

For example, if I wanted to filter my customer list for all (not just active) customers that had a zip code of 94326, I would complete the box as shown below:

and then click the "Go" button.

My customer list is then filtered by zip code!

Clearing this custom filter is easy - just click the red "X" that appears to undo your search and filters or simply remove the filter option you have entered.

ALTERNATE METHOD OF FILTERING - Just type the zip code in the "find" box at the top of the customer list. Keep in mind that this method may find matching results in other areas beside the zip code field - using this option, it will display ALL matches to the criteria you have entered, not just the zip code.

SPECIAL NOTE IF USING JOBS - If you use the custom filter option and you have jobs in your list, QuickBooks changes the view of the list from the standard "hierarchical view" (say that 3 times fast!) to the "flat view". Translated, this alternate view doesn't show the jobs as being "indented" in the customer list as they normally are. Quick fix - just right click on the customer list and click the "hierarchical view" to return it to normal.

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Scott Gregory is a specialist with QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise accounting software. He has been helping businesses "think beyond the ledger" for over 25 years.

Subscribe to this QuickBooks blog today!

Download Scott's free QuickBooks guides and learn more about QuickBooks.

Track Inventory in QuickBooks? Optimize Your Investment With This New Add-On

Alterity, the creators of Acctivate, which is a leading inventory management add-on for QuickBooks, have recently released their "EZ Analytics for Inventory" software that plugs into QuickBooks 2009 and 2010 (Pro, Premier and Enterprise Windows versions only).

EZ Analytics for Inventory is designed to help businesses improve their inventory forecasting process while trying to find the optimum balance between customer service and inventory investment.

Inside EZ Analytics for Inventory you will find the following functionality:

• Monthly Sales Analysis
• Overstock Analysis
• Understock Analysis
• Reorder Analysis

Each of these reports is designed to pull your QuickBooks data and then analyze it against the desired objective of the report.

You can't beat the price of this software - it is currently free. The trade-off is that it is in beta form right now. The good news about it being in beta is that the developers would love to hear from you about how to make the product even better when it comes to managing your inventory.

This add-on concept relating to inventory management is excellent, as QuickBooks itself has been lacking in many respects in that area.

Take a look at EZ Analytics for Inventory and share your comments and insight below so the tens of thousands of businesses looking for inventory management tools for QuickBooks know how it works for you.

FOR MORE DETAILS ON ACCTIVATE INVENTORY MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE: Contact Ryan Moeller at (817) 870-1311to get a complimentary demo and see how it can benefit your business.

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Scott Gregory is a specialist with QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise accounting software. He has been helping businesses "think beyond the ledger" for over 25 years.

Subscribe to this QuickBooks blog today!

Download Scott's free QuickBooks guides and learn more about QuickBooks.

QuickBooks 2010: The Improved Company Dashboard

Having a company dashboard/snapshot in QuickBooks was a new feature in QuickBooks 2009. In QuickBooks 2010, the QuickBooks software development team has made it an even more powerful tool to help manage your business.

A client recently commented that "this was an excellent new feature that was built into QuickBooks"

To access it, click the Company Snapshot icon at the top of the page, or click Company > Company Snapshot from the menu bar:

Here is a breakdown of the new features in the QuickBooks 2010 company dashboard/snapshot:

• A separation of company and payment dashboard content
  
  
  
• The ability to add new content and delete existing content
  
  
  
• The ability to print the information within the company dashboard/snapshot
  
  
  
• The ability to drag and drop your QuickBooks company dashboard content
  
  To do this, simply click on the section of the dashboard you would like to reposition and drag and drop it to the desired location.

Here is a view of the Company portion of the QuickBooks 2010 company dashboard/snapshot:

Here is a view of the Payments portion of the QuickBooks 2010 company dashboard/snapshot:

In order to take full benefit of this feature in QuickBooks 2010, be sure you have downloaded the latest update to the software (Help > Update QuickBooks).

NEED MORE DASHBOARD FUNCTIONALITY INCLUDING THE ABILITY TO INTEGRATE EXCEL DATA? Learn about QVinci, the "GPS" for QuickBooks.

WANT TO SAVE 20% AND GET AN INSTANT DOWNLOAD OR FREE SHIPPING ON QUICKBOOKS 2010? Visit my corporate web site and save big!

Using QuickBooks 2010? What are your thoughts on the "new and improved" company dashboard? Please post a comment below to share them...

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Scott Gregory is a specialist with QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise accounting software.

Subscribe to this QuickBooks blog today and keep up to date on everything QuickBooks!

Download Scott's FREE QuickBooks guides now!

Inside QVinci - The DashBoard for QuickBooks: Management Tools

Qvinci provides you with the ability to calculate a number of critical metrics and perform detailed analysis using your QuickBooks and/or Excel data. Think of it as the "GPS for your Business".

This post will focus on the Tools option within the Management Tools section of QVinci:

Inside the Tools option, you will find the following resources available to you to assess your business (or if you are a CPA, to assess your clients' business):

Note: S = Standard version, P = Pro version, and E = Extended version of QVinci software

Using the Top Ten option above as an example, you can quickly pull Top Ten Customers by Sales information from QuickBooks into an easy to read dashboard page like this:

Inside the Top Ten option, you will also find the Top Ten Job Profitability, Sales by Rep and Purchase by Vendor dashboard reports.

As another example, the Average Aging option within the Tools menu allows you to assess your Accounts Receivables in a way that QuickBooks simply can't offer:

PREVIOUS POST: Inside QVinci - The Dashboard for QuickBooks: Getting Started

LIKE WHAT YOU SEE WITH QVINCI?

• Small businesses - save 50% on your first month of QVinci.
• CPAs and Accountants - get your own copy of QVinci for just $5 per month!

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Scott Gregory is a specialist with QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise accounting software. He is also a QVinci Master Guru.

Connect with Scott today to download his free QuickBooks guides.

QuickBooks 2010 - Download This Product Update (R5) for Less Intrusive Marketing

I recently received this news update regarding QuickBooks 2010 from the product managers at QuickBooks and I wanted to share it with you:

"We've heard you! And, you've told us loud and clear that our marketing communications in QuickBooks 2010 have become a distraction to getting your work done.

Our newly released R5 patch to QuickBooks 2010 has the following improvements based on your feedback:

• The “Recommended for You” widget in the Snapshot can now be turned off with one click. Just click on the “X” on the upper right side of the box.
• The “Accept payments” sidebar on the Receive Payments and Sales Receipts screens can now be closed with one click.  Just click on the “close toolbar” on the upper left side of the box.  Alternatively, you can show or hide this sidebar through your preference settings.
• You can now use the "turn off pop-ups" preference in QuickBooks to turn off newly added pop-ups in QuickBooks. Clieck Edit > Preferences > General > Turn off pop-up messages.
• You can now turn off the “Payment Interview” permanently.  Just click on the “X” on the upper right corner.

The R5 patch will be automatically pushed to any version of QuickBooks 2010 which has updates turned on.  If you prefer to get the update manually, you can access that here."

I figured it was only a matter of time until the din of user complaints reached a crescendo before some action was taken to remove these various marketing intrusions.

Now, if only QuickBooks opted to take similar actions on their phone in product registration process!

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Have you downloaded Scott's free QuickBooks guides yet? Get your copy today.

Scott Gregory is a specialist with QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise accounting software. He has been working with businesses like yours for over 25 years, solving their QuickBooks and accounting headaches.

Understanding Price Levels in QuickBooks

If your business has a standard/base price for items that you sell and the need to create various levels of discounts or increases to those standard prices, the price level tool in QuickBooks is just for you.

Tucked away within the Lists option on the menu bar, the Price Level list provides the flexibility you need to quickly and easily create different price levels based either on a fixed percentage of your base price or on a per item basis.

The video below provides the insight you need on how to use price levels on a fixed percentage basis, and then have those various prices appear in quotes, sales orders or invoices and also default to a certain level based on the customer too!

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Scott Gregory is a specialist with QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise accounting software.

Have you downloaded his free QuickBooks guides yet? Download them today!

Inside QVinci - The Dashboard for QuickBooks: Getting Started

Qvinci is add-on software for QuickBooks that allows you to quickly create your own customized dashboards so you can review and analyze not just your QuickBooks data, but also data from your Excel sheets as well.

For example, you can easily create a dashboard that contains the following key metrics and charts for your business (or your clients if you are a CPA):

• Profit and Loss Overview
• Last 3 year Profit and Loss Comparison
• A/R and A/P Last 12 Months
• Balance Sheet Charts (shown in the screen shot below)
• Key ratios, such as the quick ratio, current ratio, gross profit margin

There is a tremendous amount of functionality and flexibility built into QVinci, and this post will show you a few of the basic things you need to know to get up and running quickly with it.

Once you install the software, open it and follow these instructions:

• Click the New Dashboard button on the File tab
• Click the QuickBooks graphic on the Options tab
• Click the Jump Start button on the File tab
  
  
• Connect to your QuickBooks data file (it must be open in order to make this initial connection)
• Select the "Build Everything" option and wait a couple of moments for your QVinci dashboard to be created.
• Answer the few remaining questions about building charts and using Excel, and you are finished.

Your QuickBooks data file (and/or Excel worksheets) are now attached to your QVinci dashboard, and you are ready to either review the results or customize the dashboard even further by adding or deleting key charts and performance indicators.

As another example, you are able to see information about your Accounts Receivable in a way that QuickBooks can't offer you, as shown in the screen shot below:

Be sure to click the Save button on the File tab to quickly and easily store your dashboard configuration for future analysis. I'll cover more features and functionality of QVinci in future posts.

LIKE WHAT YOU SEE WITH QVINCI?

• Small businesses - save 50% on your first month of QVinci.
• CPAs and Accountants - get your own copy of QVinci for just $5 per month!

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Scott Gregory is a specialist with QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise accounting software. He is also a QVinci Master Guru.

Connect with Scott today to download his free QuickBooks guides.