Portland, OR

If you’re well informed, our working relationship will be a success. It’s that simple. That’s why 2nd Site is an open book and works hard to continually educate you on the power of QuickBooks as a business tool. Here are some of the more common questions I receive about QuickBooks and about working with me. Just click on one of the questions below for the answer. If you have a question that isn’t represented here, feel free to call or email me at 503-246-7776 or 2nd-site@2nd-site.com.

• Why should I purchase through 2nd Site instead of directly from Intuit?
• How is Point of Sale better than an electronic cash register?
• How is Point of Sale different from QuickBooks Financial Software?
• Do I have to use QuickBooks Financial Software in order to use Point of Sale?
• What kinds of retailers use Point of Sale?
• How do I process credit and debit cards with Point of Sale?
• What happened to Cash Register Plus?
• What are your top 5 tips for my QuickBooks software?
• How is QuickBooks Premier different from Pro and which “flavor” should I buy?
• I see you’re located in Oregon. I’m in another state (or part of the world). Can you still help me with QuickBooks?
• I have a QuickBooks question. Can you help me without an appointment?
• K.C., can you describe your typical client?
• What are some examples of actual jobs you’ve done?
• Tell me about some of your larger accounts.
• What other kinds of businesses have you helped?
• It sounds like you can help just about anyone.
• I’m still undecided about hiring you. After all, I don’t know anything about you personally.
• What steps can I take to protect my business from employee fraud and embezzlement?
• I guess that answers all of my questions. If I think of any others, what’s the best way to reach you without feeling obligated?

Why should I purchase through 2nd Site instead of directly from Intuit?

• 2nd Site strives to provide highly competitive prices and adds personalized value not possible from big box stores or web stores or direct sales call lines.
• You’ll have an inside edge because 2nd Site deals with exclusive top level sales and support staff at Intuit not accessible by the general public. Should anything go wrong with your order, such as defective product replaceable under the Rapid Replacement guarantee, or the need to return it under the 60-day money-back guarantee clause, 2nd Site will handle it for you through this preferred channel.
• You won’t have to pay shipping charges.
• Buying from 2nd Site supports your local economy.

How is Point of Sale better than an electronic cash register?

Point of Sale handles sales transactions like a cash register, but also tracks complete inventory, sales and customer information to give retailers better control over their business. It quickly and easily transfers sales data into QuickBooks Financial Software, saving time and reducing manual bookkeeping errors.

How is Point of Sale different from QuickBooks Financial Software?

QuickBooks Financial Software is small business accounting software used by more than 2.6 million businesses. Point of Sale is retail management software designed to meet the special inventory, sales and customer tracking needs of retailers. When used together, they create a complete retail small business management suite, including financial accounting.

Do I have to use QuickBooks Financial Software in order to use Point of Sale?

No. Point of Sale works by itself to easily and accurately track and manage your clients’ inventory, sales and customer information. It can also be used together with QuickBooks Financial Software ² to create a complete retail management suite, including financial accounting. Growing retailers may find that QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions Retail Edition best meets their needs.

What kinds of retailers use Point of Sale?

Point of Sale is ideal for many types of retailers. Here are a few examples:
Specialty hard goods retailers:

• Jewelry
• Optical
• Lumber and Building
• Floor Covering
• Hardware
• Paint and Wallpaper
• Drapery and Upholstery
• Sporting good
• Housewares
• Computers & electronics
• Music and video
• Musical instruments

Specialty soft goods retailers:

• Clothing, footwear and accessories
• Luggage and leather
• Furniture and home furnishings
• Sewing and fabric

General merchandise:

• Catalog and Mail Order
• Gift and souvenir
• Game and hobby
• Nursery and garden

How do I process credit and debit cards with Point of Sale?

Point of Sale can process credit and debit card payments quickly and easily without a separate credit card terminal. ³ Just swipe the customer’s card through an optional QuickBooks-Approved credit card reader and Point of Sale captures the authorization from QuickBooks POS Merchant Services, enters the authorization code and card number into the sales transaction, and prints out an itemized receipt for the customer to sign. QuickBooks POS Merchant Service is required. Contact me to get the best discounts when applying for your merchant services account.

What happened to Cash Register Plus?

In October 2010, Cash Register Plus was replaced with a free version of Point of Sale. It provides similar functionality for retail stores that need only one cash register, don’t need to track inventory and want an easy to learn program that integrates with QuickBooks. It’s great for small sandwich shops, resale shops, consignment shops, dry cleaners, florists, or any store whose inventory either turns over too rapidly to quantify or who has no actual inventory.Best of all, the data file can be seamlessly upgraded to POS Basic or POS Pro when the store is ready to use the additional features those solutions can provide.

What are your top tips for my QuickBooks product?

Click on the product name below to see the answer!

• QuickBooks Pro
• QuickBooks Premier
• QuickBooks Enterprise
• QuickBooks Point of Sale

How is QuickBooks Premier different from Pro and which “flavor” should I buy?

I hope you’re ready for a long answer!

Key Advantages of Premier compared to QuickBooks Pro

• New management and planning tools help you achieve better results
• Builds a business plan and forecast based on your finances
• Analyzes your finances and makes expert recommendations
• Tracks sales orders
• Tracks components and finished goods for more accurate inventory management
• Flexibility to work from home or the road via the Internet
• Easy upgrade automatically transfers your existing QuickBooks data
• Beginning with 2011 version, allows up to 5 simultaneous users versus 3 for Pro

QuickBooks Premier: Contractors Edition

Key Advantages

• Custom job-costing reports let you see which jobs are making money-and which are not.
• Track change orders and get client approvals in writing.
• Nine reports specialized for contractors keep you on top of your business.
• Contractor Menu and Navigator give you one-click access to your key contractor activities and reports.
• Contractor-customized help and tips to help you get more from QuickBooks.
• More than 100 new form designs and more customization options.
• Automatically converts your existing QuickBooks files.
• Works like other QuickBooks products, so you can be assured it’s fast and easy-to-use.
• Includes everything in QuickBooks Pro and Premier.

QuickBooks Premier: Professional Services Edition

Key Advantages

• Create and track invoices in QuickBooks, then send the data to Word documents that look just like those you used to create manually. No need to retype any information.
• Get instant access to contact information, balances and transaction histories for any client, all in one window.
• Set multiple hourly billing rate levels for your employee, client or service, and apply them to invoices any way you choose.
• Gain insight into your business with 17 Professional Services reports, including reports that keep you on top of your projects and show where you’re making or losing money.
• Streamline financial tasks by turning estimates or proposals into invoices with one click, and emailing them as PDF files.

QuickBooks Premier: Manufacturing and Wholesale Edition

Key Advantages

• Create Bills of Material to easily track assembled products and their associated costs including both material and non-material costs.
• 11 Manufacturing and Wholesale reports show where you where you’re making money and where you aren’t. See which items are on your shelves, and which out-of-stocks are costing you sales.
• Price your products more profitably with tools that let you create up to 100 pricing levels per item.
• The new Sales Order Fulfillment Worksheet shows all your open sales orders. And, it helps you select the orders to ship based on the criteria that are important to you.
• The new, simplified QuickBooks Home Page gives you instant access to bills, bank accounts, customer and vendor data, and reports. Pay bills, print checks and track expenses with ease.

QuickBooks Premier: Nonprofit Edition

Key Advantages

• Nonprofit Edition organizes your financial information the way your Board of Directors, donors, and the IRS want to see it.
• Automatically track your organization’s finances with the Nonprofit Chart of Accounts as you enter donations, fund programs, and pay bills. Plus, create a budget automatically.
• Finish basic accounting tasks faster. Get direct access to bills, bank accounts, pledges, donations, vendors, and reports from the new simplified Home Page.
• Streamline donation processing and fundraising. Turn pledge forms into thank you letters and receipts with just a few clicks. See contact information, pledge status and contribution history for any donor at a glance in the new Customer Center.
• Generate any of the 8 nonprofit-specific reports with one click.

I see you’re located in Oregon. I’m in another state (or part of the world). Can you still help me with QuickBooks?

Yes. I can provide remote support to virtually anyone anywhere in the world. I have clients as far away as Barcelona, Spain.

I have a QuickBooks question. Can you help me without an appointment?

Sure. Send me an email or call me. If I’m at a client’s office, you’ll need to leave a voice mail message. Be sure to say your phone number clearly and let me know the best time to reach you. If you’re not in the Pacific time zone, tell me what time zone you’re in. I have clients as far away as Barcelona, Spain.

K.C., can you describe your typical client?

My clients vary from large enterprises to sole proprietors. One is a franchise distributor who sent me to each franchise location in three states to ensure that all managed their books in the same efficient way. The only thing typical of my clients that they need a hand with some aspect of QuickBooks, and hiring me is the easiest and most cost effective way for them to solve their problem.

What are some examples of actual jobs you’ve done?

• A landscaping company asked me to review their QuickBooks data for the past year, make corrections, improve their set-up to provide more meaningful results, and teach them how to process their data more efficiently.
• A company using QuickBooks Enterprise needed to upgrade their software. I helped them process the purchase through Intuit, then installed the new software on their network server and 15 computers.
• A retail store has me visit monthly to reconcile the monthly bank and credit card statements, as well as look for errors made by employees.
• An attorney asked me to train her new employee after the previous office manager quit unexpectedly.
• A property investment company inherited a retail store from a tenant who defaulted on their lease and left town. They needed someone who knew Point of Sale to perform a physical inventory, organize the stock, clean up the POS data, and get the store ready to sell. I brought in a whole team of QuickBooks ProAdvisors and we completed the entire job in a single afternoon.
• A large winery using Enterprise suffered data corruption and Intuit couldn’t recover the data file. They advised it was too far gone. The company contacted me, I flew to their state later that same day. 24 hours later they were back in business after I used special techniques to stabilize, recover, and rebuild the data file. I showed their IT specialist and staff ways to avoid future problems.

Tell me about some of your larger accounts.

A tax consultant referred me to her client to verify that all of the year-end payables had been clearly identified. In three hours I located over $80,000.00 in accounts payable that hadn’t been entered into QuickBooks, saving the client over $13,000.00 in income taxes that year.

On two occasions I reconstructed accounting records for corporations whose primary manager had embezzled funds and doctored the books. One was a manufacturing company and the other was a medical facility. In each case nearly $100,000 was siphoned out of the company over a period of one to two years. I reviewed historical transactions for accuracy and validity, comparing computerized records to bank account statements and paper trails. Each company invested in having me create new, accurate records. I showed them simple techniques to avoid being victimized again.

A franchise distributor hired me to visit each of their franchises in three states to ensure all were using QuickBooks correctly. Look at my testimonial page to read a letter expressing her appreciation.

A publisher asked how he could quickly implement a way to process sales in nine shopping mall kiosks he was about to open. I contacted one of Intuit top employees to expedite setting up GoPayment accounts for each kiosk so they could process credit cards over their cell phones.

What other kinds of businesses have you helped?

It sounds like you can help just about anyone.

I can help people in just about any type of business, but some fields are highly specialized. Above all, I consider what’s best for the client. If I know someone who can provide a better solution for the prospective client than I can, I say so. That’s just plain good sense and right living. If I don’t feel I’m a good match for a job, I’ll turn it down and refer the customer elsewhere. Every business transaction should be a win-win situation.

I’m still undecided about hiring you. After all, I don’t know anything about you personally.

I have over 30 years of business experience in insurance, accounting, computer network management, software training, and top-level corporate management. I’m particularly well-versed in manufacturing inventory control issues. My degree is in Management & Professional Development. As a Certified QuickBooks Pro Advisor, I’m one of the only people in the Pacific Northwest holding all four Intuit certifications: QuickBooks ProAdvisor, QuickBooks Advanced ProAdvisor, QuickBooks Enterprise ProAdvisor and QuickBooks Point of Sale ProAdvisor. I’ve owned and operated two small businesses for a total of 18 years. When you contact me so we can decide if my services are appropriate for your situation, I’ll provide you with any additional information you require. Then you can decide how you want to proceed. Fair enough?

What steps can I take to protect my business from employee fraud and embezzlement?

According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, the average fraud in companies with fewer than 100 employees causes $127,500 in losses. In comparison, the average losses for large businesses are just $97,000. The ACFE claims that small businesses are at a greater risk because they often are lax about introducing basic accounting controls. To protect yourself and your business, keep an eye out for:

• Deposits that never appear on the bank statement.
• Missing checks or duplicate check numbers.
• Bogus names on the vendor, employee, customer or other names lists.
• Vendors complaining they never received your check or customers complaining you never posted their payment. Both can mean the check was stolen.
• Strange accounts receivable or payable balances, especially on a cash basis balance sheet.

You can take the following steps to reduce the opportunity for employee fraud:

• In QuickBooks®, assign appropriate user access rights and use passwords for each employee.
• In Point of Sale, require sales personnel to login using their own user name and password to record each sale. Set the preferences to automatically log out the user after completing every sale. This creates true monetary tracking by user name and prevents anyone from recording transactions under someone else’s name.
• Track where every check goes including voided checks. Use the Missing Checks report.
• Bank statements should not be sent to the company address unless the owner always picks up the mail. Any employee who picks up the mail, opens the mail, pays the bills, records customer payments, or makes bank deposits should not be the person who reconciles the bank statements.
• Know personally how each employee’s job tasks should be done and review their work regularly to verify their performance and accuracy.

I guess that answers all of my questions. If I think of any others, what’s the best way to reach you without feeling obligated?

Email me at 2nd-site@2nd-site.com