Portland, OR

I just received an email from Intuit that is well worth sharing with everyone. Feel free to pass this information along to any business owners you know. It applies to established businesses looking for help expanding as well as for newer businesses just getting started.

 

Intuit News Central has posted a new item, ‘Intuit® Invests in Building Biz for Startups‘

As an official sponsor of the Startup America Partnership, Intuit® is investing $37 million in products and services to promote high-growth entrepreneurship across the country. That’s good for your clients, some of whom may qualify for the Startup America Success Kit.

Intuit’s commitments include special offers and pricing over a 3-year period for Intuit products and services, including QuickBooks® Online, Intuit Payroll Services, QuickBooks Merchant Services and Intuit Websites. These offers will become available to Startup America Partnership member companies.

Startup America’s Success Kit gives startups access to talent, customers, capital, and more. Startups will be categorized into either the Idea phase, Startup, Rampup, or Speedup. All an entrepreneur needs to register is the following information:

• Year founded: the company must be founded in 2006 or later to qualify as a “Startup,” and 2001 or later to qualify as a “Rampup or Speedup.”
• Employer Identification Number and Founder/Employee Count: the company must have a minimum of two employees to qualify as a Startup, and at least six employees to qualify as a Rampup.
• Revenue information.
• Company website.
• LinkedIn Company URL and Personal LinkedIn URL.

If anyone you know meets the registration criteria, please share this link with them to get started.

You may view the latest post at http://blog.accountant.intuit.com/intuit-news/intuit%c2%ae-invests-in-building-biz-for-startups/

2nd Site Business Solutions and The BKN (Bookkeepers Network) Present a complimentary 2 hour seminar on Oct. 21. What’s New in QuickBooks 2012 and an Introduction to PixelGigs SmartSuite.

 

K.C. Courtnier will show you the newest features in the Intuit product line for

QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise 2012.

Learn about the new Inventory Center, Document Center, Global To Do List, Lead Center, Calendar, Contributed Reports, Batch Timesheets, and more!

 

In addition, K.C. will present a 30 minute introduction to the all-in-one business solution, PixelGigs SmartSuite!

Featuring web conferencing, remote access, customer relationship managment (CRM), file sharing, email marketing and newsletters, create websites, and more.

 

This no-cost informational seminar is open to everyone but space is limited to 40 attendees so pre-registration is required.

Register Now.

Have Questions?  E-mail K.C. Courtnier at 2nd-Site@2nd-Site.com.

 

I love using keyboard shortcuts but they are a pain in the you-know-what to remember. It’d be different of there were just a few. I could handle that. But the list in the help menu, as shown below, is daunting, to say the least.

 

So here’s a fairly pain free way to learn them and teach your employees at the same time. Use the note feature on the Home screen. Post one or two new shortcuts each week. Keep it simple. Keep it fresh. Remove old notes. Rotate the messages weekly until you’ve covered all that are important to you. Then start over. Gradually everyone will be in the habit of using shortcuts without the stress of trying to memorize that horrible list!

Common Keyboard Shortcuts:

Keystroke Action Basic Navigation <F10> Cycle focus between window and menu <Ctrl+Q> Log in/out <Alt+O> Open I Want To… menu <Alt> Access text menus <Alt+PgUp/PgDn> Cycle through open windows <Tab> Accept entry and/or move from one field to the next in a form <Shift+Tab> Reverse tab navigation <Enter> Accept entry and/or move to next field in a list and on receipt payment window <Arrow keys> Navigate in and between fields and columns <Esc> Cancels current operation; backs out one screen; exits program from Navigator screen <Home> Move cursor to first column in list <End> Move cursor to last column in list <Spacebar> Select/clear a checkbox 

Cycle through choices on drop-down lists Function Keys <F1> Get Help on current task <F3> Open the Find window for the active field <F4> From lookup fields, access associated list to select <F5> On document: Edit selected item. 

(Pro) In Inventory style grid: Edit selected style item. <F8> Toggle between list and form view of the selected record <F10> Toggle focus between the menu and window <F11> Save (without printing transactional documents) <F12> 

 

  1. Save (record, order document) or save & print (transactional document) 

2. Go to payment screen (from receipt body)

 

 

Control (Ctrl) Keys <Ctrl+F> Open the Find window for the active field <Ctrl+Q> Log in/out <Ctrl+F4> Go to Item List (from documents) <Ctrl+F7> Access Held documents (from history list) <Ctrl+F8> Open installed cash drawer <Ctrl+F10> Print tags (where applicable) <Ctrl+n> Switch tabbed pages, n = 1,2,3, etc. <Ctrl+PageUp> Display the previous record (form) <Ctrl+PageDwn> Display the next record (form) <Ctrl+Home> Go to first record in list <Ctrl+End> Go to the last record in list Alternate (Alt) Keys <Alt> Access text menus <Alt+underlined letter> Access visible options that contain an underlined letter by pressing <Alt + the underlined letter>. For example, to access Copy, use <Alt+C>. <Alt+Page Up/Page Down> Cycle through open windows <Alt+F4> Exit Point of Sale

 

Intuitively Yours,

K.C.

503-246-7776

2nd-Site@2nd-Site.com

 

 

Most people don’t even know there is a basket feature in POS. It’s almost like a hidden bonus feature. The truth is, many retailers don’t need it but it’s quite useful for processing large orders as opposed to small counter sales of just one or two items.

 

For example, an office supply store might get electronic orders from nearby corporations which are then prepared by the cashier when the walk-in traffic is slow, to be delivered the next morning. Here’s how it works.

Select “Make a Sale” from the Home page Navigator screen. 

Click the down arrow in the Item selection field, then click the  “List Select” button at the bottom of the pop up screen.

 

Now you see the item list with this box displayed below it.

 

Just highlight the first item to place in the basket, then click the big blue and white “+” sign.

 

Click the sign again to increase the quantity of that item.

 

Highlight a new item and click “+” to add another item to the basket.

 

You’ll notice that as you add items, they change to red font in the item list so you can easily see which ones you’ve selected.

 

When you think you’ve made all of your selections correctly, left click your cursor in the white area where it says “Items in basket:…” (There’s no indication on the screen that you should do this so it’s truly a hidden step.)

 

That will give you a review screen where you can change your selections before transferring them to the Sales Receipt screen.

 

 

When you’re sure the selections are correct, click OK and then select the green “Put items to Receipt” button. Complete the sale like you would any other sale.

 

Intuitively Yours,

K.C.

503-246-7776

2nd-Site@2nd-Site.com

 

 

Scenario: A store using POS would like to donate a gift card to a local charity.

 

There are several was to record this but the best solution I’ve seen requires only a single transaction and no need for any adjustments in QuickBooks financial.

In POS, create a new non-inventory item called Gift Card Donation Offset. Map this item to the Donation Expense account in the Income account field.

 

 

Create a sales transaction for the gift card. We’ll say the price is $100. Enter a second line on that Sales Receipt using the Gift Card Donation Offset item, entered as a return for -$100.

 

The result is a $0 transaction so there’s no impact on deposits in QuickBooks financial. You can create this Sales Receipt in the name of the Charity since you won’t know the end recipient.

 

Intuitively Yours,

K.C.

503-246-7776

2nd-Site@2nd-Site.com

 

I’ve already blogged about when to upgrade your software, but yesterday someone asked me, “What changes were made to QuickBooks Enterprise in the last two years?” It seems like an easy question but I tend to lose track of when each new feature was added. Maybe you do, too. So here’s a quick summary of the key features that were added to QuickBooks Enterprise in 2010 (v10.0) and in 2011 (v11.0). If you’re using any version prior to 10.0, you’re missing out on these features and can look forward to them in your next upgrade. (http://bit.ly/QBprices )

 

 

The key features that were added to Enterprise 10.0 are:

 

1. Document management (attaching documents to transactions)
2. List Edit – change multiple items or names, etc. at the same time in a list style screen view including the ability to cut from Excel and paste into QuickBooks
3. Additional Custom Fields with Improved Reporting based on custom fields
4. Customize Your Company Snapshot
5. Create a Consistent, Customized Look Across All Your Business Forms.  Access new free professional designs to customize and apply across all your forms all at once so all forms have the same uniform look.
6. Re-engineered Intuit Statement Writer
7. Enhanced Inventory Assemblies – change component items and quantity on the fly
8. Redesigned Report Center – mostly a visual improvement rather than functionality change but it’s very cool

 

 

The key features that were added to Enterprise 11.0 are:

 

1. Customer Average Days to Pay and Sales by Ship To Address reports
2. Quantity totals on key Sales by Item reports
3. Create a Profit & Loss by Class and Sales by Customer Summary report that combines data from multiple company files
4. Track the quantity and value of inventory in multiple locations using Advanced Inventory (Additional annual fee of $699 – order through 2nd Site)
5. Work in two company files at the same time on the same computer
6. Quickly prioritize customers with the Customer Snapshot

 

Call or send me an email if you want an explanation of any of these features.

 

Intuitively Yours,

K.C.

503-246-7776

2nd-Site@2nd-Site.com

 

 

Have you ever noticed that when you print a journal entry in QuickBooks you don’t get the full picture?

Literally – your image is truncated so you can’t read it properly.

 

For example, if your journal entry screen looks like this:

 

 

And you click the Print icon, your printed report looks like this: