A year ago I fell, hurt my knee badly, and needed a cane to get around. I set about managing my own recovery using old physical therapy techniques (learned from prior injuries) to mend my knee. Fast forward a year and my hips start hurting, badly. Eventually I sought out a physical therapist for assistance. The therapist told me I wouldn’t be having hip troubles if I had fixed my knee properly.
Bookkeeping is much the same way. Routinely we see small business owners start a QuickBooks Online file and a year later they are calling us because they don’t know how to fix the mess they made with the best intentions. They tried to fix issues they saw only to make them worse. Below are common issue we find:
Rules Gone Wrong – Bank rules are often set up to automatically add transactions to the bank register without reviewing them. This is a bad idea as sometimes QuickBooks gets it wrong.
Missing Vendor Names – It may seem immaterial, but not taking the time to enter vendor names makes for difficult (and messy) reporting.
Transfers - A common issue small business owners make is using the transfer feature in QuickBooks for transactions that are really payments or deposits. This routine mistake leads to duplicates and is time consuming to correct.
It Takes Less Time to Do it Right
If I had started off by mending my knee properly, I wouldn’t have the hip issue. Using the same concept with bookkeeping, doing it right the first time will save a lot of frustration (and time).
The cost and energy to make your financial information correct is less when you know what you are doing. If you are getting started with QuickBooks, have someone look at what you are doing immediately. You will save yourself time and money in the long run.
Another Set of Eyes
If you want us to “look under the hood” we can check out your QuickBooks file and see where you may need some advice or training. Find out more at www.budgetease.biz.
