Maximize Your Business Efficiency: Advanced Techniques and Best Practices for Using QuickBooks Desktop
BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY MADE EASY: ADVANCED TECHNIQUES AND BEST PRACTICES FOR QUICKBOOKS DESKTOP
As a small business owner, optimized accounting processes help ensure the highest possible efficiency and financial health. QuickBooks Desktop is a powerful tool to help you streamline operations, but its advanced features must be applied appropriately. This guide will walk you through techniques and best practices to enable you to get the most out of QuickBooks Desktop, making your business operate smoothly and efficiently.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Mastering keyboard shortcuts can make all the difference in your workflow in QuickBooks Desktop. Here are some of the most common shortcuts listed for you.
Ctrl + I: New Invoice.
Ctrl + A: Open Chart of Accounts.
Ctrl + W: New Check.
Ctrl + D: Delete.
Ctrl + Q: QuickReport for selected account or transaction.
Using key shortcuts can save you much time in not clicking the mouse so often. 2. Customize Your Home Page
A personalized home page will provide you with faster access to the resources and reports that most of you will use daily:
Include Links: Customize your home page by including shortcuts to regularly used features like invoicing, reporting, and customer management.
Make the Most of the "Company View": This is a snapshot view that reflects all key aspects of your company's finance on income, expenses, and profit margins.
To streamline your frequent tasks, QuickBooks Desktop offers you the recurring transactions feature: Create Recurring Invoices or Bills For clients that you collect payments from periodically or for suppliers that charge you at scheduled intervals, you can set them to automatically occur at scheduled frequencies. Select Notification Preferences You can have reminders for transactions to remind you of dates so you don't miss a thing. 4. Leverage Class and Location Tracking
If your company operates in different departments or locations, QuickBooks Desktop allows you to track classes and locations so you are able to monitor the performance of the business.
Class Tracking: Class tracking helps track departmental projects or service line transactions. You can analyze classes to identify where your profit earners lie, and thus refocus the strategies accordingly.
Use Location Tracking: Similar to class tracking, this will enable you to also track the financial performance by location. Consider having this information for decision making:
Automate Financial Reporting
Reports tend to be tedious and time-consuming to prepare. With QuickBooks Desktop, you can automate your reports:
Create Custom Reports: Create reports that are specific to the data most important to your business. Use filters to only include what applies to make it more relevant.
Schedule Reports: You can schedule automatic reporting for periodic receipt of critical financial information (daily, weekly, monthly). No manual effort is required to track this information .
Implement Best Practices for Inventory Management
If you maintain an inventory, QuickBooks Desktop contains excellent tools that will help you make the process easier:
Use the Inventory Center: You can track levels of inventory, sales orders, and their valuation from a central location and avoid overstocking or stockout cases.
Set Reorder Points: Set the reorder level for products so you will never run out of your needs therefore.
Integrate Third-Party Applications
Add some complexity to QuickBooks Desktop by hooking in third-party apps:
Payment Processors: Connect with PayPal or Square and save time processing payments. This saves on cash flow.
CRM Systems: You'll integrate a CRM tool that tracks customer contact. This improves your service level.
Backup Data Regularly
Save your financial data so your business doesn't lose everything:
Automate the Backup Process: Set QuickBooks to automatically back up your company file, at set intervals. The risk of information being lost will be greatly reduced.
Back Up via the Cloud: You can also back your files up onto a cloud service, and access them from anywhere for even more security.
Keep Current on Software Features
QuickBooks Desktop is continually enhanced with new features and updates. To fully utilize the efficiencies:
Follow the Release Notes: Intuit publishes updates, new features, and enhancements with release notes. Continuously update your knowledge.
Attend Training Webinars: Listen in to live online training sessions or workshops for best practices and advanced features.
QuickBooks Community
Leach onto the pot of knowledge and experience from other users:
Participate in Online Forums: Join QuickBooks User Communities where you can share tips, ask questions, and learn from others.
Leverage Online Assets: Take advantage of tutorials, articles, and videos written or presented by Intuit and other financial experts to learn more about using QuickBooks. Conclusion
By applying these enhanced techniques and best practices, you can make a huge difference to your business efficiency using QuickBooks Desktop. The secret here is to get to know the features of the application, automate where possible, and continue to find methods for improving your financial processes. With this proper mindset, QuickBooks Desktop can prove to be an invaluable assistant on the road to streamlined operations and business success.