What a Good Bookkeeper Sees in 15 Minutes That You Might Miss All Year

QuickBooks is super useful but only when it is set up to work with your business, not against it.

I often hear from my clients that QBO is just for tracking income and expenses but the reality is that it can be a powerful tool for decision making. Here is what I look for immediately when I review a client’s books and why these things matter.

What Most Business Owners Miss

·       Lack of customization – default settings are good but are they working for you?

·       No automation – how much time could you save with “done for you” rules?

·       Categories misused – do you understand why some items are cost of good and some are job supplies?

·       No monthly Review Process – errors build up over time and will be hard and more costly to fix later

·       Reports never used or misunderstood – what do all these reports mean for the health of your business, a good bookkeeper should be able to explain them to you.

If your books are ‘done’ but you’re still confused… it’s not you. It’s your setup.

What a QBO Expert Sees Right Away

·       Chart of account bloat – maybe you used the default setting or a generic chart of accounts that isn’t suitable to your needs. This will lead to over complicated P&L and a categorizing nightmare, which leads to misapplied transactions as well.

·       Duplicate or inactive bank feeds – I see this a lot especially with clients who have had high bookkeeper turnover, or DIY books and trying to reconcile when this happens is both challenging and time consuming.

·       Unapplied customer payments- With all the different ways we collect payment these days it’s important to have a process that makes sense and records revenue properly.

·       Lack of payee or vendor names – transactions without this information make it more difficult to track expenses.

The Cost of a Bad Setup

The setup you ignore today is the confusion you’ll pay for later – tax time is not the time to fix these issues. Your tax preparer doesn’t have the time to fix your books at tax time and if they do they will charge you for that time. It’s not cheap. Here are a few more things to consider if you haven’t taken the steps to revise your setup.

·       Missed tax deductions

·       Inaccurate financials = bad decisions

·       Wasted time and energy trying to “figure it out”

·       Frustration when asking for help and getting generic answers

What a Clean, Customized Setup Looks Like

·       Tailored chart of accounts

·       Streamlined bank rules and feeds

·       Clean dashboard with easy-to-run (read) reports

·       Monthly workflows that create clarity

·       Peace of mind: knowing where your money is. EVERY month

Here at Blue Jay we are judgment free zone and with our free review you have immediate insight into what’s working and what’s silently costing you time and money.