February 2nd 2017 Meeting Minutes -QBO Tips and Tricks
/ALL STAR ACCOUNTING PROFESSIONALS, INC. Meeting Minutes
February 2, 2017
Kim Boaz opened the February meeting asking each attendee to introduce themselves, provide shout outs to those members who helped them during the last month or so and allowing each member to state a goal they have for themselves for the year.
Our presenter today was Alicia Katz Pollock and she provided a slide presentation on QuickBooks Online. Alicia is a QuickBooks trainer with Royalwise. Training services offered include one-on-one, group, beginner, advanced and webinar classes. She is in business with her husband, Jamie Pollock and they are Microsoft and Apple certified trainers. She specializes in QuickBooks accounting setup and questions.
Alicia mentioned that QuickBooks Online (QBO) does many of the same functions as the desktop but in different places. She explained that the QuickBooks Labs option, selected by clicking on the “gear” at the top right side of the screen, allows the user to turn on or off experimental features that QuickBooks is deciding whether to incorporate in future program releases. The Audit Trail allows the user to see which prior user made changes, when the changes were made and the transaction before and after the change. You can filter the changes as well to help locate specific information. The Audit trail works best if each user has their own login. You can also select the “More” button at the bottom of the computer screen to access the history of the transaction you are viewing.
The cost per month for QBO is $40 for the Plus version, $30 for Essentials and $15 for Simple Start. Wholesale pricing for clients is available to bookkeepers and accountants, where the client pays you instead of Intuit. Alicia provided a helpful tool for cleaning up errors in billable expenses. Use QBO.intuit.com/app/managebillableexpense. She also went over how to manage rules so that the software helps to classify transactions for Bank Feeds.
A common question asked is “Can QBO be backed up?” Yes, but you must use Internet Explorer. Select the “gear” icon, then export data. It is also possible to convert QuickBooks Enterprise to QuickBooks Pro or Premier if none of the Enterprise features were used previously. Use //royalwise.com/?p=9793 to help convert your file. Alicia next explained several keyboard shortcuts including “Ctrl-Alt-?” for a shortcut list, +++ to advance the date, --- to reverse the date, “Y” to advance to beginning of Year, “R” to advance to end of Year, W/K for week and M/H for month within the date fields. In addition, you can have the software be used as a calculator by doing a calculation in an amount field.
When working between different areas of QuickBooks, you can open multiple tabs by right clicking on the tab and duplicating a tab. You may need to hit the refresh button if you make changes and want to see the results. To see two different files, you would open two separate files, each one in a different browser, such as Chrome and Firefox. Using Chrome incognito allows for a cleaner experience. You can use your browser’s search function (Ctrl-F) to search within QBO as well. To make a memorized transaction, select “recurring” on the bottom of the transaction.
Alicia’s contact information is as follows: Alicia@royalwise.com; info@royalwise.com; 503-406-6550. You may also sign up for their newsletter on the Royalwise website. Thank you, Alicia, for a great presentation!