Customizing QuickBooks for your business

Customizing QuickBooks for your business

Easy Step Interview is divided into two parts – starting up with the Easy Step Interview and customizing QuickBooks to suit your trade. You are now in the second half. Here, you will be asked a series of questions to come up with a program especially customized to be used in your business. You will be asked to turn off once again certain QuickBooks features which you will find inappropriate for your business. After doing so, push “next” button and you will proceed with the first question.

The first question will deal with what does your company do in particular. Do you sell service or products? Services may include consultation, accounting services, and memberships. Products, on the other hand, may range from lamps, books, furniture, appliances or hardware. If in case you are a gym owner and you sell training and at the same time books regarding the training program, then you sell both service and product. For BlueMoon, it will be both. Services done by BlueMoon include catering while products are cakes, cookies and muffins. BlueMoon will belong to ‘both’ and then you click on ‘next’ button.

The second question will be – Do you sell products online? Options for this will be Yes, I sell products online, No, I don’t sell products online but I may want to at a later date and I don’t sell online and I am not interested in doing so. Choose from any of these and if later you decide to change, you can always go back and modify your answer. BlueMoon does not sell online but may want to do it later. Go ahead and click on “next”.

Do you charge sales tax is the fourth question. QuickBooks has defaulted the Yes answer since it is advisable for any business to charge sales tax. You may opt for the No but if you are not sure with this, consult your accountant. Opt for any of the given choices then go back and change if necessary.

For the next task, QuickBooks will inquire if you want this system to conduct estimates for you. An estimate basically refers to a bid, a quote or a sort of proposal provided to clients in order to give them an idea of the cost of whatever you sell. QuickBooks has a No default. But for BlueMoon, the No answer is not a choice. BlueMoon opts to provides estimates for its catering services and products. Go ahead and click on Yes. QuickBooks will then show you sales receipts. Sales receipts are used when clients pay for the service or product they availed from you. QuickBooks does not recommend the use of sales receipts yet for BlueMoon nd other business who have a retail store where people would come and go to avail of the products and services offered, sales receipts should be used. For all cash based entities, QuickBooks can provide sales receipts and other forms of cash registers. Click on Yes for BlueMoon to enable this feature because it is appropriate for the conduct of the business.

QuickBooks billing statements can be used on a cruel basis and when providing clients the invoices about the products and services sold to them which will be paid later. Generally, business owners send the clients their billing statements at the end of the month. These statements show all the charges for availed products and services and the amount they owe the business owners. QuickBooks billing statements can show not only the amount owed but also all the payments and credits applicable for the clients’ account. Here, QuickBooks has a No default since the answer is based on the default for the previous question which is No. However, for BueMoon which opted for a Yes in the previous question, this feature will be turned on. This is because the business is also a cash entity which means over the counter cash transactions require receipts and statements. While for the services, BlueMoon wil be billing and releasing invoices for services or products to be delivered at a later time. As this feature is turned on, click on “next” and then proceed again.

This item talks about progress invoicing. The progress invoicing feature is used in doing a project that runs for several months. Along the duration, you are going to charge the client with services completed or products delivered. This is usually utilized by construction firms which do services of building an infrastructure for quite a long time. Let us take for instance that you are a construction business. You entered a deal to make a house for a client. During the first thirty days, you have already completed the framing for that house. You will then charge the client with that period of completion. For the next thirty days then you have built the sheet up and the construction of walls in progress. Another charge for the client if made for this completed task. With this kind of business (construction) the progress invoice is used since charges are made according to the completion portion of the whole project which actually runs for quite sometime before getting completed. Our business model which is the BlueMoon Cakes and Pastries do not conduct long-term services that is why progress invoices are not applicable. BlueMoon does not offer services that run for months. Clients here are charged and invoiced the moment they availed of the service or the product offered by BlueMoon. Clients are further invoiced at one time. This feature will be turned off for BlueMoon as QuickBooks has recommended. Do not forget that in cases of modification of thee services of your business; you can always modify your answer and turn this feature on.

QuickBooks’ next question will be about the management of account payables and other bills that you owe. This accounts payable refers to the amount you owe from other people. This feature will track down your vendors, list of bills, dues and deadline for payment of these dues. QuickBooks has defaulted Yes and BlueMoon will use the default.

Do you print checks? is the next question. Once more, there are a lot of options for this: Yes, I currently print checks; No, I don’t currently print them but I would like to later on; and I don’t print checks and I don’t have any plans of doing it. Usually, all businesses tend to print checks but if you are the kind of business that takes in cash and not having to pay it out in return, then there is no need for you to print checks. You might as well turn this feature off. For the BlueMoon Cakes and Pastries, checks are printed so this feature is turned on. Once done with this part, click the “next” button and go with the next question.

As you go ahead, you will learn how and why QuickBooks recommend tracking inventory. Tracking inventory is a QuickBooks feature that basically depends on the type of your trade. Inventory is usually used by businesses that manufacture something. This means that they are buying the components or the raw materials from vendors and what they do is they assemble these components to create something new. Sometimes, these kinds of business would just procure the component, keep it or stock it on their shelves and sell it again without creating a new product out of it. All of these manufacturing schemes would require tracking of some type of material whether raw or goods which is on stock. As the business owner, you may or may not choose for the materials to get tracked. This feature really depends on your company needs. QuickBooks Tracking Inventory feature manages your materials by allowing you to gauge the quantity of your stocks particularly the items on hand. This also helps you estimate the cost of these materials, how much have already been sold out and what needs too be replenished at that moment. For BlueMoon, go ahead and turn that feature on because the company needs a tracking of its materials on stock. Although QuickBooks recommends that this feature be turned off, BlueMoon has certain products like espresso machines, coffee mugs, cake accessories and ingredients which are sold again to other clients. Inventory tracking feature will also let you know of damaged or lost materials and give you knowledge on how much money have you got on this stocks and how much you will be having when you resell them.

This next feature pertains to credit cards. Do you accept credit cards? And then again you have to choose from: Yes, I do currently accept them; No, I don’t currently but Id probably want to later; and No, I don’t and I do not plan on doing it. The answer here again depends on your preference. Most businesses nowadays do accept credit cards for payments. You can opt for no, but remember, that you can go back and change it to Yes. QuickBooks has used Yes for a default. This time, BlueMoon will go with the default since the business is currently allowing credit card payments. Opt for Yes and then again, click on the “next” button.

This stage of the Easy Step Interview is helpful as you get to decide whether you charge your client with labor cost or not. In the construction setting, this construction firms charge clients of the material and the time spent and used in the completion of a certain project. The time and the material here both make up for the labor cost. This QuickBooks feature will help you analyze how much time have been spent for a certain job. Employee payment will be based on this time tracking feature thus compensation will be efficiently dealt with. Turn this feature on for Bluemoon because the catering services require labor cost. Wedding events for instance needs time tracking to indicate appropriate payment for employees and reasonable charges for clients. BlueMoon takes Yes. Click on the “next” button to proceed.

This time, QuickBooks will ask you if you have employees for your business. For BlueMoon Company, the answer is Yes. It is then suggested that you set this item up appropriately regardless of you will be using QuickBooks payroll or not. For the case of BlueMoon,people are employed for the conduct of business. There are W-2 employees who are capable of being included in payroll, collect taxes from their checks and then remit theses taxes payments to the state in federal governments. There are also 1099 contractors who are distinct from the W-2 ones. These 1099 contractors are non-employees to whom you do not take taxes for the payments you have made to them in a year. What happens is these 1099 contractors are paid their gross salary which you report to the government at the end of the year. The 1099 contractors will decide on their own if they are to pay their taxes corresponding to their gross wage or not. BlueMoon have both kinds of people in the business so the Both button is chosen.

This section deals with Chart of Accounts. This primarily talks about using accounts with QuickBooks. Chart of Accounts organize the business income and expenses within. Further, this Charts of Accounts is a basic feature in accounting. Utilizing this feature enables you to have an idea of how much you have been spending for each of your business categories and how much money you are making for each transaction you engaged in. In other words, the Chart of Accounts allows you to control expenditures and determine where sales and income are coming from; thus helping you to manage your business efficiently. Looking in this part, you will notice that QuickBooks has given a little explanation on the importance of the Chart of Accounts as a great tool in making clarifications on some items which you find yourself unfamiliar with. BlueMoon will acquire this feature and proceed to the next.

We now come to selecting the date for the start of the business with QuickBooks. Conversion date, as mentioned earlier, refers to the time when you decide to convert all your business information into QuickBooks. This is important since there is a need to identify which data from what date will be included in the QuickBooks management. Determining the conversion date will help you identify which information you should be bringing into QuickBooks and the exact date when you will be utilizing this system for your company operations. You are given two choices here. QuickBook has defaulted for the beginning of the year – January 1, 2009. However, oftentimes, QuickBooks will settle for the year when you began bringing into this system your data. The second option is for you to settle with the first date of the quarter or the month of QuickBooks use. It is strongly recommended that conversion dates begin on the first of the calendar year. This lessens the amount of information you are going to bring into QuickBooks. But then again, if you feel the recommended date is not suitable for your business needs, then you may opt for your own date. If you need QuickBooks services during the current month which is May, you do not need to wait for year to begin with QuickBooks. You can start to convert your data as soon as your need. Conversion dates are better if they coincide with the fiscal year and with your business needs. For BlueMoon, the start dates would be the beginning of the fiscal year.

QuickBooks is now requiring you to add a bank account. Bank accounts give a clear picture of your financial condition. Your savings account, checking accounts and money market accounts can be tracked with this feature including your actual physical cash. This could be populated with your existing bank account. This could be filled in however in the later chapters of QuickBooks so for BlueMoon, this feature will be turned off. You could choose yes and the you will be brought to several steps in setting up a bank account.

At this point in time, you need to review your income and expenditures account. These two mentioned accounts are defaults in QuickBooks to be filled in completion of your company profile. These were defaulted based on your answers to the previous questions. Further, these accounts were assessed by QuickBooks to be the most frequently used based on all the previous information you have been providing QuickBooks in the course of the Easy Step Interview. So, now you can view your list. On the left side you can see check marks which means the account you have selected, the account name and the description of the account. On the right side, the type of the account is provided. On later chapters of the QuickBooks, these items are elaborated for more understanding. You can decide to go ahead with the defaults.

Further, with what you have gone through in the Easy Step Interview, you can realize that QuickBooks gets you into the program, asks you to bring information into it, customize the program itself, remove or delete given details, add more information and further modify what has been given. This will give you the ease not to decide on everything at this point. QuickBooks allows you to edit and add other pertinent details as you start with the program. For now, we will use whatever QuickBooks has defaulted here. After this, kindly click on the “next” button.

Well-done! You have just completed the Easy Step Interview and you are now ready to continue and start enjoying the benefits of QuickBooks. Congratulations!!