Hello everyone, Bobbie Witt here, with Bookkeeping Confidential. We are a full-service virtual bookkeeping firm here to assist small businesses such as yours to create profit in your business and understand your numbers. If at any time you have questions regarding this content, please feel free to reach out to us at 1-877-454-2249. We’re happy to help. With all that’s going and the requirements for all small businesses who receive government funding, now is the time to organize your QuickBooks. We’ve created a workflow for you to follow on a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis.
Daily Steps To Organize Your QuickBooks
There are specific tasks that you will need to carry out daily to maintain and organize your QuickBooks. Here’s a list of what you will need to do:
1. Enter receivables and payables
2. Send proposals and invoices to clients
3. Enter any new purchases or funds borrowed
4. Maintain your dashboard
Follow along with video below
We’re now going to go into QuickBooks and go over the daily tasks.
ENTER RECEIVABLES AND PAYABLES
Receivables
You may have a stack of checks on your desk that you need to file. From New, in the upper left corner, go to receive payment – always go here first. Find the customer that owes you money. Let’s say Kookies by Kathy has a check for you. Select Kookies by Kathy in the Customer field, select check as the Payment Method and input the check number in the Reference Number field and how much payment you received in the Amount Received field. It will apply automatically to this invoice. If you have other invoices they would all be listed here (in the Description field, below the one that was just generated) and you can go ahead and select which one you’re paying for. Save and close.
Go back to New. You’re now going to combine the checks you received into your bank deposits.
Select bank deposits. Enter checking in the Account field and the current date in the Date field. You will then see a list of the checks that you have in front of you should be taking to the bank. Select all the checks (using a shortcut; clicking the check box to the left of the Received From column) and that should deposit the amount. It balances to/matches what you have. Save and close.
Payables
You may have some bills that you need to record so that they can be paid later. Go to New and select Bill. Select the appropriate Vendor. In this example, we’re going with Telephone. Choose the due date. For the purposes of this example, the bill is not due until the following month. The category will indicate Utilities Telephone. Enter the amount you need to pay in the amount field. Let’s say you were billed $82.30 this month. Enter that exact figure in the Amount field, without the dollar sign. Save and close.
That’s what you have to do on a daily basis.
SEND PROPOSALS AND INVOICES TO CLIENTS
Estimates
Let’s say you have to send out some estimates to people. Go over to Sales (on the left pane below New). Click New Transaction and select estimate. Select the relevant customer. We’ll select Cool Cars. Under Products/Services input the requested product or service. In this example, Cool Cars needs a design, so we’ll select Design. Input the time it would take to complete this task, in this case 4 hours and it will generate the amount based on your rate. That’s it. Save and send. A preview of what your estimate will look like when it goes into their inbox will come up for you to review. Save and close. You’ve successfully sent an estimate.
Invoices
Now, you want to send an invoice. Go to Sales and select Invoices. Go to new invoice if you’re claiming for work you did yesterday, for example. Select the relevant Customer. I’ll select Bill’s Windsurf Shop. The relevant billing address and email will automatically be filled in. The due date will be set at a default 30 days from the current date that the invoice is being generated. You can, however, change the terms to reflect its own due date according to what you agreed on with your client. Let’s say you did some design work for this client. Input Design in the Product/Services column. Add the hours you’re billing your client for in the Quantity (Qty) field. Save and send. You’ll see what your invoice looks like. Now, click Send and Close.
ENTER ANY NEW PURCHASES OR FUNDS BORROWED
You guys are doing so well, you decided you need a new computer. We need to enter it because you bought a computer. In fact, you took a loan because it’s a nice big computer. Go over to the gear icon (in the top right corner). Select Chart of Accounts and then select New. In the Account Type field, select Fixed Asset. In the Detail Type field, input/select Fixed Asset Computer. If you want, you can add the name of the computer in the Name field. Check the box that says, “Track depreciation of this asset.” Input the original cost as of the current date. Save and close.
Your computer is now on your balance sheet. Now, you need to record the loan for it.
Select New and input/select Other Current Liabilities in the Account Type field. In the Detail Type field, select/input Loan Payable and in the Name field input Computer Loan. Choose the current date for “when do you want to start tracking your finances from this account to QuickBooks” and put in the amount. Save and close. We need to do this because your asset and liability should always be equal/balanced.
MAINTAIN YOUR DASHBOARD
Go over to Dashboard, from the tab on the left. There is a lot of information there for you. To the right, you’ll see a column Bank Accounts. We’re going to review these transactions that are waiting to be accepted. These are coming in from the bank feed. This may not be accurate because I randomly picked something. You should always review and not just accept anything that does not have one record found, because these do match. So, find any unaccepted record and select Match. It will just put it into your books if you’ve already had the payment that came through the bank recorded. So, they are now connected.
Weekly Steps To Organize Your QuickBooks
1. Manage your receivables and payables
2. Maintain customer and vendor profiles
3. Maintain products and services
4. Maintain your dashboard
MANAGE YOUR RECEIVABLES AND PAYABLES
Go over to Sales and select Overview. This brings up your sales dashboard. You can see here a graph showing your account’s income over time, what invoices of the total are unpaid and how much is overdue, not due yet, deposited, not deposited. Let’s go over to Overdue, or you can go over to Report (from the left tab below New), scroll to see Who Owes You and select Accounts Receivable Aging Summary. This gives you a list of who owes you and how long they have owed you for.
Now, let’s go to payees. This is a list of your Expense transactions. This is a list of your Vendors. Let’s go back to reports, scroll down to What You Owe and click on Unpaid Bills All Dates, using your payables that you know [inaudible 07:44].
MAINTAIN CUSTOMER AND VENDOR PROFILES
While we’re here, let’s maintain our Customer Vendor profiles. Go back to Expenses and select Vendors. If you do this consistently throughout the year, at the end of the year, you don’t have to rush to get [inaudible 08:03] information in and all that. So, I’ll select Books By Bessie and Edit. Make sure you have and fill in all the information. If you need to track the 1099, go ahead and start taking you W9 forms out. Click Save.
This is something you can do on a weekly basis. Do the same for your Customers. Go back to Expenses and select Customers. Select each entry and ensure that you have their current phone numbers, email and anything like that just to keep your records straight.
MAINTAIN PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
Go to Sales and select Products and Services. This is a list of all the services you’ve billed for; our services and materials. You’ll see a Sales Price column. If you received an increase, you’ll need to record that increase here. Is there something new that you want to offer or something you want to take away? Do all of that by selecting New in the top right corner.
Go back to the dashboard and look for pending payment. You’ll want to keep this clean. And you’ll want to look over your invoices.
Monthly Steps To Organize Your QuickBooks
1. Reconcile your bank account(s)
2. Run your profit and loss
3. Review the items placed in “Ask My Accountant” (Reach out for help if needed. Don’t let an issue get too far along or take you off your workflow).
4. Maintain your dashboard
RECONCILE YOUR BANK ACCOUNT(S)
You can do that in two ways. You can come over here (from the left pane below new), go down to Accounting and select Reconcile or you can go to the gear icon and select Reconcile from there. Either way works. We’re going to reconcile the checking account. We have our bank statement in front of us. Add the ending balance. The beginning balance matches. Put in the ending dates and select Start Reconciling. This is where I always like to do my deposits then my payments instead of doing them all at once. Select Deposits and check the correct ones in the far-right column. Do the same for Payments.
RUN YOUR PROFIT AND LOSS
Go to Report and Select Profit and Loss. Here, you can select any period. We’ll be looking at last month. For the Amounting Method, select cash and then Run Report. Here, you will now see a list of your income and expenses [inaudible 00:10:45].
REVIEW THE ITEMS PLACED IN “ASK MY ACCOUNTANT”
As you’re doing your own books, sometimes you didn’t know where to put something; you’re a little confused. A good code to have for that is Ask My Account in your Chart of Account as another expense. Go to the gear tool, select Chart of Accounts. Go to New (in the top right corner). In the Account Type field, select Other Expense and in Detail Type select Other Miscellaneous Expense. Enter ‘Ask My Accountant’ in the Name field. Save and close. Now, it will be in your Chart of Accounts sheet. Select New (in top-left corner), go to Expense. Under the Category column input ‘Ask My Accountant’ because you don’t quite know what you need. Add the date. Save and close. Now, you’re going to see your reports. Select Report on the left and go back to Profit and Loss. Select Last Month for the report period, cash and run report. Scroll down and you should see it down the bottom. It jumps out at you that you don’t know how to handle this expense when you were entering it. If you still don’t, then reach out to somebody and let them help you. If you know how to handle it, just click on it and edit it.
MAINTAIN YOUR DASHBOARD
Go back to your Dashboard on a monthly basis to maintain and organize your QuickBooks. Take a look at your bank accounts, invoices, and everything else to make sure all the information is on there
Quarterly Steps To Organize Your QuickBooks
1. Run your profit and loss for the quarter
2. Run your profit and loss comparison
3. Analyze your numbers and where to improve (create next quarter’s financial goals)
4. Send to your accountant for review
RUN YOUR PROFIT AND LOSS FOR THE QUARTER
Go to Reports and select Profit and Loss. Select the period Last Quarter, and this will generate your quarterly report. Another good report is Profit and Loss by Month – I like this one a lot. For the report period, select This Year To Last Month. You can see here how you’re doing on a monthly basis. This is a good way for you to analyze [inaudible 00: 14:15].
RUN YOUR PROFIT AND LOSS COMPARISON
Go to reports and select Profit and Loss Comparison. Select Last Month for the report period and you will see a comparison of last month’s report. You can even compare it to last year if you want by adjusting the date in the Compare Another Period field. I’ll select April 2020 to April 2019 and that will give you the report for that period.
SEND TO YOUR ACCOUNTANT FOR REVIEW
Send your quarterly report to your accountant so that he/she can begin due process.
If, at any time you’re not sure how to account for something, reach out to somebody. We hope you found this information helpful. If you did, please give us a thumbs up. Also, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to reach out to us so that we can help you understand your financials, please give us a call at 1-(877)-454-2249 or visit our website.