QuickBooks 2012 release announced by Intuit. Learn about new features and functionality. Last year we published a 142 page eBook on the features found in QuickBooks 2011; see what we have in store for the 2012 version.
Well folks, it’s that time of year again. Intuit announced the launch of QuickBooks 2012 on Twitter early this morning with a link off to an official Press Release indicating that it would be available to purchase beginning September 26 directly from Intuit websites.
As an Intuit Beta Tester I’ve been working with the QuickBooks 2012 Premier Accountant version since the middle of July.
Below is a list of just some of the new features and functionality that Intuit is saying that you can expect to find in QuickBooks 2012, per their announcement – plus some other things that I thought were important for you to know about; this list does NOT include everything that is new and/or improved. We’ll be releasing more information in the upcoming days.
Features found in QuickBooks Pro, Premier & Enterprise 2012
- Batch Invoice for Time and Expenses – select multiple customers with unbilled time, items, expenses and mileage and create invoices for all of them in a couple of clicks.
- Batch Timesheet Creation – enter the same timesheet information for multiple employees or vendors.
- Integrated Help – a simple, single interface to help QuickBooks users with questions find the right answer or get to someone who can help.
- Inventory Center – the new Inventory Center looks and feels like existing Customer, Vendor and Employee Centers. A list of inventory items are displayed on the left, with details and transactions relating to the item on the right.
- Lead Center - the new Lead Center is a feature that allows users to manage their leads/prospects in QuickBooks BEFORE they become customers. It allows you to assign statuses to your leads and you can easily convert them to customers when the time is right.
- Memorized Transactions Improvements – you can now select specific memorized transactions to be entered, as well as additional frequency choices.
- Purchasing Center – a new QuickBooks 2012 Purchasing Center is an ecommerce site that leverages the purchasing power of all QuickBooks users to enable purchases at discounts you would not otherwise be able to obtain. There is a “matching engine” that will search your purchases and make recommendations if there is an item available at a lower price.
- QuickBooks Calendar – provides a calendar view of important transactions for your business; overdue transactions, and tasks that need to be completed. Displays the dates that invoices/bills were created or are due. Displays To Do items that must be acted upon.
- Shared Report Templates – allows users to share their own reports with other QuickBooks users as well as provide the opportunity to consume report templates from the cloud. You will also have the ability to provide reviews and ratings on the reports template and search the right template from the cloud.
- Simplified Excel Integration – provides better integration with Microsoft Excel. You can already export reports to Excel, but with this new feature, you also have the option to update data in existing Excel worksheets, preserving formulas and format changes.
- Improved Condense Feature – allows you to remove transactions before a specified date OR remove ALL transactions from a data file while keeping your Lists, Preference settings., or subscription settings.
- Improved New Company Setup – target at users who are brand new to QuickBooks and makes the creation of a company data file easier and faster.
- Create a Credit Memo from an Invoice – allows you to create a Credit Memo based on an existing invoice to save you time from having to retype everything.
Features found in the QuickBooks Premier Account & Enterprise Account Versions ONLY
- New Accountant Center – includes easy access to all accountant functions, making it easier to find things and provides Quick Access to accounting tools.
- Create a New Company File from an existing Company File – designed to help accounting professionals speed up the process of setting up a company file for a new client, for example if you already have an existing client data file that has all of the preferences, chart of account items, etc. that are a match for your new client; the Create from Existing Company File Feature lets you use another data file as a “starter copy” to create the new file.
- Period Copy – is a new option in the Condense Data feature that allows you to make a copy of a company data file for a specific date range.
- Improved Accountant’s Copy – more customer and vendor credits will import back to the client.
Features found in QuickBooks Enterprise 12.0 ONLY
- Automatic Price Markup – choose whether to have QuickBooks change any sales price automatically when the cost of an item changes. QuickBooks will calculate and show your existing percent markup based on your existing cost and price and price for each item. You can edit the markup percent, cost, or price at any time.
- Enhanced Inventory Receiving – the QuickBooks item receipt and bill have been split into two transactions. This solves the following three issues that QuickBooks users deal with today:
- You sometimes need to pay for inventory before you receive it
- You want to preserve your item receipt date even after you get a bill
- You need to receive inventory from one order on multiple item receipts and/or pay for them with multiple bills.
- FIFO Inventory (First In->First Out) – will now be available as an alternative to Average Cost Inventory costing. You can choose between the two methods, choose a date to start using FIFO, and even return to average cost at any time.
- Find & Select Items – “Faster Forms Completion” is a new feature that makes it significantly easier to find and enter items into sales forms using information in any item field – including custom fields. This feature is available in Invoices, Sales Receipts, and Sales Orders.
- Serial Number/Lot Tracking – this is an Advanced Inventory – ONLY feature that lets users track individual instances of an Inventory or Assembly Item by assigning a serial number or lot to it. The QuickBooks User will be able to track the purchase, assembly, transfer, sale, and return of a Serial Number or Lot. For recall or warranty purposes, users can find the location(s) of an item with a specific Serial Number or Lot, whether its on their own shelves or already in a customers’ hands.
Download a QuickBooks Pro/Premier 2012 QuickBooks Pro/Premier 2012 Fact Sheet.
Last year, I put together a 142-page eBook on the new features and functionality of QuickBooks 2011. Expect to see the same type of in-depth overview this year. Sign up for email or RSS feed updates by using the options in the “follow” toolbar on the right.
Based on the information above, are you looking forward to getting your hands on the new version?
A QuickBooks tip about how to customize invoices without purchasing pre-printed forms.
You use the Create Invoice icon to invoice your customers. The invoices are plain looking, just your company name, no logo, nothing that really makes it stand out and look like a professional invoice. How would you like to customize the invoice without the cost of purchasing invoices? You can by using the customization tool available.
While in the invoice, go to the Customize button at the top and click the down arrow, then click on Manage Templates and you will see this screen:
Highlight the template you want to customize and click okay at the bottom of the page. The next window that opens will look like this:
This window will give you several options on how you want to design your invoice. To add your own company logo put a check mark in the box next to Use logo and then click on Select Logo. You can then upload the image from a file on your computer. To change the color to match your company color click on the Select Color Scheme and pick a color, then click on the Apply Color Scheme button.
You can change the font for any of the text by highlighting any field in the box below “Change Font For” and clicking on Change Font button. Do this for each text you want to change. Under the Company and Transaction information put a check mark in the box next to each piece of information you want to show on your invoice. Click on the Update Information button to update any company information.
Anytime during your customization process you can click on the Print Preview button located in the bottom right corner to see what your invoice looks like. If you don’t like what you have done, you can go back and make changes.
If you find you need to move different fields around, click on the Layout Designer button at the bottom of the window. This is what you will see:
Put your cursor on any field, highlight it and move it to the desired position. You can make the field bigger or smaller. Double click in the middle of the field to open up another window for more customization options for that particular field. It may take several tries to get it to look exactly the way you want.
Once you have your logo on your invoice and you have done some other customization your invoice will look professional.
Progress Invoicing is a standard feature of QuickBooks® Pro, Premier, and Enterprise editions; each of these versions also offer several options for invoicing as well. In order to implement the Progress Invoicing function you must also utilize the QuickBooks Estimate function – this will eliminate repetitive data entry and help you achieve good job costing reports, such as Estimate vs. Actual reports.
To activate Progress billing you MUST first log into QuickBooks as the QuickBooks Administrator and be in single-user mode. From the Edit menu -> choose Preferences -> scroll down to Jobs & Estimate -> and click on the Company Preferences tab. Once you are in the Company Preferences tab, review and set the options as follows:
- Do You Create Estimates – should be set to Yes
- Do You Do Progress Invoicing – should be set to Yes
- Warn about duplicate estimate numbers – should be checked (this will prevent you from creating two or more estimates for different jobs with the same estimate number)
- Don’t print items that have zero amount – this option SHOULD NOT be checked (this allows you to display line items on a progress invoice even if you are not billing for them on the current invoice)
- Click Ok to save the changes that you have made.
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At this point, you can switch to multi-user mode so you and others can continue working.
Next, you’ll want to build your Estimate or Schedule of Values using the Job Cost Codes found in your QuickBooks item list. You will want to make sure that you QuickBooks Items or Job Cost Codes are set up as double-sided items in order to capture both expenses and income.
Your Estimate can be as simple or as detailed as you like – bearing in mind that an Estimate with multiple lines will provide better job costing information than a single line Estimate with the full dollar amount.
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Once you have your Estimate in place and you are ready to create your first progressing billing or draw, you will go back to the Estimate you created and look for an option that says “Create Invoice” – click on that button/option.
This opens a Create Progress Invoice Based on Estimate window, which provides you with 3 different options for creating your progress invoice:
- Create an invoice for the entire estimate (100%)
- Create an invoice for a percentage of the entire estimate (you then get to choose a percentage – 33%, 30%, etc.)
- Create invoice for selected items or for different percentages of each item.
Most construction contractors will choose the third option, to Create invoice for selected items or for different percentages of each item. After making your selection on how you want to create the progress invoice; click OK.
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This now opens a new window, Specify Invoice Amounts for Items on Estimate; where you will be able to see the various line items that are on your Estimate. You can specify the quantity, rate, amount or percentage for each item that you wish to bill for in the current period. As you enter amounts or percentages you will be able to see a running total for the current billing. When you are satisfied, click the OK button to have the information automatically populate the Progress Invoice form.
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If you didn’t enter an amount or a percentage for each line item on your Estimate, QuickBooks will display a message indicating that there are items with zero amounts.
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Most people will find this Zero Amount Items message to be very annoying; it can be turned off by checking the Do not display this message in the future and clicking Ok.
Following this procedure you have created your first basic progress invoice. When you Save it, you have automatically updated your Accounts Receivable, and can send it to your customer or General Contractor or you can use the information it contains to complete an special invoice format that is required.
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