Big Business Starts as Small Business - Software to support a growing enterprise
Joanie C Mann - 09/16/2008According to the old saying, “information is power”. Every business needs as much information as they can get about their business activities and performance in order to empower them to make necessary adjustments in this ever-changing economy. Considering how most small businesses get their start in accounting for their business operations, it is not surprising that managing business information becomes one of the most time-consuming and frustrating tasks. In this article, business information is examined through the lifecycle of a growing enterprise.
Chuck's Reporting Corner August 2008
Chuck Vigeant M.Ed. - 08/13/2008This is the first of two articles that I will devote to using Excel and QODBC to extract and report on QuickBooks data. There are many Excel gems that users either don’t know about or think it is too difficult. In this first article, I will discuss the Excel Query Wizard and Using Excel Query to generate existing QuickBooks reports. Both of these operations should within the capabilities of the novice user.
The Hidden Benefits of Application Hosting
Joanie C Mann - 08/13/2008The desktop application hosting model offers a variety of IT management and administrative benefits. The potential gains for the subscriber include lower acquisition and operating costs for technology. While a business owner knows that there are costs associated with the equipment, software and other tangible elements, he or she may not consider the ongoing costs of maintaining and managing the system. End-user support, backups and data management, network security and virus protection, content filtering and lost productivity are all areas where the business spends time and money, but few businesses totally recognize these soft costs as being directly attached to their IT budget.
Students Get a Break on QuickBooks
Sherrill Sleeter - 08/07/2008A trial version of QuickBooks 2008 software is now included with our textbooks, Learning QuickBooks 2008 Step-by-Step Fundamentals, Intermediate and Complete. These in-depth textbooks are packed with hands-on exercises where students work directly in QuickBooks. Now, with the 140-day student trial version included free, students can complete their exercises without the added expense of purchasing the full software version.
An Accountant's Guide to Choosing the Right Manufacturing Software
Joanie Mann - 07/21/2008Manufacturing issues facing small businesses aren't limited to simply assembling products for stock inventory. Companies are facing every-increasing challenges in logistics, resource utilization, and raw materials planning. The right manufacturing solution can be tremendously beneficial to the business, helping to identify and allocate resources required to keep production timely and efficient.
Data Analysis Facilitates Successful File Conversion
Bonnie Nagayama - 07/16/2008File conversion is a time consuming but necessary step to fixing many problems in a QuickBooks data file. Assessing the health of the file through data analysis can help determine if a file conversion is necessary or can be avoided by implementing other solutions. Data analysis can also help establish if any clean up procedures are need prior to file conversion work. This article looks at data analysis as an initial step in the file conversion process.
Chuck's Reporting Corner July 2008
Chuck Vigeant M.Ed. - 07/16/2008Most of the reports we provide to clients falls into four main categories, Financial, Sales Job Cost and Business Intelligence. Within the Sales category, the most requested report is the commission report. You might think that after thousands of reports, we would have generated every type of commission report imaginable, but nothing could be further from the truth. This month, Chuck shares the key information you need to gather to create commission reports.
Chuck's Reporting Corner June 2008
Chuch Vigeant M.Ed. - 06/17/2008After thousands of reports, potential customers have a reasonable expectation that we would have their exact report that we could produce without any modification. The truth is it rarely happens, if ever. In this article, Chuch Vigeant explores why reports are not generic.
Improving QuickBooks Internal Control with Passwords
Bonnie Nagayama - 06/12/2008As QuickBooks has become more widely used as a bookkeeping tool by small business owners, the concerns and issues raised by accounting professionals deserve some attention. The most common concern relates to the ability to change entries after they have been recorded. This issue is compounded for the accountant because there are no formal month (or year-end) closing procedures that must be followed. This article addresses the password protection feature and related closing date password that can help to reduce these problems.
Sage Software - Peachtree Family Owned and Operated Initiative
Sherrill Sleeter - 05/25/2008Our friends at Sage Software asked us to assist with the announcement of the launch of a great opportunity for a select few business owners: The Peachtree Family Owned and Operated Initiative.