CLEVER WAYS YOU CAN USE QUICKBOOKS TO BOOST EFFICIENCY
QuickBooks is the popular of all software based accounting and bookkeeping tools on the market today. While QuickBooks was targeted not at professionals but at small business owners, its user interface and powerful feature set make it an extremely efficient software tool for even the most experienced accounting professionals. That being said, many of the software’s most interesting features are often overlooked by even more experienced QuickBooks users. Here is a selection of some of QuickBooks’ best hidden features.
1. Automatic repetition of recurring transactions
Businesses often have standing orders both incoming and outgoing. This leads to lots of identical orders repeated over time on a regular basis. Therefore, instead of manually needing to enter these transactions into the software every time, QuickBooks can “memorise” these recurring transactions and automatically puts them in the record according to a specified schedule. This feature can also be utilised to automate journal entries, no matter how complicated. Most common uses for the “memorisation” feature include payment of rent, standing orders from customers, depreciation of machinery, etc. You can access the “Memorise” tool using Ctrl + M on Windows PC.
2. Built in Loan Manager
QuickBooks Loan Manager allows you to configure loan payments that you owe with perfect accuracy for multiple loans at a time. You can enter the parameters such as principal amount, loan term, interest rate, payment fees, compounding, etc. and Loan Manager will automatically generate the required payments according to the specified payment schedule. This can highly simplify the life of a small business owner who already has his plate full with expenses and hassles to worry about and no one to delegate responsibilities to.
3. Create custom fields for entering data
No two businesses are alike. It is therefore entirely plausible that business owners or bookkeepers might prefer to label their transactions and records in terms familiar to them that might not be part of the general accounting or business lexicon. Therefore, QuickBooks includes the ability to create custom data fields to further increase clarity and usability of the accounting system. Custom data fields also help if filtering records and finding specific transactions amidst the entire database.
4. Batch invoicing
For orders that are identical but for different beneficiaries, QuickBooks includes a batch invoicing tool to greatly reduce the effort necessary to create invoices for all customers. For instance, a magazine publishing house bills, say USD 14.95 to 1000 customers every month on the same day. So instead of generating a 1000 invoices for a 1000 different people, QuickBooks can generate all 1000 invoices in one go and the user need only mention which fields are variable.
5. Remote access
Using QuickBooks Remote Access, you can allow another individual, a business partner, a CPA, etc. to view your QuickBooks records over the internet. This method is great for sharing information or for learning how to solve an issue by having a more knowledgeable person solve it on your computer system remotely in front of your eyes. Remote Access is highly secure and a lot less cumbersome than sharing records via the Accountant’s Copy method.