Ainsworth Accountants: Accounts, Tax and Business Advisors.
Advantages of QuickBooks
Good Reasons to use QuickBooks
This webpage is designed to help you appreciate the way that QuickBooks works.
Sales Invoices and Receiving Payment
QB enables you to create Sales Invoices and then Receive Payment at a later date. This is important for businesses which need to know how much money they are owed (Aged Debt). Alternatively, if you receive the money on the same day that you create the invoice, then QB enables you to create a single Sales Receipt. The single Sales Receipt method is appropriate for the new Cash Basis.
QB records the Sales from the Sales Invoice for the Profit and Loss Account, and the money received to keep track on the bank or cash accounts.
Emailing Sales Invoices
As well as printing Sales Invoices, these can be emailed to your clients and customers in pdf format by email attachment, including your logo. The process takes two clicks. This is a lot quicker and cheaper than printing and posting out.
Purchase Bills and Making Payments
QB enables you to record a bill and record the payment of the bill at a later date. This is important for businesses which need to know how much they owe.
Alternatively, if you want to record the bill and the payment as a single transaction this is also possible. The single payment method is better for the new Cash Basis.
QB records the purchases as Expenses for the Profit and Loss Account, and the money paid out to keep the bank record up to date.
Finding Transactions and Making Changes
QB has an excellent facility to find any transaction by entering just one element, eg. date, amount, invoice number. Transactions can be amended if they are incorrect. QB does not leave a trail of deleted 'red ink' transactions. QB has an Audit Report which lists all changes.
Accounts Structure
QB does not require the Accounts in the General (or Nominal) Ledger to be numbered; it is optional.
Most people find that a simple description, eg. "Stationery" or "Accommodation" is more understandable than remembering a number.
Additionally QB enables you to create 'sub-accounts'. For example, "Office Expenses" could have sub-accounts of "Stationery", "Postage", "Water Cooler". When reporting, you can choose to 'collapse' the reports and just report "Office Expenses" as a total, or 'expand' to show the totals of the sub-accounts.
Repeat "Memorised Transactions"
QB enables you to store a transaction which repeats say every month, eg. a monthly subscription. To record these, all that is needed is a double click to open and a single click to confirm. It doesn't get any easier.
Similarly, customer Sales Invoices, which are largely similar in nature, can be memorised and repeated as appropriate. This means that a sales invoice can be created and emailed in 3 or 4 clicks.
Products for Resale and Stock
QB enables you to track stock quantities when you record the quantity of products sold on your Sales Invoices and purchased when you record your bills.
QB enables you to set up 'Items' for each product sold, together with standard price for the sales invoice, and sales category for reporting.
VAT
QB records VAT on Sales and Purchases. This enables the VAT return to be filed with HMRC directly online from QB.
Payroll
QB has a fully functioning Payroll option, at an additional expense, which files directly online to HMRC and is compliant with the new RTI system.
The Payroll transactions, eg. gross salary and PAYE liabilities, are automatically 'posted' to the appropriate Expense and Liability Accounts in QB.
Currency
QB is a multi-currency accounting system.
Bank Reconciliation
The Bank Reconciliation is an important part of bookkeeping and accounting, because you will be checking your recorded transactions to your bank statement. QB has an excellent Bank Reconciliation facility. When you are reconciling your bank statement, and discover an unrecorded payment, QB allows you to enter the missing transaction without closing the Bank Reconciliation, and when entered, the new transaction just appears on the still open Bank Reconciliation.
Management Accounts
QB has a vast wealth of reports including Profit and Loss Account, Balance Sheet, Aged Debt, Unpaid Bills, Sales, Sales by Customer. This list is more or less endless because all of the reports can be modified and saved as a new report.
An excellent feature of QB is the ability to drill drown on figures on the reports, right down to the original transaction which you recorded.
Year End Accounts
Year End Accounts are the same as the Management Accounts; it's just a case of changing the dates, then saving as a new report if you need to.
QuickBooks Versions
References to QuickBooks (QB) includes QuickBooks Desktop (QBD), QuickBooks Online (QBO) and QuickBooks Enterprise (QBE).
If you have specific recording and reporting needs from the descriptions below, please check with us or Intuit to ensure you are buying the appropriate version of QB.
This webpage is designed to help you appreciate the way that QuickBooks works.
Sales Invoices and Receiving Payment
QB enables you to create Sales Invoices and then Receive Payment at a later date. This is important for businesses which need to know how much money they are owed (Aged Debt). Alternatively, if you receive the money on the same day that you create the invoice, then QB enables you to create a single Sales Receipt. The single Sales Receipt method is appropriate for the new Cash Basis.
QB records the Sales from the Sales Invoice for the Profit and Loss Account, and the money received to keep track on the bank or cash accounts.
Emailing Sales Invoices
As well as printing Sales Invoices, these can be emailed to your clients and customers in pdf format by email attachment, including your logo. The process takes two clicks. This is a lot quicker and cheaper than printing and posting out.
Purchase Bills and Making Payments
QB enables you to record a bill and record the payment of the bill at a later date. This is important for businesses which need to know how much they owe.
Alternatively, if you want to record the bill and the payment as a single transaction this is also possible. The single payment method is better for the new Cash Basis.
QB records the purchases as Expenses for the Profit and Loss Account, and the money paid out to keep the bank record up to date.
Finding Transactions and Making Changes
QB has an excellent facility to find any transaction by entering just one element, eg. date, amount, invoice number. Transactions can be amended if they are incorrect. QB does not leave a trail of deleted 'red ink' transactions. QB has an Audit Report which lists all changes.
Accounts Structure
QB does not require the Accounts in the General (or Nominal) Ledger to be numbered; it is optional.
Most people find that a simple description, eg. "Stationery" or "Accommodation" is more understandable than remembering a number.
Additionally QB enables you to create 'sub-accounts'. For example, "Office Expenses" could have sub-accounts of "Stationery", "Postage", "Water Cooler". When reporting, you can choose to 'collapse' the reports and just report "Office Expenses" as a total, or 'expand' to show the totals of the sub-accounts.
Repeat "Memorised Transactions"
QB enables you to store a transaction which repeats say every month, eg. a monthly subscription. To record these, all that is needed is a double click to open and a single click to confirm. It doesn't get any easier.
Similarly, customer Sales Invoices, which are largely similar in nature, can be memorised and repeated as appropriate. This means that a sales invoice can be created and emailed in 3 or 4 clicks.
Products for Resale and Stock
QB enables you to track stock quantities when you record the quantity of products sold on your Sales Invoices and purchased when you record your bills.
QB enables you to set up 'Items' for each product sold, together with standard price for the sales invoice, and sales category for reporting.
VAT
QB records VAT on Sales and Purchases. This enables the VAT return to be filed with HMRC directly online from QB.
Payroll
QB has a fully functioning Payroll option, at an additional expense, which files directly online to HMRC and is compliant with the new RTI system.
The Payroll transactions, eg. gross salary and PAYE liabilities, are automatically 'posted' to the appropriate Expense and Liability Accounts in QB.
Currency
QB is a multi-currency accounting system.
Bank Reconciliation
The Bank Reconciliation is an important part of bookkeeping and accounting, because you will be checking your recorded transactions to your bank statement. QB has an excellent Bank Reconciliation facility. When you are reconciling your bank statement, and discover an unrecorded payment, QB allows you to enter the missing transaction without closing the Bank Reconciliation, and when entered, the new transaction just appears on the still open Bank Reconciliation.
Management Accounts
QB has a vast wealth of reports including Profit and Loss Account, Balance Sheet, Aged Debt, Unpaid Bills, Sales, Sales by Customer. This list is more or less endless because all of the reports can be modified and saved as a new report.
An excellent feature of QB is the ability to drill drown on figures on the reports, right down to the original transaction which you recorded.
Year End Accounts
Year End Accounts are the same as the Management Accounts; it's just a case of changing the dates, then saving as a new report if you need to.
QuickBooks Versions
References to QuickBooks (QB) includes QuickBooks Desktop (QBD), QuickBooks Online (QBO) and QuickBooks Enterprise (QBE).
If you have specific recording and reporting needs from the descriptions below, please check with us or Intuit to ensure you are buying the appropriate version of QB.