QuickBooks is both easy to learn and use. With improvements made in QuickBooks 2014, small businesses can complete their financial and accounting responsibilities with a minimum amount of effort so they can focus on growing their business.
All features detailed in this section are available in QuickBooks Pro, Premier, Accountant, and Enterprise versions unless otherwise stated.
The newest version of QuickBooks is designed help the small business save time managing their finances. For year 2014, users will find many requested improvements that will make tracking your business financials more efficient than ever.
Bounced Checks efficiently records the credit of funds to the bank account and marks the original invoice as unpaid when a deposited payment is returned due to Insufficient Funds (NSF). Optionally, it creates a credit to the bank for the NSF fee and a new invoice to the customer for any NSF fee charged.
→ To learn more about recording this type of transaction, see “Recording a Customer’s Bounced Check,” p. xxx.
With Income Tracker, you can view customer transactions all on one screen. Get a summary of unbilled, unpaid and recently paid transactions on the Money Bar. Use the Money Bar to filter which transactions you see. Use the drop-down lists to filter transactions for ease in working activities in batch. Take immediate action on customer transactions in order to get them paid on time. You can efficiently work in a batch when working with transactions: create new, print, or email in batch. All data in the tracker is real time so the information is right at your fingertips. It is not necessary to prepare reports to see what actions need to be pursued to get paid.
→ To learn more, see “Income Tracker,” p. xxx.
QuickBooks now provides both a Min and Max field for suggested reorder points. Prior versions of QuickBooks included a single reorder point field. Both Min and Max data displays on stock status reports. Additionally, in QuickBooks Enterprise, this new functionality permits QuickBooks to suggest a reorder point to reach the Max level when using Auto Create Purchase Orders.
→ To learn more about how QuickBooks uses these new re-order point fields, see “Auto Create Purchase Orders,” p. xxx.
The Customer Center, Vendor Center and Employee Center all include a new tab that keeps a list of previously sent emails.
New icons on the Menu Bar provide easy access to data performance alerts and company file reminders.
When paying a vendor bill in full with a vendor credit, these paid bills and their associated credit are included on Bill Payment Stubs. If the only transactions are the vendor bill and the bill credit, and they are of equal amounts, QuickBooks creates a net -0- amount check in the checkbook register.
→ To learn more about this improvement see the Tip on p. xxx in Chapter 7, “Setting Up Vendors”.
A Sales Rep can now be assigned uniquely to each job. In previous versions of QuickBooks, the Sales Rep could only be assigned to the Customer record and not the Job record. Additionally, you can filter many job profitability reports by Sales Rep.
→ To learn more about adding a Sales Rep see, “Creating a Customer and Job Record”, p. xxx.
QuickBooks users can now filter Job Profitability Reports (and others) by Job Status, a field that is assigned to Customer and Job records.
→ To learn about adding the Job Status to a customer or job record see, “Creating a Customer and Job Record”, p. xxx.
Previously all bank, credit card, Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable accounts were displayed. This feature gives you the flexibility to display only the accounts you want to view on the Left Icon Bar.
→ To learn more, see “Left Icon Bar,” p. xxx.
QuickBooks individual users can choose to switch to colored icons or a light background on the Top Icon Bar. It also permits the individual user to choose a color scheme for the data file. This is particularly useful when working with multiple QuickBooks data files.
→ To learn more about this and other preferences, see “Desktop View—My Preferences,” p. xxx.
Bank Feeds is a feature that provides more efficient recordings of transactions downloaded from your bank or credit card provider. With improved Renaming Rules, each successive download of QuickBooks Bank Feeds remembers the details you have previously assigned to similar transactions.
→ To learn more, see “Bank Feeds,” p. xxx.
The Choose Billable Time and Costs window can be resized and each column of data can now be sorted. This allows greater flexibility in how the data is displayed on a customer invoice.
→ To learn more about this type of invoicing, see “Time and Expense Invoicing,” p. xxx.
Customizable email templates let you auto-populate QuickBooks data such as invoice number and amount due in the body of the email, helping to ensure accurate communication.
→ To learn more about creating email templates, see “Preferences That Affect Accounts Receivable,” p. xxx
You can attach documents to transactions when emailing the transaction from within QuickBooks.
→ To learn more about adding attachments, see “Creating an Invoice,” p. xxx.
Work more efficiently with access to more transaction specific reports accessible from the ribbon toolbar on displayed transactions.
When printing a report, users can choose to fit the printed report to a specified number of pages(s) wide and a specified number of pages(s) high.
Copy and paste transaction line data to another line in customer forms and purchase forms with the formatting tab on the transaction ribbon toolbar.
→ To learn more about copying and pasting rows of data on invoices, see “Creating Customer Invoices,” p. xxx.
The new user interface available in the Payroll Center separates the details for payroll into three important groupings: Pay Employees; Pay Liabilities, and File Forms.
→ To learn more about working with the Payroll Center, see “Preparing Payroll Liability Payments,” p. xxx and “Tax Forms and Filings,” p. xxx.
The new My Company information window replaces the formerly titled Company Information window. In addition to listing your company’s address, Federal Identification Number, and other items, the window now displays your connected apps, services and subscriptions. From this window you can also view suggested apps, services and subscriptions as well as log into your Intuit Account.
→ To learn more, see “My Company Information,” p. xxx.
Company preference to re-enable the Collection Center, the functionality was replaced with the Income Tracker (see previous topic). For those users that prefer to work with the Collections Center in addition to the new Income Tracker.
→ To learn more, see “Enable the Collections Center,” p. xxx.
QuickBooks Accountant 2014 and Enterprise Accountant 14.0 add even more tools and improvements to empower you to work more efficiently with your clients’ data.
Client Collaborator is available exclusively with QuickBooks Accountant 2014 PLUS, free for ProAdvisors with paid membership or available for an additional fee. This feature is available with QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions Accountant with a paid Full Service Plan. The software stores online inquiries about specific transactions. The client needs only to use QuickBooks 2014 desktop software, and be invited by the accountant to access the transaction inquiry and provide replies.
→ To learn more, see “Client and Accountant Collaboration,” p. xxx.
In addition to batch entering Checks, Credit Card Charges and Credits, you can now also enter Vendor Bills and Credits and Customer Invoices and Credit Memos in a spreadsheet-like interface. Alternatively, copy and paste 1000+ transactions from a spreadsheet and save them at once in QuickBooks.
→ To learn more, see “Batch Enter Transactions,” p. xxx.
Reclassify Transactions now permits reclassifying the “Source or From” account including Balance Sheet accounts. The change can only be between accounts of the same type, such as between one Bank account and another Bank account, etc.
→ For accounting professionals who want to learn more, see “Client Data Review,” p. xxx.
QuickBooks Enterprise users often push the limits of software because of their transaction volume, number of users, or other complexities. In that regard, QuickBooks Enterprise 14.0 builds on its slate of advanced features with these new additions for 2014.
The remaining features discussed in this section are available only when using the QuickBooks Enterprise Software.
Users can optionally add Sales Rep and custom defined fields to the Write Check, Vendor Bill or Credit or Credit Card Charge or Credit transactions.
→ To learn more, see “Customize Expense Transactions,” p. xxx.
This new report provides much needed details for any industry that needs to report revenue based on a percentage of completion computation for their jobs.
One industry in particular, the construction industry, uses this type of calculation to determine the amount of revenue to record in their financials as year-end.
→ To learn more about this report, see “Job Work in Process (WIP) Summary,” p. xxx.
This report provides a more comprehensive view of a Customer or Job potential profit or loss. The report includes: Estimated Costs less Actual Costs less Committed Costs (open $ value on purchase orders) less Unpaid wages to arrive at Remaining Cost.
→ To learn more about this report, see “Committed Cost by Job Report,” p. xxx.
For some industries, inventory assemblies may have subassemblies as components. In order to complete the final assembly, QuickBooks has to have on hand the required quantity of the subassemblies. QuickBooks Enterprise improves the process of working with assemblies by allowing users to first have QuickBooks build the subassemblies. In QuickBooks Premier, the other edition of QuickBooks that offers assemblies, users have to know to build the subassemblies first.
→ To learn more about working with subassemblies, see “Automatically Build Subassemblies,” p. xxx.
QuickBooks Enterprise improves the process of adding or removing components in an assembly. Only in QuickBooks Enterprise can users choose to automatically remove or replace components in multiple assemblies easily. In QuickBooks Premier, if a component is used in multiple assemblies and needs to be removed or replaced, users have to manually edit each assembly that includes that component.
→ To learn more about working with components of assemblies, see “Replace or Remove Components in Assemblies,” p. xxx.
Another related assembly improvement included exclusively with QuickBooks Enterprise is the ability to set a default for handling the Cost field in an Assembly type item record.
→ To learn about this feature, see “Options for Auto Calculating Assembly Cost Field,” p. xxx.
The Inventory Center is available in QuickBooks Premier, Accountant, and QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions. In QuickBooks Enterprise, the Inventory Center includes the ability to edit the cost, sales price, markup and margin without opening the individual item record.
→ To learn more, see “Inventory Center,” p. xxx.
The Auto Create Purchase Orders feature available exclusively in QuickBooks Enterprise will help you restock your items in record time. In prior versions of QuickBooks you would review your inventory reorder reports, and then create a single purchase order at a time.
New for QuickBooks Enterprise 14.0, the Auto Create Purchase Orders will now suggest a quantity to purchase. The suggested Quantity factors in the Quantity Available, Quantity on Purchase Orders and then compares this to the Reorder Point, Max value for the item.
→ To learn more about this feature, see “Auto Create Purchase Orders,” p. xxx.
Exclusively for QuickBooks Enterprise 14.0 is Advanced Pricing. Advanced Pricing is a subscription-based feature charged annually and also requires an active Full Service Plan. The feature replaces the free Price Levels with much more sophisticated automated price settings.
→ To learn more about this new feature, see “QuickBooks Enterprise with Advanced Pricing,” p. xxx.
Price Rules let you automate your pricing in QuickBooks. No more manual updates, easily change your sales prices. With multiple variables you can set prices for scheduled promotions with future start dates, change the price charged by class (i.e. location), extend a price change to certain customer or job types, and set a price to be exclusive of any other specials.
Also included with the Advanced Pricing subscription is Quantity Discounts. With Quantity Discounts, you can reward your customers for making bulk purchases.
For example, QuickBooks can charge different prices when a customer buys 10 to 19 items or 20 to 29 items or 30 or more items.