February 2008
 A Message from Doug Sleeter  

2008 is shaping up to be an exciting year for new products. Robust add-on options such as Fishbowl Inventory and BillQuick continue to extend to reach of QuickBooks and other small business accounting software.

If you missed our webinars, there are still many choices in February and March. We’ll announce more dates soon. Here are some upcoming topics:

View our complete schedule at www.sleeter.com/webinars.

 2008 Sleeter Conference Update  


Announcing the Date and Location for the 2008 Sleeter Group Conference!

The 2008 Accounting Software Consulting Conference will be held in Phoenix, Arizona November 10th -13th at the beautiful Renaissance Glendale hotel. 

Tentative Conference Schedule:

 Monday, Nov 10th:
8am – 4pm: In-Depth Pre-Conference Sessions
5pm – 9pm: Main Conference Registration Reception

Tuesday, Nov 11th:
8am – 5pm:  Main Conference Day 1
5pm – 8pm: Conference Reception

Wednesday, Nov 12th:
8am – 5pm:  Main Conference Day 2
6:30pm – 9:00pm: Sleeter Group Consultant Network Dinner

Thursday, Nov 13th:
8am – 4:00pm: Main Conference Day 3
4pm – Conference Ends

Be sure to plan to extend your stay and enjoy a long weekend in beautiful Arizona. The Renaissance Glendale will extend The Sleeter Group discounted hotel rate through the weekends prior to and following the conference.

Attendee registration will open in early May! Please sign up now to receive a flyer about the conference (if you do not receive mailings from us already).

Exhibitors interested in showcasing their small business accounting software solution: Exhibitor registration will open in early March. Please click here for more information.

 Fishbowl VAR of the Year - Marilyn Sudbeck  

Fishbowl InventoryFishbowl Inventory and The Sleeter Group are pleased to announce the Value Added Reseller of the Year for 2007: Marilyn Sudbeck of Lakewood, CO joined the Fishbowl VAR program in 2007 and quickly distinguished herself with her ability and willingness to both successfully learn and market the software. In less than a year, Marilyn managed to resell more software than any other VAR in the history of Fishbowl Inventory. In appreciation of her great efforts, Fishbowl Inventory is sending Marilyn and one guest for a four night tour of the Grand Canyon.

Congratulations Marilyn!

Membership in the Fishbowl Inventory VAR program is a free benefit of membership in the Sleeter Group Consultant Network. To learn more about successful Fishbowl VAR program, read the following article.

 BillQuick User Conference Announcement  

The Sleeter Group recommends the Annual BillQuick User Conference: Keys to Success, June 26-27, 2008 at the Tuscany Suites and Casino in Las Vegas. Doug Sleeter will be speaking at the conference about using BillQuick in your consulting practice.

BQU ConferenceThis conference will include :

  • BillQuick Breakout Sessions
  • Partner Expo
  • Hands-on Training
  • Networking Events
  • Fun Events and Activities
  • Unlimited Opportunities

Register before February 29, 2008 and save $50 per attendee. (Regular Price is $595 per attendee). Attendance is limited, so you will want to register for the 2008 Keys to Success Conference as soon as possible.

 Chuck Vigeant's ODBC Reporting Corner  

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions has released three new web based Business Intelligence dashboards that will drastically change the concepts about reporting and data analysis we have come to know from QuickBooks over the years.

Chuck participated in this offering as an engineering consultant, and provided assistance in creating the data requirements, raw database queries, and testing methodology. He is, therefore, taking a detour from ODBC technology for this month’s article to give us some insight into the Business Intelligence world as it relates to QuickBooks users.

For more information, you can read the full article at the link below.

 Custom Reporting For QuickBooks Book Camps  

AccountigrateThe Sleeter Group has collaborated with ACCOUNTiGRATE to sponsor their successful Custom Reporting for QuickBooks Boot Camps. Sleeter Group members will be entitled to a 15% discount on any of his Boot Camp offerings (An additional 10% for early bird registration).

There are 4 days of specific training available from April 29th thru May 2 (8am to 5pm each day) on the following topics:

  • April 29, 2008 – ODBC Boot Camp
  • April 30, 2008 – ODBC and Excel® Boot Camp
  • May1 & 2 – Two Day ODBC and Crystal Reports® Boot Camp

These are hands on training sessions with a limited class size, dealing with real world examples, and are taught by Chuck Vigeant for all 4 days.

Chuck has lectured at our conferences for several years now, and this would be a good opportunity for those of you clamoring for more detail, to attend and pick his brain on any custom report related topic. His company ACCOUNTiGRATE, has created custom reporting solutions for thousands of customers, and maintains a huge library of custom reports.

Here are the links to the Boot Camp Specifics

Boot Camp Flyers
Boot Camp Syllabus

Make sure you tell them that you are a Sleeter Group member!

 The Sleeter Group Webinar Series  

Sleeter Group WebinarsSleeter Group Webinars provide accounting professionals and QuickBooks users with high quality, consultant-level materials and instruction. All within an online forum that is quick, convenient, and competitively priced!

We have posted a free webinar, given by Doug Sleeter on What’s New with QuickBooks 2008. This one hour webinar offered live on December 5th, 2007. (Windows Media player will launch the webinar when you click the link above. If you have a MAC, select an application to play the .wmv file).

We have many exciting and information-packed webinars coming up in the next few weeks.

View our complete schedule at www.sleeter.com/webinars.

 QuickBooks ProAdvisor Alert  

Make sure you download the QuickBooks 2008 R4 update, if you haven’t already. This update fixes a problem with bank reconciliations in the Accountant’s Copy. Click the link below to manually download the latest patch.

 Tricks of the Trade  

Every day, members of The Sleeter Group Consultants Network tackle the day-to-day problems of their clients in the real world. The following is an example problem and solution that surfaced this month on our Sleeter Group Consultants Network E-Mail Group.

Setting Up A New QuickBooks File When Client Has Assisted Payroll

Melanie posted the following email: Well, I’m not happy. I just started to create a new file and immediately ran into a warning message stating that because my clients has ASSISTED PAYROLL, I can’t start a new file.

Not being easily defeated, I called Intuit and spoke with somebody from Assisted Payroll. According to support, if I want to start a new file using the same company EIN, then I have two choices:

  1. Stop your existing Assisted Payroll subscription and then re-apply after creating your new data file, or
  2. Request a Disaster Recovery from Intuit payroll. This will create a new file that contains only payroll-related information: (a) payroll items, (b) only those accounts within the Chart of Accounts that are associated with payroll (i.e. Payroll Liabilities, Payroll Expenses). There is no charge for this.

Once the new file is created, the support rep said it would be necessary to enter everything manually (including customer list, vendor list).  She also noted that adding account numbers or changing account numbers once the file was created would be no problem.

Is it true that these are the only options for people using Assisted Payroll? I wish there was a simpler solution.

Bonnie Nagayama responded: Disaster recovery is the right answer. You can use third party tools to transfer in the lists and transactions so it’s possible to avoid entering manually.

Melanie continued: So may I assume I need to:

  1. Request disaster recovery which leaves an empty file containing ONLY those accounts required for use by Assisted Payroll (question: if they use the default Payroll Liabilities and Payroll Expenses accounts, can the payroll items be re-linked to different – more specific accounts?)
  2. Take the resulting "empty" file and use the standard .iif files for importing COA, customers, vendors, etc.
  3. Will I need to manually re-create any memorized transactions or reports?

Bonnie Nagayama responded to each item above: 

  1. As you go through the recovery process, you have the option to QuickAdd or set up payroll items so you can either take the time as you go to set them up, or go back and edit them once the download process is complete.
  2. Yes and/or any other file transfer tools to move the lists and transactions as needed to reconcile the file.
  3. Yes, none of the tools can transfer memorized transactions and reports between data files.  You will also need to set up users/passwords, preferences, etc.
Melanie: What will happen because of the fact that the company has been forced to run payroll out of the old company file?

Bonnie Nagayama: When the recovery process is started the tech should be able to choose for you the time period to be downloaded, i.e. you can download 2007 to current or just 2008.  That way the G/L was correct we just lost the ability to do payroll reports for the previous year.

Melanie: Can they reproduce in the new file the 2008 payroll that’s been created and then NOT transmit it to Intuit (I assume that transmitting it would double it and reports, W-2’s would be overstated)?

Bonnie Nagayama: You will not want to re-create the payroll or it will be transmitted.

Editors Note: Bonnie Nagayama is conducting a webinar on this topic entitled File Conversion In Depth.