3 Tips to Help Reconcile Your Checking Account
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TIP #1
If the beginning balance does not match the bank statement balance, a previously cleared transaction may have been voided, deleted or changed. To resolve this issue, click
Banking on the top menu bar, then
Reconcile. Click the
Locate Discrepancies button, which will display a report indicating the voided, deleted or changed transaction. You will then need to re-create the voided (deleted) transaction or revert the changed transaction to its original amount. If you've re-created the transaction, it will show as a "new" transaction on the reconciliation window, which you should now clear.
TIP #2
In the
Reconcile window, click
Customize Column. You can now customize which columns you'd like to display and those you don't. To choose, check or uncheck the fields as shown in this image below.
TIP #3
Check off all the deposits that cleared the bank statement first. Verify the total marked cleared matches the total deposits on your bank statement. If you have a difference in the end, this will narrow down your search. Any difference would be in checks and payments, service charge or interest earned.
Author:
Debbie Denny, Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor
920.337.4558
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| How to Set Up User Access |
Setting up additional QuickBooks users provides a level of control over sensitive data. You may have a staff member that handles accounts payable who shouldn't have access to payroll records. Or perhaps, you have staff that handles billing, and you don't want them to access your financial statements. If so, you may want to consider setting up individual user profiles and assign the appropriate access. Once signed in as the Administrator, follow these simple steps:
- Click Company in the QuickBooks menu bar.
- Click Set Up Users and Passwords.
- Click Set Up Users.
- Enter your password. Note: Only the Administrator can set up new users.
- Click Add User and create a unique user name and password. Click Next.
- Select one of the three levels of access. Your options include:
- All areas of QuickBooks: No restrictions.
- Selected areas of QuickBooks: This option will walk you through eight windows of various restrictions to apply to the user profile.
- External Accountant: All areas of QuickBooks except sensitive customer data.
- Click Finish.
If you have concerns about what information a new user has access to, you can log in using the new user credentials and take a look around. If needed, you can then log in as the Administrator to edit the access of the user.
 Author: Jennifer Kiehne, Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor
507.252.6682
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Upcoming Changes to QuickBooks Online
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Over the next few weeks, QuickBooks will be making some changes to how you navigate through the Online program. Here are a few of the changes:
- The Home page will now be called the Dashboard.
- Banking is moving to the top of the navigation bar, and there will be a separate tab in banking for bank rules.
- Everything related to sales will be under Sales on the navigation pane, including Customers and Products and Services.
- Everything related to expenses will be under Expenses on the navigation pane, including Vendors.
- The Chart of Accounts and Reconcile feature will be under the Accounting tab.
Author:
Becky Doyle, CPP, Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor
920.337.4524
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How to Create a Backup of Your Company File
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Backups of your QuickBooks file are essential to keep your company file safe. Follow these steps to create a backup, schedule an automatic back up and schedule online backups.
To create a backup of your company file:
- Click File on the top menu bar.
- Select Create Local Backup.
- Select Local Backup, then Next.
- Browse to select where you want to save the file.
- Click Ok and Save.
You can also schedule automatic backups to occur on a regular basis.
To schedule automatic backups of your company file:
- Click File on the top menu bar.
- Select Create Local Backup.
- Select Local Backup.
- Select Schedule Future Backups.
- Select New to create your own schedule. You can schedule a backup each time you close your company file or your can create a schedule.
- To create a schedule:
- Create a name for your scheduled backup.
- Browse to the location where you want to store your backups.
- Select the number of backup copies to keep. QuickBooks will then delete the older backups. Keep this number low so they don't consume too much of your computer space.
- Select the frequency and when you want your backups to run.
- You will need to setup a password to secure your backup schedule.
By selecting
Online Backups, you can also select QuickBooks to save your backups for you. There is a monthly fee for this service. Select
Online Backups to find additional information about this service.
Remember, in case of a disaster, backup your QuickBooks on an external drive (i.e. a jump drive) and save it off site.
Author:
Renee Kabat, Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor
608.793.3154
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Budgets provide a picture of how well your company is meeting its goals for the year. If you want to increase revenue by 10 percent for the year, you can take last year's total revenue, increase that number by 10 percent and allocate it monthly in the manner that makes most sense to your business. Take into account slow periods and busy times. At a glance of your monthly financial statement, you can tell if you are reaching that goal. You can do the same with increasing gross profit or decreasing expenses, whether it's a specific expense or all expenses.
It's easy to set up budgets in QuickBooks. You can set up a budget for the company as a whole, by customer/job, or by class. It is more practical to set up budgets by customer/job if you only work on a few customers/jobs per year. You can only have one budget set up per fiscal year.
To set up a budget:
- Choose Company from the ribbon across the top of QuickBooks.
- Scroll down to Planning & Budgeting.
- Choose Set Up Budgets from the drop down box that appears. If you have previously entered in a budget, the most recent budget appears. Click on the Create New Budget button on the upper right hand side.
- A pop up box called Create New Budget appears.
- Specify the year for which you want to create the budget.
- Choose the budget type.
- Profit and Loss reflects all activity for the year.
- Balance Sheet reflects the ending balance of the account for the year.
- Choose Next.
- At this point, choose customer/job or class. Then click Next.
- Choose how you want to create a budget.
- Create budget from scratch: You'll have to enter all of the numbers by hand.
- Create budget from previous year's actual budget: Last year's actual numbers are filled in, and you can adjust according to your budget goals.
- Click Finish, and a new budget, or a budget based on your previous year's data, appears.
- On the left hand side of the budget, your chart of accounts (profit and loss or balance sheet accounts) is listed. The next column is the total column. This shows the total budgeted amount (the monthly amounts you have listed for that account). If you have budgeted a certain amount for the year, you can verify that you have entered the monthly amounts correctly. (i.e. Sales of 12 million for the year.) Following the total column is a column for each month where you can enter the amount you have budgeted for each month.
- For a profit and loss budget, enter the projected amount of income or expense for each account for each month.
- For a balance sheet budget, enter the projected ending account balance for each month.
- If you have chosen to do your budget by customer/job or class, enter the data the same way, but on the left hand side there would be a box listing classes or customer/jobs. Enter the data for every account for each different class or customer/job for which you have set up a budget.
- If you have budgeted a certain amount for an account for the entire year, there are two ways to enter the data into the budget on a monthly basis.
- You can enter the amounts as determined by your slow and busy periods during the year, and have a different amount budgeted in many, if not all, months.
- You can also enter the budget evenly across the year. So, if you budgeted $12 million in sales, you would have $1 million budgeted for each month.
- If you choose this method, you can enter the monthly amount in January and choose the Copy Across button in the lower left. QuickBooks will auto-fill the rest of the year for you. You can verify the total is correct by checking the annual column.
In QuickBooks your budget does not have to balance to zero. QuickBooks assumes the difference is your projected net income (loss).
To Review or Compare your budget:
- Choose Reports from the ribbon across the top of QuickBooks.
- Scroll down to Budgets & Forecasts.
- Choose Set Up Budgets from the drop down box that appears.
The following reports are available.
- Budget Overview: This report shows your budget in financial statement format. You can easily verify amounts were entered correctly and are correct to help you obtain your goals. This report shows you your projected net income. Even if everything is entered correctly according to your projections or goals, you may see the net income shows a loss for the year. You may want to change some of your numbers to reflect a profit for the year if that is a reasonable goal. Think of other cost saving measures, or prepare for the shortfall.
- Profit & Loss Budget vs. Actual: This report compares your actual numbers for the month or year to the budgeted amount. It tells you the amount and percentage you are over or under budget. This report shows you where you are meeting your goals and where you may need to make changes (if realistic) in order to meet your budget for the year. This report also can be viewed in graph form.
- Profit & Loss Budget Performance: Similar to the Profit & Loss Budget vs Actual report, this report shows a more condensed view of how you are doing. Choose a period (i.e. a month or quarter), and it shows that period's actual and budgeted numbers, the year to date actual and budgeted numbers and the annual budget.
A budget is a moving target. It is perfectly acceptable to change it as needed throughout the year for any reason.
To change a budget:
- Choose Company from the ribbon across the top of QuickBooks.
- Scroll down to Planning & Budgeting.
- Choose Set Up Budgets from the drop down box that appears.
- Your most recent budget appears.
- Find the account you want to change, go to the month you want to change, highlight/delete the old amount and enter in the new amount.
- Verify the new total is correct.
- Repeat as necessary.
- If you have a lot of accounts to change, it may be helpful to have a Budget Overview report listed with your changes penciled in.
If you have a question on setting up or changing a budget, or any other QuickBooks challenge, your Hawkins Ash CPAs QuickBooks ProAdvisors are more than happy to help.
Author:
Kristen Herrick, CPA, Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor
507.453.5964
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