Archive for QuickBooks Reporting

Bookkeeping with QuickBooks

QuickBooks Reportingon October 18th, 2009No Comments
Designed for small businesses, QuickBooks is a powerful and most commonly used small business accounting and management software in the US. It is used to track expenses, prepare and send invoices, prepare financial statements, track inventory levels, and many other tasks. It is available in customized versions for different industries.

Here some step to think about when using Quickbooks:

Many small businesses work on the cash basis accounting. What this means is you record your expenses when you write the check or charge your credit card, and you record your trade or profits when you take the money to the bank and deposit it into your account. This is the effortless way to account for your transactions.

On the accrual basis accounting, you record income at the time of sale, not at the time you accept payment. You also enter expenses when you receive the bill, not when you pay it. The choice is yours on which accounting method you want use. Quickbooks work on both accounting method.

An online banking service is available with Quickbooks, which enables you to pay your bills automatically and resolve your bank accounts monthly. This is required to make sure you capture all business deduction to minimize your end of year tax responsibility.

Quickbooks other useful thing that allow modifying forms like statement, invoices and purchase orders which, you want to send to your customers. It will allow creating mailing labels and emailing messages to your existing customers that are setup in Quickbooks.

Quickbooks helps to develop reports; you can create many reports for daily management of your business. The most widely used reports are the Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss statement. The Profit and Loss statement is simply your sales minus your expenses over a period of time. When you select to display a report such as the Profit and Loss statement, you are able to drill down from each account to get the source of the amount in the report.

Thus, QuickBooks is a simple to use bookkeeping & accounting software program that agree to business owners to manage their business more usefully.



By: James Lee

About the Author:

This article has been provided courtesy of http://www.hitechbookkeepingservices.com – specialized in quickbooks bookkeeping. Hire virtual quickbooks bookkeeper for your small business.



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Hosted QuickBooks :a new tool for CPA’s

QuickBooks Reportingon October 17th, 2009No Comments
The importance of using QuickBooks for small business is beyond doubt. The usability of this software lies in making the financial reporting of the firms’ business not only more easy but also more important for analyzing trends and performance of the organization. But for small business the options are either to hire a part time CPA for this or invest in  an in house personnel for this.

                 Then problems of always on access, multiple user access and time saving in interaction between clients and the accounting firm was sought to be addressed by QuickBooks online version .Though this version allows for remote accessibility of clients database by the CPAs and also provides multi user features as well as   in house  printing of reports, there is a new alternative in the forms of Hosted QuickBooks made available through an Application Service Provider.

              The basic point is to render the bookkeeping exercise more easy, less time consuming and more secure for Small and medium business. The  benefits of hosted bookkeeping are obvious. First, it makes possible the organization to focus on their core business and not waste time and resources on those aspects which do not have a direct relevance to the company’s operation. Then there is the problem of time management .The essential thing is that using the hosted facility allows the client and their CPA to be constantly in touch and provides the ability to modify the reports in real time. Thus multiple users of the same software can see the changes being made at various terminals even as they are on the move . For CPAs it means more time at their disposal and hence more clients and for the Small business it translates into more easy and hassle proof bookkeeping.

Then comes data security. Many a times, small firms lose their data on bookkeeping as the data is not saved in real time. Hosted Bookkeeping allows for multiple backups and hence more security for the business.

Now QuickBooks Online provides many of the facilities comparable to that of Hosted QuickBooks .So why go for the Hosted facility. First of all, time is  a big factor. While online QuickBooks definitely involves a certain amount of time spent in browsing, the Hosted QuickBooks just works like a desktop application and hence a lot of savings in terms of time. Then there is issue of kind of support being provided by the ASPs. With round the clock trouble shooting being provided by the Hosting facility it scores over the QuickBooks online as it takes any time from one day to many days for the queries to be  reported back.

              Also the hosted facility’s multiple real time backups definitely score over other online facilities available. Now something about different versions of QuickBooks. It comes in a number of versions licenced to on individual users and if     a company wants to upgrade it has to buy a new version. Hosted facilities provide the benefits of online facilities even with a older version of QuickBooks and thus saves a lot of pressures on the CPAs to upgrade to its online version. Besides the Hosted facilities are available by providers such as Real Time Data Services come with a number of Add- ons for all versions of QuickBooks which are not available with other versions or are available on selected versions



By: Susanne Parker

About the Author:

Susanne Parker is a CPA associated with Real Time Data Services and specializes in cosulting regarding hosting solutions for QuickBooks and other tax softwares.



financial analysis

Top 3 Reports Every Business Owner and Investor Must Have

QuickBooks Reportingon October 17th, 2009No Comments
A question I commonly hear is what reports should I use for my businesses and investments? I have several customized reports I use, but today, I’m going to share the 3 standard reports I use – these are reports that can be pulled from my accounting software. I use QuickBooks but these reports are standard in all accounting software packages.

- Report #1: Statement of Cash Flows -

Where does my cash go?

Does this question sound familiar? Many business owners and investors are constantly trying to answer this question as they scramble to make payroll or mortgage payments.

Whether it’s your business, your rental properties or your option trading, the Statement of Cash Flows report tells you exactly where your cash goes.

I like this report because it gives me a ton of information in one shot. It tells:

- My cash balance as of the start date of the report

- My cash balance as of the end date of the report

- My net income or loss for the period of time being reported

- How much cash went in and out from my normal operations

- How much cash went in and out from my investing activities

- How much cash went in and out from my financing activities

Here is an example of how the Statement of Cash Flows report helps me analyze my rental property investments.

When I pull a Profit & Loss report (also called an Income Statement) for my rental property investments, I see a net loss of $10,000. This loss information is helpful in my tax planning but not when I’m trying to assess how my properties are performing.

The net loss is due to large depreciation deductions, which are non-cash deductions, claimed on my rental properties. So, I have to pick apart the Profit & Loss report to figure out if my net cash flow from the property is positive or negative. While I want the information, I don’t want to spend a lot of time digging for it. This is why I l love the Statement of Cash Flows report – it does the work for me!

The Statement of Cash Flows starts with the net loss from the Profit & Loss report and makes all the non-cash adjustments for me. For example, it adds back depreciation. It factors in cash spent buying a new property (which isn’t on the Profit & Loss report because it’s an asset that gets reported on the Balance Sheet). And it shows the cash I spent to pay down the principal on my mortgages. (Remember that if your mortgage payment includes principal and interest, then the interest portion is included in the Profit & Loss report but the principal portion is not).

The Statement of Cash Flows answers the nagging question – where does my cash go!

- Report #2: Accounts Receivable Report -

As a business owner, I want to know who owes me money! I use this report to not only make collection calls, but to study my customers’ habits. Who pays me quickly? Who is very slow to pay me? I use this information to help focus my efforts on customers who pay me without any hassle and better manage those who don’t.

- Report #3: Accounts Payable Report -

I always want to pay my vendors on time. My accounts payable reports enable me to do this. Plus, these reports help me identify opportunities to negotiate discounts with my vendors, such as discounts for early payment. Those savings go right to my bottom line!

These are 3 reports you can access right now from your accounting software!



By: Tom Wheelwright

About the Author:

Tom Wheelwright is the founder, CEO and creative force behind ProVision Wealth Strategists, a full-service CPA and wealth strategy firm headquartered in Tempe, Arizona. ProVision coaches investors and business owners all over the world to financial freedom, creating vast amounts of wealth and business success for its clients. For more information, please visit http://www.ProVisionWealth.com .



marketing

Bookkeeping Business Advice: Use Timesheets or Quickbooks to Track Your Time

QuickBooks Reportingon October 7th, 2009No Comments
How many bookkeeping business owners track their own time when doing business related tasks? Are you one of the many bookkeeping service providers using QuickBooks to record your time?  Can you see your customer gross profit?  Do you put a value to the time you spend on your own business?

 

As a bookkeeping business coach, I tell my clients: “Tracking your time is the first thing you need to do to become a more successful bookkeeping business owner.” It is also one of the hardest tasks on which to keep current, and one that can be often overlooked.

 

When you start tracking all of your daily time – and detailing what you did in the “note” section of the timesheet – you begin to realize where you spend the majority of your time every day.  This will show where your most productive hours are spent, as well as those that are not yielding much benefit leaving room for adjustment. 

 

In my own QuickBooks file, I set up own company as a customer with sub-accounts.  Some of those sub-accounts related to how I run my business are Marketing, Paid Time Off, Education, Administration Time, Letters/Contracts and Bookkeeping, for when I work on my own company’s bookkeeping.  Breaking it out this way has helped me with my hiring process by providing a tool for calculating the administrative cost to run my company. It has helped me determine how many new clients I can take on, and the value of my unpaid time.

 

If you are an individual bookkeeper, you can enable the timesheets in QuickBooks and use them to keep track of your time and run reports.  If you have more than one person in the office, as in my firm, use the QuickBooks Time Tracker, which comes on your QuickBooks Installation CD. 

 

Although highly effective for businesses with more than one employee, QuickBooks Time Tracker is a little more involved to maintain, and could be well worth the effort for a more detailed account of where time is spent. For example, before you start you will need to get licenses to load the software on each computer for every employee that needs access.  Once loaded, you will also set up a timer file for each individual employee and export your customer list into the timer files. And, lastly, you will need one person to export the time out of the timer and import into your QuickBooks file on a weekly/bi-weekly basis depending on where your billing or payroll falls.

 

In future articles I will go into depth on how to further utilize the recording of your time to ensure a more productive bookkeeping business. Watch for “How to Put Value to Your Time with Zero Dollar Checks” as a bookkeeper owner. 



By: Laurie O’Neil

About the Author:

Laurie O’Neil is the co-founder of The Bookkeeper’s Referral Network Inc., the place where business meets great bookkeepers. To get your copy of a free special report, “The 9 Disastrous Mistakes Most Freelance Bookkeeper’s Make in Business (and How You Can Avoid Them!)”, visit www.bkpr-network.com and .



bookkeeping

Quickbooks Tips

QuickBooks Reportingon October 6th, 2009No Comments
QuickBooks is a great accounting program for home-based businesses to track their income and expenses. It is easy to learn and simple to use. It has a great Help file. You do not need an accounting background to be able to generate reports such as a Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet needed for tax preparation and managing your business. I have listed a few key points to consider when using QuickBooks.

Cash or Accrual Basis of Accounting? The first step in setting up your company in QuickBooks is to determine if you will track income and expenses on the “Cash Basis” or “Accrual” basis. Most small businesses operate on the cash basis of accounting. What this means is you record your expenses when you write the check or charge your credit card, and you record your sales or income when you take the money to the bank and deposit it into your account. This is the easiest way to account for your transactions. Some businesses are required by the IRS to report on the accrual basis. This normally pertains to large publicly traded companies and/or some manufacturing entities. On the accrual basis, you record income at the time of sale, not at the time you receive payment. You also enter expenses when you receive the bill, not when you pay it. The choice is yours on which basis to use. QuickBooks supports both accounting methods.

Simplify the Chart of Accounts!! The most important list in your accounting system is your Chart of Accounts. You track your flow of money through this list of accounts which includes where your income comes from, where you put it, what your expenses are for, and what you use to pay them. QuickBooks’ EasyStep Interview walks you through setting up your accounts. The system also offers sample business templates that already have accounts set up for you. You can later delete or add any accounts that were initially setup in this interview to make it match your income and expenses better. Keep your chart of accounts SIMPLE! Too many accounts result in messy reports that are hard to read and analyze. Also, use descriptions for your account id’s, not numbers. If you assign account numbers for each account, you will have to memorize the numbers for fast data entry. It is much easier to type in the name of the account when entering transactions. This is a key timesaver!

Utilize Reports QuickBooks has many reports you can run for daily management of your business. The most widely used reports are the Profit



By: Kimberly Bagley

About the Author:

Kimberly Bagley is a Certified Public Accountant in Texas and owner of Mom’s World Online at http://www.momsworldonline.com where she offers financial guidance, inspiration, organizational resources, and other products to help make mom’s life a little simpler! Sign up for her bi-weekly newsletter at http://www.momsworldonline.com/newsletter.html



accounting

How to Handle Customer Retention or Retainage in QuickBooks

QuickBooks Reportingon September 28th, 2009No Comments
Some customers for certain types of construction projects require you to hold back a certain percent of your total invoice or of each invoice (invoicing only for only a portion of the contract price) until you’ve completed the project satisfactorily. After the job is complete and it’s agreed that you can collect the remaining percentage, you then create an invoice to the customer for the balance.

The procedure described here for handling retainage in QuickBooks will not only help you track who owes your for retention, but also track how much they owe. In addition, it helps to track the retention on your books as an asset until the customer pays the balance:

1.    Set up a new account called Retainage Receivable—go to Lists > Chart of Accounts, click the Account button and select New.  Select Other Current Asset for the account type.

2.    Set up a new item called Retainage—go to Lists > Item List, click on the Item button and select New.  Select Other Charge as the item type.  Enter Retainage for the description, a negative for the Amount (for instance, -10% if your retainage is 10%), and the Retainage Receivable account you just setup for the Account.

3.    Create an invoice for the total % completed—creating an estimate first can really automate this step because you have the option of invoicing a percentage of the estimate amount.  Then add a line for the retainage.  This will deduct retainage from the total invoice leaving the balance actually due from the customer.  If your retainage varies, you can override the % on the invoice.  Make sure your customers know that your invoice total already has the retainage deducted, many customers simply deduct a percentage from the invoices they receive when making a payment.

4.    Memorize a Retainage Receivable report.  Go to Reports > Customers & Receivables > Customer Balance Detail.  Click on Modify Report, select the Filters tab, select Account and choose the Retainage Receivable account.  Click the Memorize button and call the report Retainage Receivable.  If you only want to see the unbilled retainage, periodically reconcile the Retainage Receivable account (Banking > Reconcile) and click on all the retainage that’s been billed—they’ll have offsetting amounts in both columns.  Then add another filter to your memorized report to filter out cleared transactions by selecting Cleared for the filter and clicking No.

5.    Once the job is completed, go to your Retainage Receivable report to see what’s still owed.  Then create an invoice using the Retainage item and change the amount to the amount still owed.



By: Ruth Perryman

About the Author:

____________________________________________________________

Ruth Perryman is the president of The QB Specialists. She is a Certified Advanced Quickbooks ProAdvisor and an Intuit Solutions Provider, with over 19 years of industry experience including 5 years as a Chief Financial Officer. She has been working with Quickbooks since 1996, and specializes in QuickBooks Enterprise and POS installations and troubleshooting. She also provides virtual controller and CFO services.

If you need additional assistance, please call our QuickBooks technical support line at 888-351-5285. The first ten minutes are absolutely free! Plus receive additional free minutes with every purchase – visit our website for more details.



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QuickBooks Tip: Fixing Corrupted Data Files

QuickBooks Reportingon September 24th, 2009No Comments
We’ve been seeing a surge in corrupted QuickBooks data files lately.  Here are some of the signs that you’ve got a problem:

- Error messages, such as “Company file in use, please wait”, invalid protection faults, fatal or unrecoverable errors

- Transactions can’t be saved or QuickBooks suddenly shuts down when saving a transaction

- Incorrect data on reports, such as missing transactions, negative amounts in accounts that should be positive, unbalanced balance sheets, etc.

- Missing accounts on your chart of accounts or missing names on your lists

Not experiencing any of these problems yet?  Press F2 to open the Product Information screen and check the number to the right of DB File Fragments – if it’s higher than 10 it’s just a matter of time.

It’s extremely important not to ignore the signs because once a file is corrupted your company file may suddenly freeze up and won’t open.  In this case, you usually have no choice but to either restore a backup (you are backing up your QuickBooks file often, right?) or send the file to Intuit’s data recovery team which offers no guarantee and often had a 2 week backlog.  If you’re in a hurry (and, really, who can afford to be without their file for 2 weeks?) they do offer to expedited service for $750.

Sound unappealing?  You may want to start proactively working on keeping your QuickBooks data file healthy.  One of the easiest ways is to frequently verify your data.  You can do this manually at File > Utilities > Verify Data but it’s even better if you run it as part of a regular QuickBooks backup.  QuickBooks makes it easy by automatically reminding you to back up your file after a certain number of company file closes. For instance, if you want to verify once a week and you open your file once per day, you can set QuickBooks to backup with complete verification (this is important) when you close your company file 5 times.  You can set your options at File > Save Copy or Backup, select Backup copy and click on Options.

But, you say, you regularly backup all your computer files every single night – why do you need to backup through QuickBooks too?  While this a wonderful practice, and if you ever need to restore a backup you’ll be glad you do, it’s doing nothing at all to help keep your QuickBooks file healthy.  Though you can manually verify your data, why not schedule a backup reminder from right within QuickBooks?  Not to mention you can never have too many backups.

Already experiencing data corruption problems?  Here is a list of things you can do to try to fix it yourself, but you may need professional help. If you want to attempt this on your own, I recommend working on a test file that you save to your desktop.  If it works, you can copy it to your regular QuickBooks file directory.  If not, you’ll still have your original file available to send to someone with more experience workingwith corrupted files.

1.  Click F2 to open the Product Information screen and check that you’re using the most recent release – shown on the top line.  If you aren’t, go to Help > Update QuickBooks to download it.  

2.  Backup your data file by going to File > Save Copy or Backup and selecting Backup copy.  Click on the Options button and make sure Complete Verification is selected.  After QuickBooks verifies your data you may get a message that you you need to rebuild your data.  If so, proceed with the rebuild.  Once done, close your file by going to File > Close Company/Logoff, re-open it, and check to see if the problems are fixed.  If they are, congratulations!  Now just remember to verify your data often.  If not, move on to step #3.

3.  Re-sort your lists.  The easiest way to do this is to use CTRL-W to open the Write Checks screen, make sure your cursor is in Pay to the Order of, and then use CRTL-L to open the Names List.  Click the Name button and select Re-Sort Lists.  Once done, close your file, re-open it, and check to see if the problems are fixed.  If not, move on to step #4.

4.  Verify your data again by going to File > Utilities > Verify Data.  Regardless of whether you receive an error message this time, go ahead and rebuild you data at File > Utilities > Rebuild Data.  If you did get an error message, verify data a second time and rebuild again if needed.  Once done, close your file, re-open it and check to see if the problem are fixed.  If not, move on to step #5.

5.  Create a portable file by going to File > Save Copy or Backup and selecting Portable company file.  Save it somewhere easy to locate like your desktop.  Then restore the portable file by going to File > Open or Restore Company and selecting Restore a portable file.  Check to see if the problem is fixed.  You may want to do this 2-3 times.



By: Ruth Perryman

About the Author:

____________________________________________________________

Ruth Perryman is the president of The QB Specialists. She is a Certified Advanced Quickbooks ProAdvisor and an Intuit Solutions Provider, with over 19 years of industry experience including 5 years as a Chief Financial Officer. She has been working with Quickbooks since 1996, and specializes in QuickBooks Enterprise and POS installations and troubleshooting. She also provides virtual controller and CFO services.

If you need additional assistance, please call our QuickBooks technical support line at 888-351-5285. The first ten minutes are absolutely free! Plus receive additional free minutes with every purchase – visit our website for more details.



quickbooks training

Setting Up QuickBooks For Contractors

QuickBooks Reportingon July 23rd, 2009No Comments
QuickBooks for Contractors is a fabulous and inexpensive tool for managing your construction business and gaining control over your job costs, but in order to use it to its fullest potential you need to setup and use QuickBooks a little differently than you would for most other businesses.

First, and most importantly, you need to setup your Items correctly because they are the heart of QuickBooks for Contractors. You should setup an Item for each level of detail you want on your job costing reports. It can be as simple as Labor and Materials or as detailed as having hundreds of sub-categories for the services you provide. A good example of a middle-ground (enough detail to manage your job costs without becoming overwhelming) can be found in the sample contractor-based business file that comes with QuickBooks:

1 Plans & Permits

01.1 Plans

01.2 Building Permits

01.3 City & Co. Lic’s & Fees

02 Site Work

02.10 Demo

03 Excavation

04 Concrete

05 Masonry

06 Floor Framing

07 Wall Framing

08 Roof Framing

09 Roof Flashing

10 Exterior Trim & Decks

11 Siding

12 Doors & Trim

13 Windows & Trim

14 Plumbing

15 HVAC

16 Electrical & Lighting

17 Insulation

18 Interior Walls

19 Ceilings & Cover

20 Millwork & Trim

21 Cabinets & Vanities

22 Specialty

23 Floor Coverings

24 Paint

25 Cleanup

26 Landscape & Paving

27 Contingent

Many contractors add sub-items for Labor and Materials to their Items which is useful if you want to track those costs separately. This also makes it easier to report only the Labor portion of a subcontractor’s invoice on their 1099.

After you determine which job costs you want to track, you’re ready to add your Items. Go to Lists – Item List, right-click on Item and select New. Job costs should always be setup as Service Items which, fortunately, it defaults to. If you are a contractor with short-term jobs make sure to set up all your Service Items as two-sided, with both an expense and an income account. This doesn’t occur automatically and unfortunately it isn’t very intuitive. You need to put a check next to “This service is used in assemblies or is performed by a subcontractor or partner” for the expense box to be added to the setup screen. Contractors often use a cost of goods sold account called something like “job related costs” for job-related expenses.

Builders, on the other hand, who have projects that span several months or more generally use a work in progress (WIP) or construction in progress

(CIP) asset account because job related costs aren’t usually expensed until the project is completed. For this reason, their Service Items do not need to be double-sided. You should check with your tax advisor or CPA before deciding which one is right for your business.

Once your Items are setup, you need to start using them. Many of the job costing reports, such as Estimates vs. Actuals, require the use of Items on all your transactions including bills, checks, and credit card charges. Again, this is not very intuitive, especially since all these transaction types default to an Expense tab, but look carefully and you’ll see an Item tab just to the right of the Expense tab. In order to get the most out of QuickBooks for Contractors, you must always use this tab. Forget that the Expense tab even exists. It’s also important to assign all your transactions to a Customer/Job, of course.

Lastly, if you want to get the most out of QuickBooks for Contractors always, always enter an Estimate with the level of detail you’re trying to track. You don’t need to send this out to your customers, though you might find that this is very useful. Many users think this adds an unnecessary extra step to their day-to-day accounting entries, but this is one of the beautiful things about QuickBooks for Contractors. Once you enter the estimate, you can turn it into an Invoice, a Sales Order and/or a Purchase Order with just the click of a button (all three are hiding under the “Create Invoice” button on the Estimate form). So, rather than adding an extra step you’ll often find that you’ll end up saving an enormous amount of data entry time in the future plus you’ll be getting much better, more detailed reports.



By: Ruth Perryman

About the Author:

____________________________________________________________

Ruth Perryman is the president of The QB Specialists. She is a Certified Advanced Quickbooks ProAdvisor and an Intuit Solutions Provider, with over 19 years of industry experience including 5 years as a Chief Financial Officer. She has been working with Quickbooks since 1996, and specializes in QuickBooks Enterprise and POS installations and troubleshooting. She also provides virtual controller and CFO services.

If you need additional assistance, please call our QuickBooks technical support line at 888-351-5285. The first ten minutes are absolutely free! Plus receive additional free minutes with every purchase – visit our website for more details.



quickbooks training

How Do I Make Sure My Restaurant is Following IRS Tip Reporting Guidelines for 2010? + 5 Ways to Stay Informed

QuickBooks Reportingon June 23rd, 2009No Comments
As a restaurant or bar owner, you know the importance of staying abreast of tip and tax related laws?  How do you do that?  Tips are subject to the full range of employment and withholding taxes.  They are compensation received for services rendered by your employees.

Here are the Top 3 reasons to make sure you are up on the IRS guidelines for the Form 8027, “Employer’s Annual Information Return of Tip Income and Allocated Tips, with the IRS.”

You operate a business where food or beverage tipping is customary you have greater than 10 employees Your food or beverage is sold for consumption on the premises

For a complete guide on tip income reporting rules from the IRS, read the instructions for IRS Form 8027 and Publication 15, IRS Employer’s Tax Guide.  You may find printable pdf versions of all of the publications listed here by going online and searching for “IRS form _______” with the form number in the blank space.

Here are some other Forms and Reports that you should consider using with your Restaurant payroll:

On the “Employee’s Report of Tips to Employers,”  you, the restaurant owner, receives written proof each payroll period of the of employee’s tips.

2. FICA Tip Credit.  IRS Form 8826.  This tax credit is a “general business credit.”  Your restaurant may be able to reduce federal income taxes by the amount of FICA (Social Security and Medicare) taxes paid to employees on certain tips.  These FICA tax payments have to do with FICA taxes you pay on tips beyond those tips used as a “tip credit” to meet your requirement to pay employees the federal minimum wage.  This is the 45(B) credit.  In order to properly calculation this, it is a good practice to use an experienced restaurant payroll company who has the software and experience calculating payroll tips, and the review of an cpa with restaurant tax experience.

Now that you have details on Tax Tip Reporting, we want to give you practical resources to stay abreast of the payroll tax filing requirements.

5 WAYS TO STAY INFORMED:

Besides understanding the tax laws in detail, it is helpful to have a network of experts to get answers from.  Here are 5 ways successful restaurant owners and managers stay informed:

Become a member of a major restaurant industry association, such the National Restaurant Association or your state organization, such as the California Restaurant Association.  Even your city may have a local chapter.  For example, San Diego has a local chapter of the CRA.  They have mixers and meetings.  Go with the intention of making 10 to 20 good contacts with non-competing restaurant owners, so that you may share industry knowledge. Other times, you can post to the group and get answers the next day. You should also use the services of a good cpa, and bookkeeping and accounting service, often with QuickBooks® experience, who is knowledgeable in the tax laws surrounding the restaurant and food service industry. Specialists in the restaurant industry will have training, tools and education specific to restaurant payroll taxation. And, remember to read and stay informed.  You are on the internet reading this article.  You may find relevant article sites and blogs, bookmark them, and check back once a month for new information.  Or, you can subscribe to RSS feeds from these sites to be kept up-to-date-on the latest information.

We hope this information is helpful to your restaurant business!

For more information, and to see how to better streamline the payroll tax and administrative side of the business, you may contact Pink Payroll.  We can answer a few questions, or provide you with a Quick  Quote.

Tax laws change frequently, so use this information, but make your final business decision taking into account the current advice of your cpa and payroll service.  The information contained herein is for informational and educational purposes only, and not tax filing purposes.



By: Erica Phillips

About the Author:

Erica Phillips is a graduate of San Diego State University, Business Administration. She has received honors for volunteer work, including a Congressional Medal presented in Washington, DC for Volunteer work. After positions as a marketing executive at Carnation (Nestle SA) and other corporate marketing, finance and sales positions, she has been an entrepreneur for over 15 years. She advises businesses on marketing, finance and budgeting as it relates to payroll services. Erica also provides a full range of related services, including On-Line Payroll Submission and reports, please visit www.pinkpayroll.com



business plans

Quickbooks: The Complete Financial Advantage

QuickBooks Reportingon June 17th, 2009No Comments
QuickBooks has transformed American small business accounting by creating an easy to use digital ledger system where incoming and outgoing dollars can be easily tracked. Even the smallest businesses have a tremendous amount of money flowing through them in the form of invoices, payroll, customer billing, and many other items that need to be constantly accounted for. QuickBooks tracks the dollar flow accurately , giving a business owner an accurate sense of how well his or her given business is doing.

Quickbooks also lets you print out checks from different bank accounts so that you’ll never need to order checks from your bank branch again. The software also enables a business to keep track of its inventory to more efficiently manage its supply chain.

In addition, Quickbooks documents can easily be exported to various tax return software programs to make the filing of taxes much faster and easier. Quickbooks even tracks sales tax outlays, putting aside the necessary amount so you’re prepared when the quarterly bill is due. With Quickbooks, missing financial reporting deadlines is a thing of the past. The financial and tax records that Quickbooks creates is also very accountant-friendly. Quickbook records are easy for accountants to sort out quickly. Since time is money, Quickbooks can keep your accounting fees considerably lower.

With Quickbooks you don’t need knowledge of any advanced accounting procedures. The digital “forms” are presented in a very simple, straightforward way. You simply tabulate your expenses – what’s going “out” of your business, as well as what’s coming in (hopefully, this is more fun to do).

Credit card bills can also be directly accessed and paid through the Quickbooks software, and bank statements can be downloaded directly into the Quickbooks program for easy access and record keeping. The QuickBooks software solution has even more added value when you realize that in this financially sensitive day and age, full financial transparency is more important than ever.

QuickBooks allow you to maintain dynamic business reports for all your needs. Balance sheets, sales reports and statements can be printed out easily and ..incorporated into quarterly reports or business records. These reports can also be customized in a variety of ways to suit your individual needs.

Quickbooks also has a feature called information centers that centralizes key information about your company so that vendors and prospective customers can quickly get to know you. You can also customize this to control the manner of presentation and the amount of information that they see.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of all to having QuickBooks is the time you save. QuickBooks lets you devote more time to running your business as it takes care of all of the bookkeeping. The learning curve on the software is quite easy, offering plenty of online support. Through the Intuit website ( which owns QuickBooks) you can access additional downloadable features to expand Quickbooks’ capabilities , enabling you to build your own website, promote your own email marketing program and even create a merchant account that will allow your business to securely accept credit cards .

So with all the above considered, it’s no wonder that millions of small businesses in the U.S. have adopted QuickBooks to optimize their business bookkeeping. With all of your financial records and activities being managed through one software program, once you start using QuickBooks, you might wonder how you ever got along without it.



By: William Babette

About the Author:
This article was written by William Babette. William is a small business owner who has recently started using QuickBooks Checks. And finds that Quickbooks Checks he purchased at NobleChecks.com is the best way to simplify his bookkeeping. Visit NobleChecks.com for the best web deals on custom checks.



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