New Product Announcement: QuickBooks IIF Inactive Cleanup Utility

New Product Announcement: QuickBooks IIF Inactive Cleanup Utility

QuickBooks Add-Ons, QuickBooks Corner, The "Sunburst" Website
We are very excited to announce the release of our newest software program - the QuickBooks IIF Inactive Cleanup Utility! Necessity is often the "Mother of Invention", it's why all of our software programs have been created.  We often find ourselves in a situation where we encounter a repetitive task that just screams for the need of automation. I'm fairly certain that the following story will hit home with many QuickBooks ProAdvisors and Consultants: A customer or ours recently hired me to help him start a brand new QuickBooks Enterprise file - his old one was so corrupt that even Intuit Data Repair couldn't fix it and it couldn't be opened/upgraded by the new version of QuickBooks Enterprise that he wanted to use in his company.  The file contained nearly…
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How To Turn On and Use Manual Payroll in QuickBooks

How To Turn On and Use Manual Payroll in QuickBooks

Payroll Tips, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup
We are a small company and are looking at various options for payroll; I've heard that there is a way to do payroll manually in QuickBooks, but I can't seem to find any information on how to turn on that feature, everything seems to indicate that we have to buy a payroll subscription and that just isn't in our budget right now.  Can you help?   Thanks in advance. --------------------------------------- How to turn on and use the manual payroll option in QuickBooks certainly feels like a highly guarded secret.  Intuit makes a lot of money selling payroll subscriptions and rightly so as keeping up with payroll tax laws and forms in each and every state is a lot of work! Even so, there are instances when a business chooses to have…
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QuickBooks Payroll Record Keeping Tips-How To Stay Organized

QuickBooks Payroll Record Keeping Tips-How To Stay Organized

Be A Better Bookkeeper, Payroll Tips
QuickBooks does a great job at allowing you to track employee time to specific jobs, issue payroll and even produce your quarterly and year-end payroll tax forms and W-2's.  But the data that is stored in QuickBooks only provides pieces of the information that you need to keep on file to comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act. In Tuesday's article, Payroll Recordkeeping - More Than Just Getting Employee's Paid on Time, we mentioned that in order to be well prepared for a Wage & Hour audit that you need to keep your payroll records for the duration of EACH worker’s employment with your company PLUS 5 to 10 years!  Most Human Resources and legal experts are suggesting this to ensure these records are available in the event a claim…
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Payroll Recordkeeping – More Than Just Getting Employees Paid On Time

Payroll Recordkeeping – More Than Just Getting Employees Paid On Time

Be A Better Bookkeeper, Payroll Tips
There is more to payroll recordkeeping than just making sure that your employees are paid the right wage for the type of work they are performing and getting their paychecks out the door on time. Are your payroll records accurate and up-to-date?  They need to be - because inaccurate payroll records can cost employers BIG bucks! Most employers and bookkeepers have a tendency to think that accurate payroll record keeping involves little more than being able to pull up a Payroll Summary for a prior period in QuickBooks, if the State or Federal Department of Labor asks for it. Sure, a Payroll Summary in QuickBooks is a handy thing to be able to create with just a couple of mouse clicks – but there is so much more supporting documentation…
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QuickBooks Tip-How To Add a Logo and Customize Your Forms

QuickBooks Tip-How To Add a Logo and Customize Your Forms

Customers & Accounts Receivable, QuickBooks Setup & Cleanup, QuickBooks Tips & Tricks
A QuickBooks Tip on how to add your company logo and customize yoour Estimate, Invoice, and Purchase Order forms in QuickBooks. So you use QuickBooks for your all of you bookkeeping and accounting functions, including creating Estimates, Invoices, Purchase Orders, etc.  Good for you!  It sounds like you are using many of the built-in features and functions.  But do the "forms" you send your clients/customers, vendors/subcontractors scream QuickBooks when they are opened? Just because you use QuickBooks doesn't mean that you can't send out professional looking forms.  Spend some time working with your Form Templates and go from drab to WOW! Where do I find the Form Templates? You'll find the Form Templates from the QuickBooks List menu -> Templates.  Once there if you look in the Type column you'll…
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Employees and Company Credit Cards – What’s the Charge?

Employees and Company Credit Cards – What’s the Charge?

Be A Better Bookkeeper, From Our Guest Bloggers, Vendors & Accounts Payable
If you provide your employees with a company credit card, eventually someone is going to use it for a personal expense. In many cases, the employee is not attempting to defraud the company. But in other cases, it can be intentional. Either way it can create potential problems for your business. Several years ago, one of my clients issued her bookkeeper a company credit card. After a period of time, the bookkeeper regularly used the company credit card for personal purchases and did not notify the employer or reimburse the company. As the balance on the credit card increased, the bookkeeper began making partial payments on the increasing balance. My client completely trusted her bookkeeper, and never reviewed the credit card statements prior to payment, and the balance became quite…
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Unconditional Waiver / Release Upon Final Payment – Part 5

Unconditional Waiver / Release Upon Final Payment – Part 5

Customers & Accounts Receivable, From Our Guest Bloggers
Once you’ve successfully collected your final payment it’s time to give your customer an “Unconditional Waiver and Release Upon Final Payment” form (#4 release). This release form will not include a “release through date” because it’s the final payment – it releases your lien rights, stop payment rights, etc. for the entire project. If you have suppliers include the same forms from them. Never issue a #4 release form unless you have been successfully paid in full for the entire project.  If you do even though you haven’t been paid and you didn’t allow for the exceptions then the courts wouldn’t side with you because unconditional is unconditional – it’s final. State Requirements For Waiver / Release Forms Each state has specific requirements for release forms, although many states do…
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QuickBooks Tip – How To Handle Stored Materials and AIA Pay Apps

QuickBooks Tip – How To Handle Stored Materials and AIA Pay Apps

Customers & Accounts Receivable, QuickBooks Add-Ons
QuickBooks has no built-in ability to handle stored materials, like many of the more costly construction specific software programs.  This causes problems for contractors who need to generate AIA Pay Apps and need to make sure that their books (or accounting data) syncs with their AIA Applications for Payments.  This question was originally asked on the Intuit Community forums. I am unsure of the proper way to handle stored materials. My General Contractor lets us bill for stored materials used in construction by way of standard AIA Pay Apps.  I am needing a way of keeping my AIA Pay Apps and QuickBooks invoicing in sync.  All invoices are done with AIA payment applications so the GC never sees the QuickBooks invoices.  However, I still need to produce the estimate and…
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Conditional Waiver / Release Upon Final Payment – Part 4

Conditional Waiver / Release Upon Final Payment – Part 4

Customers & Accounts Receivable, From Our Guest Bloggers
When it’s time to submit the invoice for the final payment you may need to include a “Conditional Waiver and Release Upon Final Payment” form (#3 release). Usually this release form does not include a “release through date” like the #1 and #2 forms do because it’s your final invoice on the project. If you have suppliers you’ll probably have to include these same forms from them. Once you’ve received payment and it has cleared the issuing financial institution then typically that Conditional Release becomes an Unconditional Release. That means you’ll never be able to file a lien on the project (which is okay as long as you’re paid in full). State Requirements For Waiver / Release Forms Each state has its own requirements for release forms.  Although many are…
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I-9 Form Updated – Make Sure You’re Prepared

I-9 Form Updated – Make Sure You’re Prepared

IRS Information, Payroll Tips
An updated Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification form was released by the U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on May 8, 2013. As an employer you are required to complete a Form I-9 whenever you hire a new employee, so make sure that it is part of your New Hire Packet.  The employee must complete Section 1 of the I-9 on the day that you hire him and you must review the employee’s supporting documentation and complete Section 2 of Form I-9 within 3 business days of the hire date.  You can photocopy the documents that the employee provides you and you can keep them with the completed I-9 or store them with the employee’s records. Important Note:  If you hire a person for less than 3 (three) business days,…
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Automating Job Costing Overtime, an 800 pound gorilla with an attitude

Certified Payroll/Prevailing Wage, From Our Guest Bloggers, Job Costing Tips, Payroll Tips, QuickBooks Add-Ons
Calculating and distributing employee overtime is a burdensome process that many business owners and payroll administrators have to deal with on a weekly basis.  Everyone has a different opinion on just "HOW" that overtime is to be calculated and distributed.  By everyone, I mean the business owner, the payroll clerk, heck even the Federal and State government.  No wonder it's just a problematic situation! At first blush this seems drop dead simple. Overtime goes to the time worked after 40 hours, or maybe over x hours per day as well.  This seems reasonable, but would it be simpler if overtime were just distributed over all the jobs that the employee worked that week.  That seems fairer, as each job gets a share of the overtime costs for that week. Then…
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Unconditional Waiver / Release Form Upon Progress/Partial Payment – Part 3

Unconditional Waiver / Release Form Upon Progress/Partial Payment – Part 3

Customers & Accounts Receivable, From Our Guest Bloggers
You’ve successfully collected your progress payment and now it’s time to provide your customer with an “Unconditional Waiver and Release Upon Progress Payment” form (#2 release). If you have suppliers include the same forms from them. The #2 release is unconditional which means you’re giving up all lien rights through the “release through date”. Never issue a #2 release form unless you have been successfully paid for that time frame.  If you do even though you haven’t been paid the courts may not side with you because unconditional is unconditional – it’s final. State Requirements For Waiver / Release Forms Each state has specific requirements for release forms. Some states change their laws often (California had three changes to the same lien law in 2004, and then in 2011 and…
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Conditional Waiver/Release Form Upon Progress/Partial Payment – Part 2

Conditional Waiver/Release Form Upon Progress/Partial Payment – Part 2

Customers & Accounts Receivable, From Our Guest Bloggers
When it’s time to submit an invoice for a partial / progress payment you may need to include a “Conditional Waiver and Release Upon Progress Payment” form (#1 release). If you have suppliers you’ll probably have to include these same forms from them. Once you’ve received payment and it has cleared the issuing financial institution then typically that Conditional Release becomes an Unconditional Release (#2).  That means you’ll never be able to file a lien for that time frame. State Requirements For Waiver / Release Forms Each state has its own requirements for release forms. California recently changed its mechanic’s lien laws requiring new wording on its release forms.  Keep an eye out for any possible changes in the requirements for the state(s) you work in. Usually a #1 release…
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You Get What You Pay For – Do Cheap Bookkeepers Save Money?

You Get What You Pay For – Do Cheap Bookkeepers Save Money?

"Stuff" that drives me insane, Be A Better Bookkeeper
As a business owner it’s important to watch how much money you spend.  When it comes to bookkeeping though you tend to get what you pay for.  When you hire a cheap bookkeeper, ten-to-one it’s what they don’t know that is going to cost you big time! As a contractor would you go to the dollar store to buy hammers? Probably not – you’d want your employees to have the best possible tools to perform their job.  Hiring a bookkeeper and paying them minimum wage is no different than getting those dollar store hammers! If your bookkeeper (or potential bookkeeper) say they know QuickBooks because: they’ve taken a one-day seminar, watched some videos on YouTube, spent a tax season working in an accounting firm, or worst of all is “self-taught”…
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