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Why Should I use QuickBooks?

8K views 42 replies 18 participants last post by  eco.lawns 
#1 ·
I used to use QB back in the day when I first started for invoicing. Its scheduling software was not something I liked so I switched to Gopher. Gopher is basic but it does the job.

This year I plan on hiring a couple guys to start working for me so I can hit the bricks and expand and finish up my hort. degree.

I have heard that QB can do payroll and there is also a service I can sign up for to start accepting CC's.

Whats everyones experience with QB and what can it offer me?
 
#2 ·
I too am curious about Quickbooks. I have never used it but am thinking about it this year.
I was looking at their website and was thinking about purchasing QB pro2012. Do i also need to buy the payroll software or is it included in 2012?

Do not mean to hijack your thread just figured since we both needed info on QB better to get it all in 1 place.
 
#3 ·
I am the office Manager and we use Quickbooks. It is wonderful! i can say it is worth the money. We do accounts payable and receivable, payroll and except credit cards also we also keep track of some inventory. We actually where using another site for credit cards but found out the rates AB had and it was much more reasonable. The other great thing about QB is the help file is great. I would defiantly recommend it.
 
#4 ·
I don't like em! It was a bit complicated for me. It's not designed specifically for this business so it makes things a little more interesting when trying to learn it. Maybe if I was willing to give it more then 6 hours to figure it out Id stick with it, but I prefer the old fashion way, just suits me better.
 
#5 ·
I am the office Manager and we use Quickbooks. It is wonderful! i can say it is worth the money. We do accounts payable and receivable, payroll and except credit cards also we also keep track of some inventory. We actually where using another site for credit cards but found out the rates AB had and it was much more reasonable. The other great thing about QB is the help file is great. I would defiantly recommend it.
I signed up through intuit today to start accepting CC's. Since intuit makes QB's I assume that they will run together.

As far as the payroll part...does it update with tax laws like how much should be removed from an employees paycheck?
 
#6 ·
I signed up through intuit today to start accepting CC's. Since intuit makes QB's I assume that they will run together.

As far as the payroll part...does it update with tax laws like how much should be removed from an employees paycheck?
all you need is how many exemptions the employees have and whatever your percentage for workers comp and it figures it out.
 
#7 ·
a good thing with quick books is that any CPA is going to be able to access it, by my CPA accessing my QBs, i save a subsantial amount on my taxes. He can easily double check anything he has questions about, saving a lot of time which equals a lot of my money saved
 
#8 ·
You can buy "QB pro 2012 & Enhanced Payroll" in a box together. SRP $349.00. I got it on sale for $249.00 a couple of weeks ago. Costco has it for $259.00- both in one box. I've been using QB since 1996. I buy it each year in a box together, otherwise QB will charge you $299 just for Enhanced payroll (3 employee limit)
 
#9 ·
all you need is how many exemptions the employees have and whatever your percentage for workers comp and it figures it out.
Sounds easy enough.

a good thing with quick books is that any CPA is going to be able to access it, by my CPA accessing my QBs, i save a subsantial amount on my taxes. He can easily double check anything he has questions about, saving a lot of time which equals a lot of my money saved
What do you mean by accessing it? Without being at your computer how can they see it?
 
#10 ·
Sounds easy enough.

What do you mean by accessing it? Without being at your computer how can they see it?
I have been using it for several years and always learning new things about it, it is a powerful program and can do a lot of things. I really like the payroll part where you just e-file your forms and pay all online. I have just switched to the online version so trying to learn that now.

as is with any program your not gonna set down and be an expert instantly, it does take time to learn it, but once you do, life is easier.
 
#11 ·
I have been using it for several years and always learning new things about it, it is a powerful program and can do a lot of things. I really like the payroll part where you just e-file your forms and pay all online. I have just switched to the online version so trying to learn that now.

as is with any program your not gonna set down and be an expert instantly, it does take time to learn it, but once you do, life is easier.
Sounds like something I should have my wife do. She's more patient and computer knowledgable than myself.
 
#12 ·
Been using QB since 1995, and I would be lost without it. I upgrade only every 3-4 years, not every year. And I do pay for the payroll program each year since I have two employees. My accountant moved to Hawaii years ago, and I can upload my QB file to them directly, or I can send them a cd with the file.
 
#13 ·
Sounds easy enough.

What do you mean by accessing it? Without being at your computer how can they see it?
With quick books you can back up the file and email them or put them on a flash drive. Your CPA should then be able to open it on their program. I upload it to mine every month
 
#14 ·
I use quickbooks and gopher. I track all of my mowing and invoice out of gopher. At the end of the month I simply put the monthly totals for income into quickbooks, really easy. I download my bank statements into quickbooks and it makes it easy to balance my books.
When I had employees it was really simple to compute the taxes and such with quickbooks once it was set up. I could literally put a employees hours in and print a check in a couple minutes.
The payroll feature was great and most accountants have a plan they can get you a better deal with rather than going straight though intuit. (My accountant does, it saves me a little money) it downloads the state and federal tax rates and you are set.
I still use intuit for credit cards. I have a swiper on my iphone that I can but rarely use. I have a form I made for customers to fill out and I can log online and run the card. Easiest way I have found. A card swiper didn't make sense for us.
 
#15 ·
I just switched this year to QB pro myself. As already stated, it takes getting used to, but is not very difficult. I switched from gopher myself. I have not signed up for cc payment yet, but all those features are available. Of course it is extra money for payroll, credt cards etc. I will say that I had to be a little creative when trying to get everything to run smoothly and make all the billing easy. But, it is really customizable. You can even take an invoice template and do basically whatever you want to it, then save it.
I too really liked gopher, but due to lack of support and upgrades, I decided to give it up. The software itself is almost perfect for my needs, but once I started having technical issues, it just became a nightmare to deal with. The main reason to switch to QB is that it is the most popular business software by far. It is not perfect for our business, but it is good for what it was designed for.
I just went back to doing schedules manually. I try to sit down every day or two and enter all services as invoices in QB.
The credit card thing is something I have been really debating on for the past year. As mentioned, I don't think the swiper would do much good. Most people that would use a card are never around when we service. So, I would have to charge their card manually after the visit or at the end of the month. I just want enough interest from customers before I do that.
 
#18 ·
So I got it up and running. I think this is something that is really going to help me streamline my business. I got the email going so I can email invoices, Im having a payment button added to my website through Intuit and overall Im pretty happy with QB.

The only question I have is how do I seperate what each customer pays? On Gopher I could put in customer X pays X amount for mowing and at the end of the week I would input my schedule for that week and whatever I charged a certain customer would pop up.

Can I do that on QB or do I have to manually enter the charge?
 
#19 ·
when i used to have employees i utilized a company to do my payroll processing. Basically I called in every two weeks gave my employees hours and they took care of the rest. Payroll company (ADP) was responsible for deposting all taxes and providing me with the paychecks to sign. Direct deposit was an option but I choose not to do it at the time. Two problems I had with this. First...i had to then have my secretary enter all the tax docs into my quickbooks. Second, the end of the year the accountant the had to change all the mistakes i made.

I then switched over to quickbooks payroll. LOVED IT! Was just as simple. Instead of picking up the phone i turned on my computer and entered the hours and clicked a few buttons. QB would do all the calculations and for taxes, withholdings, vacation time, etc. Only thing I was responsible for was paying the quarterly taxes...all done online by clicking buttons. Accountant loved it to b/c it was all correct at end of year. the best part about it...it was a FRACTION of the cost of ADP with much less hassle.
 
#20 ·
The only question I have is how do I seperate what each customer pays? On Gopher I could put in customer X pays X amount for mowing and at the end of the week I would input my schedule for that week and whatever I charged a certain customer would pop up.

Can I do that on QB or do I have to manually enter the charge?
Im trying to figure that out too. Not having that feature could be a deal breaker for me. I will not enter all of that manually.
 
#21 ·
If you have a mac as I do, I don't think you can save customer specific prices like on gopher. On pc however, you can apparently go into preferences somehow and check "price levels" for different services and assign those levels to each customer. This is what I was told last night. Hope I was misinformed about the mac thing or hopefully I can get a refund for the QB I purchased online yesterday. Entering each price manually is a joke. I loved how gopher would allow each service to be saved at each customers individual price. You could just print invoices with only having to enter dates and services, no looking up prices. You could also have different hourly rates for each customer or for different services. I don't know if this is possible with QB either.

Not trying to highjack, just some of my QB concerns.
QB seems like a good program other this.
 
#22 ·
So I got it up and running. I think this is something that is really going to help me streamline my business. I got the email going so I can email invoices, Im having a payment button added to my website through Intuit and overall Im pretty happy with QB.

The only question I have is how do I seperate what each customer pays? On Gopher I could put in customer X pays X amount for mowing and at the end of the week I would input my schedule for that week and whatever I charged a certain customer would pop up.

Can I do that on QB or do I have to manually enter the charge?
Under "item", add each customers name instead of add services, then add a new "item" that is a service for that customer, but select the box to make it a "sub item" and choose the customer that you want it to be a sub item of and it will be save at what ever price you choose for that customer and you can save descriptions too. You have add a new service item for each service as a sub item for each customer, Huh? Anyway that is the only way I can figure out. Price levels will work the same way but Ive confirmed that feature is not available for Mac.
 
#23 ·
Under "item", add each customers name instead of add services, then add a new "item" that is a service for that customer, but select the box to make it a "sub item" and choose the customer that you want it to be a sub item of and it will be save at what ever price you choose for that customer and you can save descriptions too. You have add a new service item for each service as a sub item for each customer, Huh? Anyway that is the only way I can figure out. Price levels will work the same way but Ive confirmed that feature is not available for Mac.
Thanks.

Im not a computer guy but can you explain why it wouldnt work MAC's but it would for PC's?
 
#24 ·
Thanks.

Im not a computer guy but can you explain why it wouldnt work MAC's but it would for PC's?
What I just explained will work on Macs. Price level is a different feature that is not on the Mac version. Not sure why not or how exactly the price level feature works but if you have a Mac you can do as I explained above. I'm new to Mac and qb but I guess I will use the method in my last post. Once all of you items(customers) and sub items(services) are set up it is very similar to gopher
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#26 ·
What I just explained will work on Macs. Price level is a different feature that is not on the Mac version. Not sure why not or how exactly the price level feature works but if you have a Mac you can do as I explained above. I'm new to Mac and qb but I guess I will use the method in my last post. Once all of you items(customers) and sub items(services) are set up it is very similar to gopher
Posted via Mobile Device
The price level feature that your refering to will not add individual price level to an invoice. If you assign a $50 price level and then charge 2 mowings at $45 each, then you will get a message, " the current price level for this customer is $50, do you wish to proceed?" something of the sort. It is just a warning.
 
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