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/

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:

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:

The Memo field, the Account field, and the Class are all cut off so you can’t read them properly.  There’s no option to widen the columns to make them readable.

If your version of QuickBooks has a Reports icon above the journal entry, you can click that, select one of the options, then in the resulting report adjust the dates, widen the columns, and print.

A faster way to create a report for the journal entry while you’re looking at the journal entry is CTRL + Y to create the report, widen the columns as needed, and print.

Wasn’t that easy?

Intuitively Yours,

K.C.

503-246-7776

2nd-Site@2nd-Site.com

Yes, there really are tutorial videos for QuickBooks Point of Sale v10. They’re just not in the program itself. Intuit has posted the following videos on YouTube for easy access. These give you a general introduction to fundamental aspects of POS v10 as a starting point for your learning experience. By no means should these be considered a complete training program. There is oh so much more to understand about getting the most from QB POS and keeping your data accurate. But if you’re looking for a basic explanation of how the program works, especially if you’re training a new employee, these videos are a great first step in the training process.

Intuit QuickBooks Point of Sale v10 – An Introduction

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIdO9b_3P8w&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Managing Your Inventory with QuickBooks Point of Sale v10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJHJOg7DVik&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Receiving Merchandise with QuickBooks Point of Sale v10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaw2XdtK6AQ&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Making a Sale & Return Receipts – QuickBooks Point of Sale v10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JklhB9P1F78&feature=autoplay&list=ULcUOG7rpv67g&index=2&playnext=1

Customer Service with Intuit QuickBooks Point of Sale v10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D9Qo2hvV8g&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

End of Day Procedures – QuickBooks Point of Sale v10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k8DS38NtGs&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

As always, please feel free to call or email me with any questions you may have about using your QuickBooks Point of Sale software.

Intuitively Yours,

K.C.

503-246-7776

2nd-Site@2nd-Site.com

Have you ever wondered how you can stop your cashiers from using those “quick discounts” in Point of Sale version 10.0?

You can prevent a cashier from being able to access these discounts, whether intentionally or accidently, by setting up a new security role. Go to Employees/Security. Copy the Associate group, name the copy “Cashier”. Tweak the permissions for this new security role to disallow (uncheck) “edit or discount selling price” but allow (check) “Apply coupons”.

Then use coupons to apply specific discounts to specific items (which you set up and control) instead of using the “quick discount” feature.  Some stores don’t require the customer to have the coupon. Instead, the store keeps a copy of each available coupon next to the cash register to be scanned whenever a discountable item is sold. It’s up to the cashier to remember to scan the coupon.

Warning: Coupons don’t work for items that use the Units of Measure feature so this solution won’t help you if you use Units of Measure. Read my blog entitled ” When Coupons Don’t Work in QuickBooks Point of Sale and What to do About it” for a solution to that problem.

One of the questions I hear most often is “How can we skip all of those extra screens QuickBooks Point of Sale takes us through when we’re trying to print a sales receipt?”

It’s easy.

Go to Edit/Preferences/Workstation/Print Options and remove the check mark next to the Sales Receipt in the Print Dialog section.