Free eBook – “What’s New in QuickBooks 2011 – A Comprehensive Overview”.
For those of you who follow this blog, you’ll know that I’ve been posting about new features and functions of QuickBooks 2011 since early September – because I believe that it’s important to learn as much as we can about new ways in which to use the accounting software that we’ve chosen.
What many of you probably don’t know, is that every year I do an “annual” review of the new features to provide our customers, subscribers of the QuickBooks for Contractors newsletter, and visitors to the Technical Support Area of our main website.
This year, I’m doing something a little different and making this annual review available publicly, here on our blog!
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Request our FREE 142-page “What’s New in QuickBooks 2011? eBook, by completing a simple request form.
This eBook will provide you with with all the information I’ve posted here in our blog, plus MORE! Once you’ve completed our simple request form, you’ll have instant access to this 142-page .pdf eBook, designed to be duplex printed and put in a binder for future reference. |
We’ll be taking a week long blogging break while we gear up for some new content beginning on November 1, 2010.
We are taking a slight break from blogging this week in order to finish up our “What’s New in QuickBooks 2011″ eBook – before all the new features become old 
Currently it’s at 150 pages, so I’m trying to reduce the size of the screen shots – while still making them legible.
Look for the eBook later this week.
How to Fulfill Your Certified Payroll Requirements Webinar – Associated Builders & Contractors, Inc. Merit Choice
Date: Wednesday, November 17
Time: 2 p.m. (ET) / 1 p.m. (CT) / 12 p.m. (MT) / 11 a.m. (PT)
Length: 90 minutes
Fee: Free for ABC members
Speaker: Nancy Smyth, President of Sunburst Software Solutions
For more information or to register, visit http://www.abc.org/Hot_Links/Meetings_and_Events/Webinars/2.aspx
Join ABC Merit Choice for a complimentary webinar on certified payroll!
Learn everything you need to know to fulfill your certified payroll requirements in the most compliant and efficient manner.
- What government agencies make the laws behind certified payroll reporting requirements?
- How to comply with labor standards and payroll reporting requirements
- How to complete a Certified Payroll Report and Statement of Compliance
- Common methods for creating Certified Payroll Reports, Statements of Compliance, EEOC and Fringe Benefit Reports
- State prevailing wage vs. Davis-Bacon forms and which form applies
- Ways contractors pay fringe benefits and how to document the credit you can take
- Tracking employee time and work classifications
- Requesting additional “trade/work classifications” and wage rates
- Typical errors that require correction
- What happens when things go wrong
Who Should Attend
- Owners
- Estimators
- Controllers
- CFOs
- Payroll processors
- Office managers
- Business development experts
About the Speaker
Nancy Smyth, President of Sunburst Software Solutions, has helped over 4,000 contractors learn about their certified payroll requirements, automate their processes and stay compliant with all of their certified payroll, statement of compliance and EEOC requirements. Sunburst Software Solutions, Inc. provides fully integrated, time saving solutions for certified payroll, AIA Billing, and payroll wage management for contractors using QuickBooks. www.Sunburstss.com
QuickBooks 2011 offers the ability to exclude Estimates, Sales Orders and Purchase Orders from the Closing Date lock. This is a key piece of functionality that will be attractive to contractors and other business types who often have open Estimates, Sales Orders or Purchase Orders; which I just learned about yesterday in a “New Features in QuickBooks 2011” webinar presented by Joe Woodard.
The Closing Date feature in QuickBooks is designed primarily to protect transactions from previous reporting periods from being changed – for example, it is often a general practice for an accounting professional to set a closing date in a clients QuickBooks file after they have finished preparing their tax returns. Setting a Closing Date allows the accountant to know that the client cannot go back and make changes to transactions that would impact the tax returns that were filed.
Unfortunately, the Closing Date feature works as a “lock”; and effectively prevents a user from making changes to open “non-posting” transactions such as Estimates, Sales Orders, and Purchase Orders.
It’s common in the construction industry to have Estimates that remain open for 6 months to sometimes several years – depending on the size of the job, when they were awarded the contract, and even when they actually start to work on their piece of the project.
With previous versions of QuickBooks, a business owner who utilized these types of non-posting transactions could not use this feature until AFTER the transactions had been closed (Estimate fully invoiced, Sales Orders fulfilled, or Purchase Order completely received); however, their accountants would frequently enter a closing date when they were finished with the tax return.
This caused a lot of hassle and additional work for the business owner. They would need to create a 2nd Estimate in it’s entirety and then create a single progress invoice billing out everything that they had billed up until the time that their books were “closed” by their accountant – they then had to set the invoice as “Mark as Pending” so that it wouldn’t show up in their Accounts Receivable.
With QuickBooks 2011, you can now choose to exclude these open, non-posting transactions when you set a closing date!
If you are a QuickBooks user be sure to tell your accountant about this feature, and if you are an accounting professional, ask them if they need access to these transactions BEFORE you set the closing date, they’ll love you for it!
This option is available from the Edit menu -> Preferences -> Accounting -> Company Preferences tab -> click on the Set Date/Password button -> then check the option to “Exclude”.
Right click on the image to enlarge it.
To some this will seem like a small and perhaps unimportant change; but for some it will be a HUGE improvement in the functionality.
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Request our FREE 142-page “What’s New in QuickBooks 2011? eBook, by completing a simple request form.
This eBook will provide you with with all the information I’ve posted here in our blog, plus MORE! Once you’ve completed our simple request form, you’ll have instant access to this 142-page .pdf eBook, designed to be duplex printed and put in a binder for future reference. |
Each year when a new version of QuickBooks is released, we are asked by our customers “should I upgrade?” and “is your software compatible with the new version”.
These are both important questions which deserve consideration by QuickBooks users who also use QuickBooks integrated applications. Each year my answers are usually this:
Is your software compatible with the new QuickBooks version?
Yes, it is, see our compatibility announcement dated 9/28/2010.
As Intuit Gold Developers we “usually” have access to new versions of QuickBooks while they are in beta status. Usually we can obtain a beta version of the new QuickBooks version in August, so we can begin testing our software for compatibility; this type of early access usually includes the ability to obtain several different/updated beta releases; before we actually get a copy of the final release version. All of this means several rounds of testing as each new new beta release introduces bug fixes to features and functionalities of QuickBooks.
Once we have a final release version, we run a gauntlet of tests with our software to verify that any new features and/or functionalities introduced to QuickBooks do not cause problems with the way our software integrates with/works with your QuickBooks file. If we discover problems, we need to make changes to our own code to deal with the problems and run all of the tests again. Once we have completed our testing, we then have to create both compatibility updates (patches) for our existing customers and build new versions of our software to make available to new customers. All of this has to be accomplished in a two week period of time.
USUALLY, our software is compatible with the new version of QuickBooks as soon as Intuit makes the announcement that it is available to purchase – however, we never know how new QuickBooks features/enhancements will affect how our software integrates with QuickBooks until we have had an opportunity to thoroughly test our software with a final release.
IF you use and rely on the functionality of a QuickBooks 3rd party application; it is in your best interest to ask this question – do not make the assumption that your 3rd party application will “automatically” be compatible with a new version of QuickBooks!
Should I upgrade to the new QuickBooks version?
This question is more difficult to answer; there are so many things to take into consideration – do your existing computer “have what it takes” to run the new version, will you need to purchase new computers that come with Windows 7 and Office 2010 installed, do you rely on 3rd party QuickBooks integrated applications? For more information, see Computer Requirements & Office Compatibility.
However, my typical answer is to do your homework but go ahead and purchase the upgrade, initial pricing is usually very good; but that you should probably wait awhile before actually installing it and updating your company data file – unless you strongly NEED to have the new features.
Why? Historically, each year when a new version of QuickBooks is initially released users discover bugs which were not found during Intuit’s own testing and through their own “official beta tester” program. Often times these bugs occur due to the thousands of possible computer configurations and the various ways in which people actually use QuickBooks.
We usually suggest that you wait a month or two, or until after you have generated employee W-2′s, before you update. This way you can watch QuickBooks Forums and User Groups to see if people are running into errors and what those errors are – you do not necessarily want to be one of the people who get caught by problems. Additionally, during the first few months Intuit is busy putting out maintenance releases to correct problems and, again historically speaking; by January Intuit has most if not all of the problems resolved.
Having said all of that…..I participated in the “official” Intuit beta tester program and have had access to beta versions since July; while Ben has had access since August, through our Intuit Developer Network membership. We have both been testing/using the version fairly extensively, without any major issues; but I don’t use all features as heavily as you might.
If you are thinking of upgrading to QuickBooks 2011, read our 10 Tips for a successful installation/upgrade
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Request our FREE 142-page “What’s New in QuickBooks 2011? eBook, by completing a simple request form.
This eBook will provide you with with all the information I’ve posted here in our blog, plus MORE! Once you’ve completed our simple request form, you’ll have instant access to this 142-page .pdf eBook, designed to be duplex printed and put in a binder for future reference. |
