Efficient way to collect daily expenses and record in Quickbooks?

December 16, 2024 2:35 AM

In a small company setting, what would be an efficient way to collect daily expenses (work hours, gas, purchases) from staff and record them in QuickBooks for payroll?

I was assigned to help my boss handle accounting tasks and I am thinking about having staff manually input every number in a Google Sheet file and then have it imported into QuickBooks. The company has always relied on paper and I would like to introduce technology to help improve the workflow. I hope it's just temporary during our transition because I have no accounting background.

posted by lanhan to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Best answer: If they have not made the transition from paper so far I have to ask - how technology savvy are these people? Are they all familiar with google sheet files? Are they open to changing the process? The fact that in the year 2024 they rely on paper suggests this may be a difficult switch.

If you are supporting on a temporary basis, especially if you want to keep your involvement temporary, I'd consider what you are trying to achieve.

If you show initiative, rejig the process, spend a lot of time hand holding and eventually they get the hang of it you demonstrate a clear aptitude for accounting and may well end up supporting the boss on a permanent basis....

Chances that this remains temporary are much higher if you simply facilitate the current process as best you can while mentioning how you're struggling to keep up with your normal tasks and ask for guidance re priorities.
posted by koahiatamadl at 3:16 AM on December 16 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Payroll and other expenses should be tracked separately from each other. I should not be able to see what hours another employee worked or their pay rate unless I am the payroll person. If people all use the same file, what happens if someone changes the data another employee put in? How will you track that kind of thing? For this reason, a Google Form should be used instead of a Google Sheet that anyone can access. The form lets the data flow to a sheet but does not give them edit power. If they enter something wrong, they can submit a correction, but there should be one person with the power to evaluate and make those corrections.

Also, there should be a formal quality control process so typos and other forms of incorrect data are reviewed before being put into the official system. It sounds like the owner wants this all done without human oversight once it is all set up, and that is a bad idea when it comes to money.

There also needs to be a policy around the timely reporting of this data. Do you want someone staying late to enter their gas purchase or can it wait until tomorrow?
posted by soelo at 5:05 AM on December 16 [2 favorites]

Best answer: My company transitioned from paper completely only a few years ago, so I understand how difficult it is to get a new system to work smoothly. After many a trial and error we have settled on Excel templates and OneDrive to import payroll and expenses. As soelo mentioned above, you don't want everyone to know what everyone else is making unless you enjoy office drama. Each employee can submit their hours and expenses to a shared OneDrive folder, password protected for the accounting teams' eyes only. These Excel files can easily be imported to QB. If you don't have much experience with Excel, especially creating Macros, you might want to brush up on it.
posted by hairless ape at 6:57 AM on December 16