Like everyone who writes a blog, I always wonder how well it’s doing – how many people visit, what the most popular posts are, are people really interested in the information that I post here, are they really using this information – meaning are they printing out a specific post to perhaps use later on down the road, are they sharing this information —- bottom line —- is it worth it for me to keep investing the amount of time I spend each day? Luckily WordPress has some pretty awesome tools that track all of this information.
Even though we host our own WordPress blog on our site {rather than hosting it directly on WordPress.com for free}, I did create a WordPress.com account and tied it to our blog – this mean that I can access Site Stats right from the Admin panel of the blog using the fairly new Jetpack features. Sure I use other site stat tracking options as well – AddThis has a plug in that shows me which posts were shared, I also have a Google Analytics account – but the one that provided me with the most information was the WordPress Site Stats – especially the year in review that they did for our blog. This is what it had to say.
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 140,000 times in 2011. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 6 days for that many people to see it. {Wow! 6 days – good grief, better bring LOTS of your favorite beverage if you are going to hang out here at our blog for that long!}
In 2011, there were 45 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 303 posts.
The busiest day of the year was September 21st with 830 views. The most popular post that day was QuickBooks 2012 Announced.
Our top referrers {where people found us} for 2011 were:
- linkedin.com
- our own website
- quickbooksusers.com
- facebook.com
- the search engines, of course, played an important role in how people found us
Most of our visitors came from the United States; with Canada and the United Kingdom not far behind.
Our top 5 posts in 2011 were:
- QuickBooks 2012 Announced – 9/7/2011
- Using Account Numbers in Your QuickBooks Chart of Accounts – 1/09/2009
- Straight From the IRS – Social Security Tax Reduced to 4.2% – 12/17/2010
- Calculating & Displaying Fringe Benefits on a Certified Payroll Report – 7/12/2010
- Freebie Friday – Bookkeeping & Accounting Tasks Schedule – 2/11/2011
I just thought this was pretty interesting and wanted to share it with you. Have a great day!
Best practices and tips for installing a QuickBooks 2012 upgrade on a computer that already has an existing version of QuickBooks in place.
Remember, QuickBooks MUST be installed using a Standard User Account when you are running Windows Vista or Windows 7 AND you use QuickBooks integrated 3rd party programs – see Windows, QuickBooks & 3rd Party Apps – The Struggle Within.
If you have Intuit do the upgrade, DO NOT let the Intuit rep install the new version from within your computer’s Administrator account and DO NOT let them choose the “upgrade” option when they do the installation. Also, make sure that your computer IT person is aware of the requirements and best practices – many do not.
Make sure that you watch and understand what is being done to your computer – don’t let others simply do “whatever”
Installing/upgrading QuickBooks is a fairly straightforward task, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some things that can trip you up along the way. Below are some “best practice tips”, based on technical support calls from our customers, that will help you to ensure a smooth installation/upgrade:
PLAN AHEAD and make sure that everything is in order – DO NOT install the new version of QuickBooks 2012 on the day that you need to run payroll, do billing, or perform any intensive task that requires access to your computer/company data file.
- Perform some basic file maintenance in your current QuickBooks version – backup your file, rebuild the data, check the current file size and number of database file fragments.
- If you use 3rd party integrated applications, make sure that you contact the software developer (if they haven’t already contacted you) about compatibility with and update procedures for working with QuickBooks 2012 – Gold and Silver Developers {those who have applications listed on the Intuit Marketplace} did not have access to a final release copy of QuickBooks 2012 until 9/12/2012; for other developers – well they might have access to the new version today.
- Start with the computer that houses your QuickBooks data file – paying close attention to the following screens.
- On the “Choose Installation Type” window select the “Custom and Network Option“
- On the “Custom and Network Options” window, select whatever the current settings are on your computer
- On the Upgrade or Change Installation Location window, choose the Change the install location option. This installs QuickBooks 2012 in a new folder and when the installation is complete you will have BOTH your current {old} QuickBooks version and the new QuickBooks 2012 version installed on the computer.
- When the installation is complete, you’ll be prompted to reboot your computer. After the reboot, start QuickBooks 2012 and open your company file.
- Rebuild your data file, check your file size and number of database file fragments.
- Install the new version of QuickBooks on each of your other computers; repeating Steps 4, 5, 6, and 7.
Once the new version of QuickBooks is installed and running properly on all of your computers, remove the old version by going to your Control Panel -> choosing Add/Remove Programs {Windows XP} OR Programs & Features {Windows Vista & 7}, find the old version in the list of programs and choose Uninstall or Remove.
We hope that you’ve found these best practices and tips for installing a QuickBooks upgrade to be helpful. If so please take a moment to leave a comment or share it on your favorite social network.
QuickBooks 2012 will include batch timesheet creation as an enhancement to the current “Use Weekly Timesheet” feature, allowing you the option to select multiple employee or vendor names for time entry. From the information that I’ve seen, Intuit is marketing this feature to contractors as a timesaver, and it may be for some businesses, BUT THERE IS A CATCH……
Each group of employees or vendors that you select MUST work on the same Job, under the same Service Item AND the same Payroll Item MUST be used during timesheet creation – additionally, they must ALL work the same number of hours each day!
See the Batch Timesheet function in action on our YouTube video
In order to successfully use the Batch Timesheet feature in QuickBooks Pro/Premier 2012 and Enterprise 12.0:
1. You MUST enable timetracking
- Logged into QuickBooks as the QuickBooks Administrator in Single-User Mode
- From the Edit menu -> choose Preferences -> scroll to Time & Expenses {the last preference} -> click on the Company Preferences tab
- Under the Time Tracking – Do you track time option -> select Yes and set the FIRST day of your work week
Right click on the image to enlarge it
- Click OK to save your changes
2. The Use time data to create paychecks option MUST be enabled for each employee
- From the Employee menu -> choose Employee Center -> click on the Employees tab -> double-click on an employee name OR click the Edit Employee button
- From the Change tabs drop down menu -> choose Payroll & Compensation Info
- Make sure the Use time data to create paychecks option is checked.
Right click on the image to enlarge it
- Click the OK button to save the changes for this employee
- Repeat for each employee in your employee list
3. You MUST use the Weekly Timesheet function
- From the Employee menu -> choose Enter Time -> Use Weekly Timesheet OR from the Home Page -> click the Enter time icon -> Use Weekly Timesheet
- In the Name field, click the drop down list and select either Multiple Names (Payroll) OR Multiple Names (Non-Payroll)
Right click on the image to enlarge it
- In the pop-up window, select multiple names, by placing a checkmark next to the name, and click ok to finalize your selections
 Select multiple employees |
 Select vendors |
- Enter timesheet information, selecting the Job, Service Item and Payroll Item
- Click on the Save and Close button to enter the information
Be aware of a potential problem:
A potential problem that I see with this feature, is let’s say that there are 4 employees {or vendors} who worked on a Job Monday through Thursday; on Friday, only 3 of these employees {vendors} were there. When you enter multiple timesheets, I forsee most people selecting all 4 employees/vendors and automatically entering ALL of the the time for the entire week. Using the batch timesheet option, you would need to be very careful when entering hours in this type of situation – as it could result in an employee or vendor being paid for erroneous hours worked and no one catching it. On the flip side, for employees who worked overtime, additional entries would be required on their individual timesheets to record overtime hours – if not this would result in underpayment.
NOTE: If you really need this type of functionality, investigate our Crew/Overtime Entry Solution program, which allows you to enter “exceptions” {the 4th employee not working on Friday} prior to posting the time data to QuickBooks.
The size of your QuickBooks file and the number of DB File Fragments determines the health of your QuickBooks company data file. Most people don’t periodically check the health of their QuickBooks file to help prevent data corruption – mainly because they don’t realize that they should or even how to go about it.
Monday’s blog post – Basic File Maintenance Before & After You Upgrade – talked about checking your current file size and health before before you upgrade to a new version of QuickBooks. In reality, you should periodically check this information just to see how healthy your file is or isn’t.
To check the size of your own QuickBooks file – with QuickBooks open press the CTRL and the 1 keys at the same time OR press the F2 key at the top of your keyboard – this will open a Product Information window; similar to that shown below, paying close attention to the circled areas – file location, file size and DB (database) file fragments:
Right click on the image to enlarge it
The screenshot above provides the following information about our own company data file:
- File Size 180932 K or roughly 180 megs which is a fairly large file; this is confirmed by the fact that there are 17583 total transactions in the file
- DB File Fragments 3 – anything under 20 DB file fragments means that your file is pretty healthy, while anything over 20 means your file is sick!
There are some things that you can do to try and repair you QuickBooks file yourself:
- Rebuild you company data file and check the Product Information Window after to see if the number of DB file fragments has been reduced
- Create and restore a Portable company file {watch our YouTube video} and check your results
- Seek the help of a professional to repair your data file – such as QuickBooksUsers.com or QB or not QB
Keeping your QuickBooks data file healthy means that it will perform better!
We hope you found this tip to be helpful, if so please take a moment to leave a comment or share it on your favorite social network.
This QuickBooks Tip provides instructions for how to rebuild your QuickBooks data file. The rebuild function will help maintain the overall health of your file.
Is your QuickBooks file very large? Is it running slow? Are you in a multi-user environment where 2 or more people are inputting a lot of information on a daily basis? If you answered yes to any of these questions you would probably benefit from rebuilding your data file on a regular basis.
The QuickBooks Rebuild Data function is like a cleaning lady. When you access the rebuild function it looks at all of the information in your file and makes sure that it has been filed correctly. Think of your desk, covered in piles of papers that need to be filed. Before you actually put all of the papers in the filing cabinet, you sort and separate the various piles into organized files. The rebuild function performs the same task.
How to Rebuild Your Data File:
You’ll need to be logged into QuickBooks as the Administrator. If you have a large file, this could take quite awhile – so plan to run this process at lunch time, or gear it up just before you leave for the day.
- From the File menu
- Choose Utilities
- Rebuild Data
The first thing that the Rebuild will require you to do is to make a backup of your data file, go ahead and do that.
As soon as the backup has completed, the rebuild function will automatically start. This tool will take two passes through your file, looking for problems, organizing your data, and trying to fix any problems with your data that it finds. If you sit an watch the process, don’t be concerned if QuickBooks seems to stop responding or stop working at 99% on the first pass and 50% on the second. This just means that it’s found things that are wrong, is attempting to fix them, and then going back to check that everything it found on the first pass has been fixed.
There are times when the Rebuild function will fail, this usually means that there is data damage within your file that the rebuild cannot fix (it does have limited abilities). In a situation like this, you’ll need additional assistance to fix the issues. If you run into this situation, I would recommend that you investigate the services of Accounting Users, Inc., QB or Not QB, or The Bottom Line.
Our own QuickBooks file contains 11 years of data and I rebuild it on a monthly basis and have for many years.
If you found this article helpful, please leave a comment or share it with others.
