Esther Friedberg Karp, MBA

CompuBooks BusinessServices

www.e-compubooks.com

How QuickBooks Accountant Helps Accountants Support Multiple Clients

As accounting professionals, we recommend QuickBooks because it’s easy to use, feature-rich, and lets clients keep their businesses on track day-to-day. That’s also why we use QuickBooks for our own businesses. It would be a bargain at twice the price, given what it packs.

QuickBooks Accountant is not just for us to use in our own practices or for having a copy of QuickBooks with which to read our clients’ data files. It’s much more powerful than that. It makes us better (and stronger and faster) at what we do and enables us to do more of it for multiple clients, squeezing more time and billable hours out of every day. Here’s how QuickBooks Accountant (QBA) makes us bionic:

April 27, 2011

QuickBooks File ManagerHere’s a fabulous time-saving QBA tool for those accountants who support their clients with multiple editions and version years of QuickBooks: the QuickBooks File Manager, accessed via Accountant > QuickBooks File Manager or launched as a standalone icon in the Program portion of the Windows Start Menu (available when QBA is installed).

Accountant’s CopyWhile accounting professionals and their clients have been using the Accountant’s Copy feature of QuickBooks for years, it is now even better. Use the Accountant’s Copy’s enhanced features to import changes into the client’s live working data file. Intuit now merges our changes for us across secure servers. Clients will receive an email notice that an updated file is available, open their company file select File > Accountant's Copy > Import Accountant Changes. QuickBooks will then automatically import our changes into the company file without further actions from the client. A fee of $9.95 per year applies for access to Intuit's secure servers if you are not a ProAdvisor.

This tool is great because it does not stop the client from doing work in the live file while the accoun-tant has to do work. On the flip side, clients with an Accountant’s copy don’t make the mistake of making changes to their data for the period in question while the accountant, who has a full copy of the data file, is unaware of what the client is doing. This prevents a huge problem, evidenced by the client’s ending trial balance not matching the accountant’s trial balance after the year-end adjust-ments are made.

I love the QuickBooks File Manager. It keeps track of the version and version year of QuickBooks to use in order to open (or, in the case of portable or backup files, restore) each of our client files, as well as file-specific usernames and passwords. It allows us to organize our clients by groups which we define (great for using tried-and-true elements such as chart of accounts and templates from one client on another of the same type), and, best of all, enables us to upgrade multiple files at once in batches to the latest version of QuickBooks. This last feature alone has saved us countless hours.

Client Data ReviewClient Data Review (CDR) is used by accounting professionals to detect and fix common client errors quickly, and now we can use CDR in multi-user mode, enabling our clients to continue working live in their data, and enabling us to work in the client file during hours that we choose, rather than after hours. Client Data Review is accessed via Accountant > Client Data Review.

The various review tasks can all be addressed or we can pick and choose what areas to correct at any time; these tasks can be tracked as “Not Started,” “In Progress,” “Completed,” or “Not Applicable,” and review notes can be assigned to each task (great for leaving notes for other professionals in the firm who are working on the same client file). The CDR for any period can be printed or saved as a PDF, incorporate review notes, be marked as Complete, and have its own audit trail.

CDR addresses the following typical problem areas caused by common client usage errors:

•Reclassify transactions in batch instead of individually (either correcting the account or correcting the class)•Write-off invoices in batch instead of individually•Correct sales tax payments that were not entered using the “Pay Sales Tax” function within QuickBooks•Detect and correct inventory discrepancies•Easily identify added, changed, deleted, or merged list items from the previous review period•Target beginning account balances that differ from the previous close, and see a suggested adjusting entry to correct these opening balances•Match unapplied vendor and customer payments/credits with invoices/charges from one window (to clean up unlinked payables and receivables transactions that add up to zero)•Clean up the undeposited funds account in one screen (rectify overstated income and clean out balances incorrectly sitting in undeposited funds)

Correcting these typical client errors has been a specialty of my firm over the last few years, but it’s a time-consuming specialty. CDR automates these corrective steps, enabling me to continue offering the clean-up services I have in the past, while doing it in a fraction of the time. How I decide to bill my clients for my work is up to me. I choose whether I bill by the time spent or the value of the job done for them.

Working Trial BalanceAlso unique to QBA is the Working Trial Balance feature, which allows us to view, drill down to and edit beginning balances, current period transactions, period adjustments, and ending balances for any time frame, as well as enter workpaper references and make adjusting entries and print an adjusted trial balance. This feature can be accessed by selecting Accountant > Working Trial Balance.

This feature makes use of QBA’s tagging of certain journal entries as “adjusting” to populate the “Adjustments” column, allowing us to see at a glance if certain regular year-end entries such as accruals and amortization have been entered. The Workpaper Reference column allows us to see notes and whether all the workpapers have been completed for a particular period.

Remote AccessHere’s a feature that has been available in QBA for years and enables accountants to work in their various clients’ data files while the clients are still using the data live for their businesses. Access remote access by selecting Accountant > Remote Access. For accounting professionals who have no other way to “tunnel in” to their clients’ data files, this allows for real-time access, and it’s free with QBA.

Toggle FeatureQBA not only opens Pro and Premier files of the same version year without irreversibly changing them (so your clients can continue working in them without changing their edition of the program), but it allows us to toggle our view of your clients’ data, emulating exactly what the client sees in their QuickBooks Pro, Premier or Industry Editions. This feature is accessed by selecting File > Toggle to Another Edition.

I use this feature in order to replicate my client’s working interface, so that I know exactly what they see in QuickBooks. This guides me in creating customized reports for them, given that I can see what reports they can access native to their software and which reports they cannot.

Two Company Files at OnceQBA also allows the accountant to open two data files at once, allowing us to get more work done without taking the time to close one company before opening another. This is accessed by selecting File > Open Second Company.

This is a fabulous tool, which accounting professionals and their clients who work in more than one company should use. Imagine not having to close Company A after entering an intercompany transac-tion, in order to open Company B and enter the flip side of the intercompany entry. Imagine being able to see all entries in Company A’s intercompany account and seeing the corresponding entries in Company B’s intercompany account, enabling the two accounts to be in balance always without opening and closing data files and wasting precious time.

Or, imagine having a graphical user interface in one company which you want to duplicate in another company. All you have to do is keep both companies open and make sure that the second company’s GUI in QuickBooks looks like the first company’s GUI.

These are things I have to concern myself with on a regular basis, and being able to open two company files at once makes things much easier to manage.

The two open data files are referred to as “primary” and “secondary” and there are restrictions on what can be done in each, as described in the link below. Furthermore, QuickBooks Help can open in one window only while more than one data file is open. Click the following link for a list of restrictions when using the Multi-Instance feature: http://proadvisor.intuit.com/product/accounting-software/multi-instance-notes.jsp?s_cid=IPD&s_ev11=IPD_QBAE2011.

Manage Fixed AssetsQBA allows us to manage our clients’ fixed assets, tracking each one as well as setting up and calculating the appropriate deprecia-tion amount automatically. The Fixed Asset Manager can be accessed by selecting Accountant > Manage Fixed Assets. Keeping fixed asset item detail (serial number, date purchased, purchase price, etc.) and selecting the appropriate depreciation schedule produces entries automatically for me and for my clients, saving time and ensuring accuracy!

All these QBA tools give us more ability, time, strength and speed to support our clients. We are now bionic!

To learn more about QuickBooks Accountant, call 877-300-7345.