Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with quickbooks

Inventory in Quickbooks...different question this time.

daniboi1977 — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:19:23 -0800

How to simplify inventory management of jewelry materials and products in QB 2009 Premier Retail? I'm entirely self taught with QB, and have learned a lot, but I'm trying to simplify my current process of managing my inventory. Here's what I have right now. I manage my raw materials in a separate program that does not "talk" with QB. I use this program when I make an item to track how many beads, clasps, etc I use on each piece, and to determine cost and price. In QB I have an asset account called "raw materials" and one called "finished jewelry". The raw materials account is simply the total value of all the raw materials on hand, it does not track each individual item. Each finished piece is a separate inventory item. When I create a new piece, I add it to my "finished jewelry" asset, then do a quantity adjustment to transfer the cost from "raw materials" to "finished jewelry". All of my pieces are one of a kind, so at some point, I am going to hit the limit of how many items I can have. I would like to set it up so my inventory items are more general.

For example, I have 5 bracelets which all sell for $25 a piece. However, each one has a different cost, depending on what materials were used. Is there a way that I can have one item called "Bracelet25" versus having 5 different items? And how would I go about accounting for transferring the cost out of raw materials for each item both when it is made and when it is sold (for COGS)?

Myob vs quickbooks

red_rika — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:19:22 -0800

Deciding on an accounting software: MYOB vs Quickbooks Hi there,

I am planning to open a landscaping business soon and am wondering to use an accounting software to keep my accounts running smoothly.

I am still deciding on either MYOB or Quickbooks. I have googled the features for both respective products but I still could not make the decision.

My business is a landscaping business and am wondering also if which certain software (MYOB/Quickbooks) would work better.

For all the people who are using either one of these 2 programs.. feel free to give your thoughts regarding my issue. Thanks.

Me, a Company in QuickBooks?

gum — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:13:45 -0800

Does anyone have resources to share for using QuickBooks, rather than a dedicated personal finance application like Quicken, to manage personsal finances? I own a copy of QuickBooks 2009 Professional Edition and use it to manage, competently but not expertly, the books of a small nonprofit. I'd like to get better at QuickBooks, both to learn more about bookkeeping and to learn more about the application itself -- in order, perhaps, to offer financial services to other clients.

I manage my own not very complicated personal finances in Excel and on paper. I'd like to improve on this by setting up my personal finances as a new "company" in QuickBooks, the better to manage them and the better to learn more about QuickBooks instead of some other personal finance application like Quicken.

Are there great resources to share (print, online) that deal with using QuickBooks as a personal finances manager?

Intuit Forced Upgrades

portabella — Mon, 04 May 2009 06:18:13 -0800

I use Quicken, Quickbooks, and Bank of America. Right now they are working like a champ, but Bank of America has announced that they're pulling support for 2006 versions of both Quicken and Quickbooks. Normally this would be OK; I'm thrifty, but not so much so that I'd complain about $150 every three years. The problem is that all the versions to upgrade to have lots of problems; what to do? Although all these products have problems, I'd prefer not to switch any of them (especially Bank of America, since there's an ATM right down the street from my house).

Ideally, there would be a way to continue using my current versions and keep downloading financial statements anyway.

Upgrading to the 2007 versions is least objectionable, but also least helpful, since I'll be looking at the same problem in 12 months.

Quickbooks 2009 for Mac vs. my accountant

subpixel — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:50:34 -0800

Using Quickbooks 2009 for Mac, can I send and receive my company file to and from my accountant, who uses Quickbooks on the PC? I see I can "backup" my company file to a window's file type. But I don't really want a backup, do I?

Help Me Change QuickBooks Display Fonts

Robert Angelo — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:44:26 -0800

Help! I can't read the display font size in QuickBooks Pro 2008! I had to resize my Windows XP desktop to allow me to view the Bank of America web site without it scrolling left/right. When I did that, the font sizes went all teeny-tiny. I can deal with that in my web browser, but I can't find any way to change that in Quick Books.

When I checked Quick Books help, it didn't help. All it talks about is how to change the fonts on reports, invoices, and stuff like that. When I checked Intuit's online boards, I found references to editing a QBW.INI file for Quick Books 2006 to add a 'fonts' section; that file doesn't seem to exist anymore in the 2008 version. Other replies on the Intuit boards are not helpful; they basically say to adjust your Windows screen resolution so that you can read the display. But if I do that, then I go back to my original problem with the browser (and other programs) that need a higher screen resolution...

What to do?

Quickbooks form letters without MS Word?

zippy — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:27:06 -0800

I have Quickbooks Pro 2008 for Windows. How can I tell Quickbooks to use OpenOffice, or some other free non-Word app, when I want to print or edit Quickbooks form letters? Quickbooks lets you generate form letters via Company -> Prepare Letters with Envelopes.

It demands that I have Word installed to see / edit / print these letters.

I don't have Word.

How can I tell Quickbooks to use OpenOffice or some other free Word alternative?

I checked the preferences window and didn't see anything in this direction.

New Business Advice Needed!

TurquoiseZebra — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:00:04 -0800

Starting a new business and need some help/advice. I was laid off in December (yay severance package!) and am now going to start working again.

I'm going to work for someone that does HVAC & appliance repair and here's where my questions come in.

The man wants to hire me and the rest of his technicians as subcontractors. I will take care of the office stuff - running the business end of things.

Questions:
1) Phone system - Because it'll be a small office with just a few (3 or so) offices, do we really need an elaborate phone system? We'll have 3 different numbers people will be dialing (with a few additional lines) but not a huge number of lines coming in or a large number of users. Can I just get some business, multi-line phones from some place like OfficeMax or Office Depot or even Costco?

2) Compensation - We're tossing around a few different ideas for this. I think we're leaning towards a percentage of the profit to compensate me. Anyone have experience with this, good or bad?

3) QuickBooks - I'm going to be using QB to do accounting and would like to get a dispatch/scheduling program that works with QB. Suggestions?

4) Sole Proprietorship - I think this is how I'll operate "my" business.

If it makes a difference, I'm in Arizona.

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated. My background is in marketing/graphic design, but I've done accounting/dispatch in the past.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Raw materials into scrap for later use in Quickbooks?

daniboi1977 — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:43:04 -0800

How do I transfer raw materials into scrap to use later in Quickbooks Premier 2009? Hey everyone, I searched the archives, but didn't see anything that was similar to this. I apologize if it has been asked before and I missed it. I own a small jewelry making/selling business, and have recently started using Quickbooks Premier 2009. I have all my raw materials listed as inventory items, which I then combine into a "build" for a finished product. When I'm working, I often generate "waste" silver, which can't be used in a project, but which I can later melt down and cast into something else. Does anyone have any idea what the best way to handle this in quickbooks would be? Would I just make another inventory assembly item called "scrap silver" and transfer amounts from the original form (i.e. 14 gauge wire) into it? Or should I treat it as some type of account?

I'm extremely new to quickbooks, but have figured out the majority of what I need to know to be up and running, I'm just somewhat stumped with this. Any help would be great. Thanks!

Does QuickBooks for Mac suck less than Quicken?

HotToddy — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:53:42 -0800

Does QuickBooks for Mac suck less than Quicken? I am using Quicken 2007 for Mac and [insert violent rant against sucky SUCKY PIECE OF CRAP software that causes me HOURS of wasted time doing the very thing I HATE to do most in the world]. I do not need the fancy features of QuickBooks and I hate to switch over because I have a system that works when it works which lately is not very often in Quicken, but if you say QuickBooks for Mac sucks less, I will buy it.

I am aware of this previous question on personal finance software for Macs but at this point my question is not "What is good personal finance software for Macs?" but "Will QuickBooks make my life less miserable than Quicken does?"

Thank you.

Quickbooks 2008 removes write permissions on the Samba share

chengjih — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:13:05 -0800

XP client removes write permissions on Samba share This is a Samba 3.0.25 running on a CentOS 4 box. The XP client is removing the write permissions for some files in one of the Samba shares upon exiting an application (Quickbooks 2008) accessing those files.

Any ideas on how to fix this? Yes, I'm aware that Intuit doesn't support this configuration.

The configuration for that share is:

path = /home/quickbooks
writable = Yes
browseable = Yes
force create mask = 0660
force directory mask = 0770
oplocks = no
force group = qb_grp
valid users = @qb_grp

Thank you for your help!

Quick! I need a Quickbooks Wizard!

jeanmari — Tue, 27 May 2008 07:04:20 -0800

Feh. I'm straightening out the accounts of a not-for-profit as a volunteer and putting them onto Quickbooks. Before I got my hands on their books, someone paid the same bill twice. How do I enter two checks for one bill and still take the credit on a future bill? One bill paid with two checks. This was done before they had Quickbooks. I'm entering the data since 1/1/2008 so that they can have a clean set of numbers for their annual reporting this year.

I entered the bill into Quickbooks. Applied the first check to that bill. Now I have a second check to enter and no bill to apply it to.

I could enter it as a credit but that wouldn't supply an entry that could be used in the account reconciliation. Frustrating.

Any ideas, oh Quickbook wizards?

Payroll processor or part-time bookkeeper for startup? (US/SF)

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:13:11 -0800

StartupFilter: Payroll processing co or part-time bookkeeper for SF Bay Area co? My friend and I started a company. Until now, it's just been the two of us working for equity. We're about to hire our first full-time employee, and want to stay on the good side of the IRS and the labor department.

Should we: a) get a payroll company to handle payroll and tax compliance, and if so, which one?, b) hire a part-time bookkeeper to do this, and if so, is there a good one in the East Bay, c) man up and do this stuff ourselves in QuickBooks Pro, or d) just hire people as contractors to work on well-defined projects until we are larger?

Additional info: we have no income yet, no debt, and are a CA S-Corp. We're funding this out of our own pockets for now, and plan to do so for the next six months.

Both of us are smart enough to learn tax and labor law, but would prefer not to have to.

Best on-line account for a startup?

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 02:17:59 -0800

Startupfilter: best on-line account for a small US business? Looking for recommendations for an online bank for a small US (CA) corporation. Cutting to the chase, is the ING/Orange business account a good idea?

Background:

I recently started a small consultancy / software business (S-Corp incorporated in California). We're small and don't have much in the way of cash coming in or going out, we just need a place to put money when we invest it into the company or eventually receive funds from customers, and a place to take money from when we pay contractors (and eventually pay ourselves).

Key features I'm looking for:

- web accessible (duh). I want to do everything online.
- no annoying fees
- competency
- compatiblity with Quickbooks Pro

Tips from the hive mind appreciated, whether about ING/Orange or other web accessible small-business-friendly banks.

I've reviewed these previous AskMeFIs - looking for updated suggestions and web-only bank tips.

remote desktop window problems, mac

cg2 — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 07:58:43 -0800

Remote desktop server ITZ on a Mac I have recently switched from a mac to a pc and am running ITX desktop server. It runs fine, but the remote desktop window is really small and I can't expand it or maximize it. I have tried to play around with resolutions but it doesnt work, is there anything I can do?

QuickBooks Transaction Import

quinoa — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 16:57:51 -0800

I want to import transactions into QuickBooks. Anyone have a template .csv file used to import large numbers of invoices at a time? We manually enter a large number of invoices into QB each month. The data is spit out of another database, which could easily spit the data into csv files (for import into QB) if we only knew precisely what QB wanted. We're using QBPro 2005 and Excel 2003.

Anyone do this already, and perhaps have some suggestions or templates that could help?

Quickbooks Reports Desperation

pants — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 07:12:56 -0800

Quickbooks Report Desperation. All the data I want is in QB, but I can only seem to get it in separate reports. The ideal report would have the following fields: employee id, date, time, item. I can get a payroll report showing employee id, date, and item, but I can't figure out how to display time on any Payroll report. I can get a time report showing employee and time, but I can't seem to display the date and id in any Time report. Please help before I lose my remaining QB marbles. I'm in QB 2006 on Windows, if that helps.

For example, the ideal report would show:
111, 10/31/2007, 7:30, costume construction

To show that employee Sue Smith, ID 111 spent seven and a half hours working on costume construction on Halloween.

The Payroll reports I get only show:
111, 10/31/2007, costume construction

And the Time reports I get only show:
Sue Smith, 7:30

(the date range for the Time report is set to "yesterday" and the report filter for item is set to "costume construction").

Is it possible to open a QuickBooks 2006 company file in QuickBooks 2004?

doomtop — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 10:08:55 -0800

Is it possible to open a QuickBooks 2006 company database file in an older version of QuickBooks, namely QuickBooks 2004? Or is there a way to downgrade a 2006 database to a version that would open in 2004? Basically need to open a new database in an old version. Is it possible?

Need accounting software design with IT consulting in mind

Merdryn — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 07:58:03 -0800

I've been struggling to find accounting software, online or PC/Mac based (either will do) that is suitable for a computer consulting practice. I need to be able to handle the typical basic things done by QuickBooks, like invoicing and estimates, simple A/R and A/P reports, etc. But that isn't enough. I need to manage multiple bill rates on a per consultant/per customer/per job or work order basis. QuickBooks doesn't do that, and I've tried hard to find out how to make that work. Any advice, hive mind?

Help me get my friends' businesses off the Microsoft and Intuit upgrade treadmills

flabdablet — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 01:10:46 -0800

Has anybody already done the work of configuring GnuCash for an Australian small business? If so, what's involved in electronic submission of a BAS, and is there an easy way to transfer records to an accountant who thinks QuickBooks is the Only Thing? No more inside.

Hard drive backups for closed office

BigSky — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 13:20:22 -0800

My father passed away a few months ago and the question of how to store the data on his office computers for the long term has come up. [more inside] There are two computers, one running XP, the other 98 or perhaps ME. We need to keep all the files on both computers. My father reportedly wrote a memoir on one of them that I have been unable to find. Even if it doesn't exist, I am reluctant to wipe or destroy that hard drive.

It is tax time and I am helping my mother with the taxes for the estate, personal and professional. My father ran a one man office. The most important programs right now are Quickbooks 2004 and MSN Money. These have all the family's financial information going back several years. We do not have either of these programs on our other computers.

So, what is the best way to store all this data? Money is a factor but we are more interested in security and accessibility. Is an internet service the way to go?

I can get around with a computer but I don't have any serious skills. Feel free to include lots of detail or links to explanatory websites.

Which organizational software should I choose for my freelance business?

SampleSize — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 16:02:48 -0800

Quicken, Microsoft Accounting, Studiometry, or Something Else Entirely for a freelance PowerPoint design business (Windows XP)? For about a year, I've been using Excel to keep track of clients, projects and billing, but it's getting to be a big mess. Please help me choose the right software for my needs.

I believe the features I need (and feel free to suggest others) are:
- Managing client contact info
- Tracking time on projects (I charge hourly so a timer would be nice, but not critical)
- Invoicing and tracking payments
- Generating basic financial reports
- Tracking expenses

Quicken seems to be the most well-supported, Microsoft Accounting Express is free, Studiometry is nice and light and doesn't seem to have tons of features I'll never use.

So...one of those, or something else?

Is Quickbooks over my head?

suchatreat — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 08:20:19 -0800

Quickbooks: How different is it from Quicken, and how difficult to learn? I interviewed for a job yesterday that requires Quickbook knowledge. I don't have any, though I do have extensive Quicken experience, as well as other financial experience (light receivables/payables, budgeting, reporting).

The guy liked me and he liked my other experience enough to call me back for a second interview wherein I will be asked more detailed questions, many of them in regard to Quickbooks.

So long question longer, will I be in over my head with Quickbooks if they do hire me? I usually pick things up pretty quickly; self taught (mostly) on other programs such as Excel, Word, Access, Symposium, JD Edwards. I'm not afraid of computers, which probably helps.

Be honest!

QuickBooks Print Designer

honorguy7 — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 10:53:43 -0800

Is there a third-party program that allows me to create custom receipt & tag templates for use with QuickBooks Point of Sale Pro 5.0? The default Print Designer that comes with the software is very limited. I need to be able to add multiple fields to my invoice and barcode tags.

Accumulated amortization what?

valleys — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:58:47 -0800

Suggestions for good, simple to understand, accounting books? About 18 months ago I suddenly became responsible for the financial management of a small non-profit retail store. I inherited a holy mess. I have no financial background. Through much stress and hard work I figured out where everything is, how it all works. Then I cleaned it up, had it all checked by an accountant, and documented all the processes. (I'm now using Quickbooks 2006.)

I'm very comfortable with the day-to-day aspects of the job. However, I'm getting left behind now that the accountant is talking about amortization and depreciation of assets. They've given me some Quickbooks journal entries, which are fine, and I can kind of see how it works, but I'd like to know more, and fully understand it. There are probably other areas where I should know more as well, especially given that our organization may soon be increasing in size.

I realise that taking a course would probably be the best way forward. However my free time is somewhat limited, and the only course I've seen so far looked to be mostly basic stuff that I learnt in my first week on the job. From a 10 week course maybe 2 weeks would be worthwhile.

So.... are there any books that would help me learn 'more than basics but not really advanced' accounting principles?