Quickbooks

How to Enter Bills in QuickBooks

You may have noticed recently that business bill-paying is undergoing a transition. While some paper bills still come via the U.S. Mail, you may also be getting some of those bills via email. Sometimes, you might get a reminder email, but then must go to the vendor’s site to make a payment.

How do you keep track of it all, so you don’t miss any due dates? You could record them on a calendar, but you’d still have to go back to the actual bill to retrieve the amount. But where is it? Is it online, in your email inbox, in a file folder, or pinned to the corkboard on the wall?

QuickBooks can organize this unpleasant process, saving time and helping you avoid confusion. Here’s how it works.

A 2-Step Process

QuickBooks divides your accounts payable tasks into two separate processes: entering bills and paying them. It requires some extra time upfront as you complete the first step, but streamlines the second so that the actual bill-paying only takes a few seconds.

To get started, click Enter Bills on QuickBooks’ home page to open a window like this:

Figure 1: Before you can pay a bill in QuickBooks, you need to create a record for it.

The toolbar for the Enter Bills window is not pictured in the image above, but you don’t need it yet. Rather, you start by clicking the down arrow in the field next to VENDOR and selecting the biller’s name from your list (or clicking if you haven’t yet created a record for that entity). The ADDRESS should fill in automatically, as should the date.

If you set up default payment TERMS in that vendor’s record, your preference should show in that field and the BILL DUE date should be correct. Enter the AMOUNT DUE and complete any of the optional fields that the transaction requires (REF. NO., DISCOUNT DATE, and MEMO).

Since this is a utility bill, the Expenses tab should be highlighted, and the amount you entered above should appear in it. Below that is the ACCOUNT field; open that list and choose the right one. Don’t worry about the CUSTOMER:JOB and BILLABLE fields. These will only be completed when you’re charging a customer for an expense or item.

Warning: If you’re not familiar with the concept of assigning accounts to transactions, please schedule some time one of the QuickBooks professionals at the office. This is a critical designation that affects so many other areas of QuickBooks.

Saving Your Work

Figure 2: The toolbar from the Enter Bills window.

Once you save your bill, you’ll be able to access it when it’s time to apply the payment. How will you remember when it’s due, though? QuickBooks can remind you – or even pay it automatically. So, before you leave the Enter Bills window, click Memorize in the toolbar pictured above.

The Memorize Transaction window will open with your vendor already entered in the Name field. You’ll have three options here:

Add to my Reminders list. QuickBooks can add this bill to its list of Reminders. To ensure that you’ll see this every time you open the software and can make any changes necessary, open the Edit menu and click Preferences | Reminders | My Preferences. Click in the box in front of Show Reminders List when opening a Company file. Then click the Company Preferences tab (if you’re the administrator) and find the Bills to Pay row. Click the appropriate button to indicate whether you want QuickBooks to Show Summary or Show List, and enter the number of days before due date.
Do Not Remind Me. Just what it sounds like.
Automate Transaction Entry. You can only select this if the transaction will be exactly the same every time (except for the date). If the number of transactions will be limited, enter the Number Remaining. And tell QuickBooks how many Days in Advance To Enter.

Figure 3: If you choose the third option here, be very careful when you define the automation. You should really do this only if you’re an advanced user.

When you’re done, click OK to close the box, and save the bill.

Next month, the second step will be discussed: the actual paying of bills. In the meantime, please call if you want to schedule a session to go over any aspect of your accounts payable – or anything else in QuickBooks.

Extend QuickBooks’ Usefulness with Add-Ons

What do you do when an application you are using stops meeting your growing needs in a specific area? You can: a.) find a workaround, b.) switch to different software, or, c.) resign yourself to living without that feature. Fortunately, QuickBooks offers a fourth option: d.) find an integrated add-on app that will work for you. With hundreds of these add-on apps available, it’s likely you will find one that will do just what you need.

Integrated add-on apps fall into several categories, ranging from billing and invoicing to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to inventory management to time-tracking. There are special versions designed to work with QuickBooks, and they require a monthly subscription fee.

If you’ve never worked with integrated applications before (and even if you have), it is recommended that a QuickBooks professional get these set up and running for you since their operations can be confusing at first. Let’s take a look at three of the most popular integrated add-on apps:

Expensify

From receipt tracking through reimbursement, Expensify automates the process of managing expense reports. You snap photos of receipts, and the site’s built-in intelligence will read them and enter details like merchant, date, and price in the system’s own forms. If you need to record vehicle mileage, Expensify can do that by using your smartphone’s GPS. Other features include compatibility with global currencies and taxes; notifications of travel itinerary changes; “smart” receipt-auditing (ensuring that your expense policies are enforced); and direct deposit reimbursements.

Figure 1: You can enter expenses manually in Expensify or take a photo with your phone. The site will read the receipt and transfer critical data to forms in the app.

The service offers three price levels for small business. For $5 per user/month, you get tools that enable basic expense approval and online reimbursements. A Corporate subscription gives you that, plus advanced policy support, corporate card reconciliation, and a multi-staged approval workflow, for $9 per user/month.

method:CRM

method:CRM was actually built exclusively for QuickBooks users. It expands on the customer management tools found in QuickBooks and supports two-way synchronization. You can see real-time customer, lead, and vendor data in either application; automate lead-collection and lead-tracking, and service customers far more efficiently than with QuickBooks alone. The application saves time by streamlining workflows and eliminating duplicate data entry, and its customer and vendor portals provide safe online spaces where you and your contacts can interact, view transactions and other information, and make payments.

After a 30-day free trial, you can subscribe to one of two levels. The Contact Manager version ($28 per user/month or $25 if paid annually) offers everything except the ability to create QuickBooks sales transactions, accept online payments, and track your sales pipeline. These tools are included in CRM Pro ($49 per user/month or $44 if paid annually). Some services are available a la carte.

Bill.com

If you only process a couple of dozen bills and invoices every month, QuickBooks may be all you need. But if you have complex, transaction-heavy accounts receivables and payables that are difficult to track, you might want to consider Bill.com. A web-based application that integrates very well with QuickBooks, Bill.com is all about automation. It offers multiple ways to get your sales and expense documents into a digital format (scan, fax, email, smartphone photo) and then follows your directions as it routes them to the appropriate employees for approval. You’ll make and receive payments electronically and always know where you stand with customers and vendors, thanks to a simple, understandable user interface and navigation scheme.

Figure 2: Once you create approval policies within Bill.com, the application enforces them.

Pricing starts at $39 per user/month, which includes accounting software integration and your choice of payable or receivable support. You can get both for $59 per user/month – plus advanced automation and approver options.

Many More

There are hundreds of others, in more targeted areas like human resources, reporting, shipping, and e-commerce. You can search or browse through the library of solutions on the QuickBooks website

If the integrated apps we described here sound too complicated for you, you may not need them. Or perhaps you do need them, but you’re not sure you could master them easily. If so, contacting a QuickBooks pro from the office is the first step. First, they will determine whether you’re using all of QuickBooks’ own tools in the problem areas you have identified. Next, the QuickBooks pro will introduce you to all of the options in that category and help you get up and running.

QuickBooks was designed for small business people, but that doesn’t mean that you’re going to understand all of its parts and how they work together instantly. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to contact the office for assistance.

By Leon Clinton
October 31, 2018

Why QuickBooks Should Be on Your Desktop

If you’re still doing your accounting manually you are at a competitive disadvantage–even if you’re a very small business. You might be managing just fine using Microsoft Word for invoices and records and Excel for reports, but keep in mind that many of your rivals digitally manage their financial data.

Some of your competitors likely use QuickBooks; it’s the market leader, and it’s on millions of desktops. While you might feel that the products and/or services they use are not necessarily superior to what you are using, they have an edge because digitally managing their financial data enables them to run their businesses more efficiently. Furthermore, when you use software like QuickBooks your customers perceive you as someone who is technology-savvy–and it could help you build better customer relationships.

Maybe it’s time to update your accounting system too, but first, let’s take a look at what your competition has learned about digitally managing their financial data and what you, too, can experience when you use QuickBooks.

How It Helps

Make no mistake; there is never a good time to make the transition to new software. Switching to QuickBooks is going to cut into your productive hours, and it will take time to learn how it works before you can start using it daily. But don’t worry. A QuickBooks professional can accelerate that process by helping you implementing it and training you on its operations. Once you get going, you’ll discover a whole range of benefits that you may not have even considered, such as:

Instant data access. Do you have a customer on the phone with a problem concerning an invoice or payment? QuickBooks’ search tools help you track down the smallest detail in seconds.

Minimized errors. Once you’ve entered data into QuickBooks, whether it’s a customer’s address or the price and description of a product or service, the software stores it. It will appear in lists that you can access when, for example, you’re creating invoices. Not only does this improve accuracy, but it also makes duplicate data entry unnecessary.

Improved customer relationships. Your customers want answers when they have problems or questions, and they want them quickly and accurately. QuickBooks lets you store all needed details about customers in records, including contact information, payment particulars, and transaction history. Nothing helps encourage future sales like a company that knows its customers.

Figure 1: Once you’ve created an item record, for example, QuickBooks stores it for use in transactions.

Faster payments from customers. QuickBooks supports merchant accounts. Sign up for one, and you’ll be able to accept direct bank transfers and credit/debit cards from customers. You can automatically include a payment stub on invoices to speed up the remittance process.

Real-time account balances. Supply your login information for your online banks and other financial institutions, and QuickBooks can connect to them. It imports cleared transaction data regularly and helps you reconcile your accounts. You can even set it up to pay your bills electronically.

Time-tracking. If you (or your employees) provide services that are billed back to customers, you can create time records individually or on a timesheet. These blocks of hours and minutes can be marked billable, so they’ll appear the next time you start an invoice for any affected customers.

Figure 2: If your company sells services, you can create individual time records or comprehensive timesheets and mark sessions as billable.

A more contemporary image. Those invoices and statements you create in Word–or worse, write by hand–contribute to your customers’ impressions of you and your commitment to using state-of-the-art technology to serve their needs better. When you email professional-looking, carefully-customized sales, and purchase forms, you’re likely to go up a notch in their eyes.

Feature flexibility. You can use a little of QuickBooks and still have it be worth your time and technology dollars, or you can stretch its capabilities to the limits. If the latter happens, you may want to expand the software’s reach by integrating it with one of the hundreds of add-ons available in areas like inventory, invoicing and billing, and CRM.

Time and money savings. Believe it or not, this is the most compelling reason to use QuickBooks. Yes, you must pay upfront for the software, and it takes time to get used to using it, but you’ll soon see that your investment will reduce the hours you spend on accounting. And that means you’ll have more time to do what only you can do: make your business flourish by planning for its future and taking the actions that will move you toward greater success.

Need Assistance?

Have you installed QuickBooks but are having trouble using its features fully? Do you need some guidance, particularly around advanced reports? Don’t hesitate to contact the office and let a QuickBooks expert assess where you are with the software and devise a plan to complete its implementation. You may be surprised to learn what you can do.