New Data File Analysis Checklist from Carol Garris

Author: Carol Garris  Created: Thu Feb 22 11:07:43 2007
As a QuickBooks consultant, I have found that the QuickBooks Checkup (i.e., data file analysis) is an excellent marketing tool for “selling” your services, in addition to being a valued service to your clients. Typically offered at a reduced fee, the QuickBooks checkup is not a big money maker; but it is an easy way to quickly demonstrate the value of your services to a potential client.
If you are like me, most of the QuickBooks users you run into work for small businesses and handle most, if not all, transactions in QuickBooks, although they have no prior bookkeeping experience, have never taken a QuickBooks class, and have taught themselves pretty much everything they do in QuickBooks. Seemingly, QuickBooks is so easy to use that people think they can figure things out themselves. Unfortunately, they just don’t know what they don’t know.
The QuickBooks data file analysis serves as an educational tool to raise a client’s awareness, and as a result can help you bring in new business and to better serve existing clients. “I thought I knew QuickBooks!” one client raved after we discussed the results of the QuickBooks Checkup I had performed for her. Actually, her QuickBooks file was in pretty good shape, but she was delighted with my recommendations to improve how she invoiced her clients and tracked her receivables. Because the QuickBooks Checkup is essentially a “loss leader,” recently I decided to streamline the process to reduce the time I had to spend analyzing the data file. The result was an Excel spreadsheet with one page for inputting information, such as year and version of QuickBooks being used, administrator password, fiscal year end, and so forth, with drop-down menus and check boxes to quickly document my analysis during the process. A second page of the spreadsheet is where I record my findings as I go along. Afterwards, I print out the completed two pages to give to the client and we sit down together and discuss the results.
The Sleeter Group has taken the checklist I developed, updated and improved it, and have included it in the 2007 QuickBooks Consultant’s Reference Guide. Like someone said in an old TV commercial: “Try It; I think you’ll like it.”