Emailing an attachment when you send an email

This is another "gripe" I have with the program.  If I want to send my invoice by email, I cannot attach a document through the QuickBooks program.  I also cannot attach a "terms and conditions" page to my invoice either.  I cannot attach anything.

Here is your workaround:

Create your invoice.  Click file, save as pdf.  Save the invoice with a name to your desktop.

Next, open your email program and create an email to your customer.  Attach the invoice pdf file and any image jpeg file or other document that goes with your invoice.  Send through regular email.

Happy Easter Everyone!  

Lynda
Check out my website www.artesanibookkeeping.com

Re-downloading QuickBooks

So, you purchased a new computer and you want to move the program from the old computer to the new computer.  How do you do this?

Just get your QuickBooks CD and download it again.  You will have to re-register the product by going to help, register QuickBooks.  But what if you downloaded the program, what do you do?  Click here to re-download your software.

But what about the software product and license numbers?  Click here to retrieve them.

Lynda
Check out my website www.artesanibookkeeping.com

How do I move QuickBooks to a new computer?

So, you purchased a new computer and you want to move the program from the old computer to the new computer.  How do you do this?

Just get your QuickBooks CD and install it on the new computer.  You will have to re-register the product by going to help, register QuickBooks.  But what if you downloaded the program, what do you do?  Click here to re-download your software.

But what about the software product and license numbers, I don't have them or I lost the CD jacket with the numbers?  Click here to retrieve them or open your old computer, open QuickBooks and click the F2 button.  It will bring up the numbers you need.

Once you have installed the new program, open QuickBooks and click help, update QuickBooks to make sure you have the most current release of QuickBooks.  Do this on the old computer as well.

Now, how do I get my data (company) file onto the new computer?

Easy, in the old computer go to file, backup and backup each company (data) file to a usb stick, cd, or to your desktop (so you can email it to the new computer-see the post sending larger files).  You will create a .qbb (backup) file.

Once you have the backup completed, open QuickBooks in the new computer and go to file, open or restore company file, click restore and browse to the backup file. You will have either plugged into the new computer (with the usb stick) or put the backup CD in the CD drive or download the file (if you sent it to yourself a backup in an email, you will have to open the email and download or save it to your desktop on the new computer).

It is that easy.  Enjoy your new computer!  

Lynda

Check out my website www.artesanibookkeeping.com

Backing up and Restoring a Data File in QuickBooks

This is a step-by-step blog post on how to backup and restore a data (company) file from one computer to another computer or if you have your bookkeeper work on it from her computer and she/he backs it up and sends it back to you to work in.*

*I do not recommend this practice.  I have seen many clients who have done this and end up saving the file to different folders or forgetting to restore it and working in an older file.  This causes them to have to working data files with transactions that need to be moved.  The only way to do that is with 3rd party software from Intuit's Markeplace.   Type in "Data transfer" in the top search box on the top right side of the page. The program by Karl Irvin comes highly recommended.  It should be the top program when you search by data transfer.

So, how do you backup and restore your file?  Here are the steps:  Open QuickBooks.  Go to file, backup and backup your data (company) file.

MOVING THE DATA (COMPANY FILE) TO A NEW COMPUTER:

Save it to your desktop or usb stick or a folder in your hard drive.  Somewhere you know you can find it.

Shown above,  I have saved it to my desktop.

Now go to the new computer.  Open QuickBooks.  Go to file, open or restore company file.  Select the restored file that you have moved to the new computer either by emailing it to yourself (see blog post on emailing larger files) or by using the USB stick or CD.  Select to save the company file to a QuickBooks file folder that you have created to hold all of your data files.  You can call it QuickBooks Data Files or Company files.

RESTORING OVER YOUR CURRENT VERSION OF QUICKBOOKS:

The next shot is a picture of what it would look like if you were just restoring over the old file in your old computer.  Since I used a sample file, QuickBooks defaulted to the file location automatically.  This is where this file resides by default on my computer.

Since I am restoring my backup over my working file on this computer, I will see the following warning screen:

I type in "Yes" to complete the override of the backup over my working data file.  This will erase the old file and make the restored backup my new working file.

That is it.  Those are the steps for either moving a data file to a new computer or taking a backup that is updated and making it your active working file and removing the older one.  

Like I stated in the beginning paragraph, it is much better to work with a remote program so you continuously work in one active file that is constantly updated.   But that being said, there are times when you need to send a backup and restore it as your working file.**  This is how to do if correctly so you will not be saving too many files on your computer and not using the most up-to-date one.  You are overwriting, so there will still only be one active file in the computer, if you follow the steps above.

**For example:  You may use this if your accountant has the same year version of QuickBooks and wants to work in your file, but he/she does not have the accountant's version of QuickBooks (so you cannot use the Accountant's copy feature of the program).  You could send your accountant a backup, he/she could work in it and send it back to you to restore as your working copy.  

Lynda

Check out my website www.artesanibookkeeping.com

Using Logmein.com

This is a blog post for my clients and anyone else who needs to know how to use remote desktop sharing.  As many of you know, I am a huge fan of Logmein.com.  It is the best program I know of for desktop sharing.  The best thing is that it is free.   It also works really well on a Mac or a PC.

Here are the screen shots.  If you follow them, they are pretty self-explanatory. Start with going to the Logmein.com website.  This is the screen you will see.  Click the green button, "try if free".

Then select "Create Account".  Put your email address in and a password that you will remember.

 Next, add your computer.


Which will then download the software. 

Agree to the Logmein terms of use.


Click "Typical installation".


Give your computer a name (or use the one that comes up on the screen). 

Give your computer a computer access code.

Use the default selected destination folder, if it comes up like this.

Click next. It will install.

Once it is installed, a box like this comes up:

The following are the screenshots for the steps to send me an invitation to share your desktop to work in your company file in QuickBooks or schedule a training session on your PC.

This is a screenshot of your new Logmein account, where you have added your computer.

It is that easy to set up and use.  Under this type of installation, they (Logmein) has provided you with the Pro version of their program for free. This is temporary and will expire in 30 days.  After that, you will not be able to send invitations anymore without upgrading (for a small cost) to the Pro version.  You can, however, add any of your own personal computers and use them for free on their website.  Just log into your Logmein account from their website and add the other computers.  

This works wonderfully if you have a desktop computer at your office (you leave it on) and then you go home and use the Logmein software with your laptop or home PC to log into your office computer.  As log as you have the Logmein software on both computers, you can log in through your Logmein account (for free).

Lastly, on the scheduled time for our shared remote session, I will open my email with the invitation link.  You will see this series of screens.  You will need to provide me full access (mouse-sharing so I can teach).  The last screenshots show you the windows that will pop up on your computer when we are ready to share your computer.  You will have to "verify my identity" to complete the final step of desktop sharing.

Once our remote session is over, you will see on your computer that the desktop sharing session is disconnected.

Lynda 

Check out my website www.artesanibookkeeping.com

Payments sitting in Undeposited Fund Account

This is a problem I see quite often.  Usually by new users that don't understand the functions in QuickBooks.  The following is the scenario:

You go to a client's site and you see a large balance in the Undeposited Fund account.  You click "Banking" and "record deposits" and there are a year's worth of customer payments sitting there to be deposited.  You ask them if they have been reconciling their checkbook, they say "yes".  

Then you realize, they have been invoicing customers, entering the payments in "receive payments" and then going to Banking, "record deposits" and manually re-entering the total deposit.  They should be following the flow chart on the home page and clicking "record deposits" and then payments and grouping the customer payments for deposit.

Here is what the deposit detail report will look like if they enter them the wrong way:

Here is how you fix the problem in a few steps.  On the home page, go to Banking:  record deposits.  All of the payments will show up automatically.

Select them all and then tab down one line to enter the adjusting account (the account where the deposits were manually entered, usually this is the income account). You enter the total amount of the deposit with a minus sign in front of it.  This will record the customer payments and reverse the manual entries.  

Make sure you enter a memo explaining why this entry was recorded.  And that is it.  Going forward, make sure your client knows how to record customer transactions in QuickBooks.  The home page flow is a great way for them to consistently work with the QuickBooks features.

NOTE:  You want to make sure that the adjusting entries are entered by year (in other words, group the customer payments by year).  Enter the adjustments for the year in which the customer payments were recorded.

Also:  If you have the Accountant's version of QuickBooks 2010 or newer, see this video as to how to clean up the undeposited fund account using client data review feature.

Lynda

Check out my website www.artesanibookkeeping.com

Saving bank reconciliation reports in QuickBooks Pro

This is a common question I see on the forum:

I have QuickBooks Pro and need to print my bank statement from two months ago.  Where is it located in reports?

The quick answer is that this is a feature in the Premier program.  With Pro, you only have the option to print the last bank reconciliation.

So how do you make it so you can save them and reprint them as necessary?  Save them each month as a pdf.  Create your own file folder to hold them.   

This is also a good step to follow when you use QuickBooks payroll.  Once the year changes over in payroll feature, your reports will show the current year.  Now, say you receive a notice from the IRS that they did not receive your 941 - 2nd quarter for 2010?  You can get the data, but your forms will save 2011.  The fix:  Save your reports as pdf's.

Here is how:

I am in the bank reconciliation screen.  

I click reconcile now.  Then I click DISPLAY.  Once I have the report on the screen, I go to file, save as pdf and save it to a file folder (you can make one called Bank Rec's).  Then give the report a name.

As you can see from above, I name the first page of the bank rec and then the second page, I call it detail.

As stated above, you can do this for the payroll reports as you create them.  There is a box at the bottom of the payroll report screen that says "Save as pdf".  

Lynda
Check out my website www.artesanibookkeeping.com

Entering a reversing journal entry in QuickBooks Pro

Many users only have a need for the QuickBooks Pro program.  It is an excellent program if you do not need all of the "perks" that come with Premier program.  

Premier has a nice little button that lets you easily enter the reversing transaction and it creates it for you.  But what if you have Pro?  Here is a quick way to enter this:

The first screen shot shows the journal entry transaction I am going to reverse:

This next screen shot show that you can go to edit, then duplicate to create the next transaction that we will reverse:

All you do is reverse the debits and credits on the duplicated transaction which is entered in the next month.

I used a generic journal entry for my example from a sample company in QuickBooks Pro.  

Normally, you use reversing entries at the end of the year.  For example, I have a company that had a payroll for the last week of 2010, but the pay date occurred new fiscal period.  I entered that as a journal entry dated 12/31/10 to accrued payroll  and then entered reversing entry for January 1, 2011.

Lynda 

 Check out my website www.artesanibookkeeping.com