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Sacramento QuickBooks, Point of Sale & Cash Register Plus 

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May 5, 2009

QuickBooks Point of Sale Training Video

We have begun adding brief training videos to our website.  The first video address inventory valuation differences that can occur between QuickBooks Financial Software and QuickBooks Point of Sale when a Receiving Voucher is reversed.  Check it out.

Quick Training Videos

May 1, 2009

SDG Business Solutions Selected as Sacramento Results CRM VAR

We have been evaluating numerous Customer Relationship Management products that integrate with QuickBooks for the past year to sell and support.  Our decision to support Results is based on how complete the product is, coupled it with ease of use and overall compatibility with the QuickBooks Financial products.  We expected to have completed product certification by the end of May and will a page to our website dedicated to helping you determine if Results may be right for your business.  Check back soon

April 3, 2009

R7 QuickBooks Patch Fixes Customer:Job Issue

Both QuickBooks and QuickBooks Point of Sale users that use the Customer:Job relationship will be pleased to know that you can now move customers and jobs around without loosing the related contact information.  We reported this problem to Intuit several months ago and it is now fixed.

February 26, 2009

Free Cash Register Plus

Our office has a limited number of Cash Register Plus licenses that we are giving away for free, along with one free hour of training.  What is the catch, you will still have to buy your own computer and hardware (cash drawer, credit card reader and receipt printer) - and we can help with this if you like.  It also requires that you sign up for Intuit Merchant Services through our office.  The Intuit Merchant Service is the only payment systems that is fully integrated with Cash Register Plus.  Give us a call at 916-760-1688 X 101 if you would like to learn more about this great offer. 

February 11, 2009

QuickBooks Online Banking for 2009 Fixed (Mostly)

There was a great deal of debate when Intuit first "improved" the online banking feature in the 2009 editions of QuickBooks.  The biggest issues were that the "Add Multiple" transactions at once and the ability to create a vendor directly from the vendor field when adding a transaction were missing.  Both of these features have been brought back in and seem to be working great.

One feature we still wish we had access to is the ability to use items when adding a transaction.  In the old version, you could do this by selection the option to use the "Enter Credit Card Charges" as opposed to "Use Register" - or you could add it to the register that was displayed and double click the register entry to access the Credit Card Charge and then use the item field.  As it stands now, you have to enter the transaction using what they give you, then exit online banking, open the transaction and modify.  This definitely makes for a few extra steps and we would like to see that fixed.

February 10, 2009

QuickBooks Enterprise Field Service Management (FSM)

If you have a field service management organization such as an Electricians, Pest Management, HVAC or Plumbing service and repair company and deploy employees into the field, Intuit Field Service Management used in conjunction with with QuickBooks Enterprise could be just the right product for you.  This web-based tool speeds up workflow dramatically, with the probability of increasing both productivity and profitability.  How does it do that:

•  Work orders are created directly in FSM in minutes using prebuilt information you design based upon how you run your business.
• Dispatch can easily view the skill level of  each tech, along with their current location and workload for rapid and accurate deployments.
• Included web-based mapping allows you to easily locate customer locations as well as the proximity of your techs.
• Work orders can then be assigned to the appropriate tech using smart phone or blackberry technology and the field tech can deployed to the next best job given their location and skill set.
• Along with the work orders that appear on the techs cell phone, field techs will get a complete service history for the client
• Dispatch will be able to track techs along the way and know which customer they are working, the status of the job, the arrival time, the job duration and even travel time.  If one tech is running late on job, you can easily deploy another available tech with drag and drop from the dispatch board.
• Work orders, once completed, can be billed on site using the products and service already built in your QuickBooks data file, payment can be processed by credit card on site and receipts can even be printed.
• Completed work orders are seamless integrated with QuickBooks so that your accounting and billing records are always up to date

Pricing is subscription based so there is no large capital outlay, and with the price of mobile smart phones, your initial investment may be much less than expected or, in many cases, already in place.

If you are interested in a full product demonstration, give us a call and we will coordinate that event for you.  If you prefer to learn a bit more on your there is great video clip that runs just a few minutes at:

http://enterprisesuite.intuit.com/products/field-service-management/#shuffle_schedules

November 20, 2008

QuickBooks Advanced Certification ProAdvisor Exam & Certification

I apologize that I have not posted to the blog for bit.  I spent a week at the Accounting Technology Conference in Phoenix where i focused most of time learning about integrated QuickBooks add ons to help the fullfill the needs of those seeking more functionality than exists in QuickBooks.  I learned about some great tools that assist with such things as expanding reporting capabilities, customer relationship management (CRM), complete time and billing for professional service frims, paperless office technologies, and expanding the full version of QuickBooks across the web.  In many cases, I am already utilizing and supporting some of these applications and in the near future plan to endorse them on the website.

I have also been spending a great deal of time studying for the QuickBooks Advanced Certification Exam.  Within the world of QuickBooks ProAdvisors, there is a clear division between those that have passed this exam and earned the certification and those that have passed the standard ProAdvisor exam and earned that certification.  In reality, the test for the standard ProAdvisor certification is extremely easy to pass.  The result is that there are tens of thousands of standard ProAdvisors across the United States - some who are well educated and trained and provide quality consulting services - and a very large number that certify with little qualifications for acting as a true accounting software consultant.

On the other hand, passing the Advanced Certified ProAdvisor exam sets the serious QuickBooks consultants apart from those less serious about QuickBooks consultants.  In fact, a current search for ProAdvisors within 30 miles of Sacramento would yield only 8 Advanced ProAdvisors, while a search of standard ProAdvisors in the same area would bring up 131 listings.  Of the 8 Advanced advisors that currently exist in our area, it will be interesting to see how many fall off the list on or shortly after December 2nd when the last Advanced Certification exam expires.  I am pleased to say that I passed the exam this evening and should continue to be listed there.

In summary, I for one, would like to applaud Intuit on the difficulty of this exam.  I know that many advisors in the community are largely displeased and, to their credit, some of the questions are not clear enough to really understand how to get to the right answer.  However, the importance of separating the serious accounting software consultants from the casual ones should be critical to the end user when looking for help and the difficulty in passing this exam should give end users at least some degree of confidence that they are choosing a skilled advisor.

November 11, 2008

QuickBooks & Enterprise - The Little Known New Features

It truly is the little things that can make your job much easier and Intuit has really nailed down a lot of those details we have been asking for for years and some that will just make your life easier.  Among these small improvements you can now:

• Sort on the bank reconciliation columns - image how much easier this will make locating cleared transactions while reconciling bank accounts
• Added new search functionality right within the vendor and customer centers - just type a part of what you need and it will search all fields and return all of the list items that contain the requested information in an abbreviated list
• Edit or remove the "Center" names or icons to gain more icon bar space so you can add items you use regularly
• Developed a meaningful and customizable dashboard with great at a glance information on your business

These new functions and features may seem insignificant, but the added ease of product use adds up to big time savings over the course of the year.  Thank to the development team at Intuit for adding these little touted, but much wanted and needed improvements.

November 5, 2008

QuickBooks Cash Register Plus - Intuit Merchant Service

We have been working on our first installation of cash register (on and off) for the past few weeks.  We did come across a little issue with CRP when inputting our merchant account number from intuit in the Payment window.  Upon entering the number and hitting the Verify button (which confirms the services is working) we got an error message saying that the merchant number is either not activated or invalid. 

So we proofed the number against the information provided by Intuit several times, exited and restarted the program and tried again, we tried restarting the entire computer and opening cash register plus and even saved the "invalid" number and trying processing a transaction in Cash Register Plus (we have seen false failure reports in QBPOS, so this seemed logical).  Since none of that worked, we figured it must be something with the merchant account and contacted merchant services support (and it was about 11:00 pm so we were thrilled with the 24/7 support line).  We brought the rep up to date and he checked the merchant account number and said it was good and should work.

THE SOLUTION FOUND: It then remember that my client had told me that she physically relocated the machine earlier that day and so I asked her to check her internet access.  Sure enough she did not have a connection to the web and, for merchant services, CRP must connect through the web (there is no modem option).  Once we got internet access running, we were able to verify merchant services.  so in the case the error message in CRP which states "the merchant number you have entered is either not activated or invalid" maybe correct.  It may also mean, that your internet access is down.

October 27, 2008

QuickBooks Point of Sale and Sales Tax

For users with simple sales tax needs, QBPOS does a pretty good job.  But the moment you venture into the areas of Sales Orders, Work Orders, Layaways, Exempt Customers and Shipping, things get complicated and the reporting gets hard to manage really quick.  For many users, the features that create the sales tax issues are what influenced their decision to buy QBPOS.  To help out, we are currently writing a book on alternate methods to help you deal with these sales tax issues that will make reporting a breeze.  Where we can't provide good workarounds for setup, we do help you figure out how to reconcile the issues that do come up.  Please check back soon for a link to our Table of Contents and information on where you can purchase this invaluable guide to QuickBooks Point of Sale and Sales Tax. 

October 25, 2008

Installing Cash Register Plus

We are pleased to say that we were the first Intuit Retail Solution Provider to place a client order for Cash Register Plus and began the installation today.  Working with Cash Register Plus was a bit like being a kid in a candy shop (largely because the setup was for a chocolatier) and while the setup was pretty straight forward for me, the client readily admitted that they would have been at a loss to getting it up and running. 

While I have been playing with CRP since it first came out, with this being my first true installation, I volunteered to work through all facets and some of things we came across were a bit surprising:

Bad Surprises:

• We Need "Save and New" - I am a strong advocate of not requesting a lot of changes to this product.  My opinion is that we need to keep it simple - we already have full featured POS products in the QuickBooks Point of Sale line.  But on the short list of needed enhancements was the ability to move from creating one new item to another without having to get all the way back to the button.  It should be right on the creation screen between Done and Cancel.
  

• Cash Register Plus Invalid Product Number - on Intuit products, the license key code and product numbers are attached to a sticker on the CD sleeve, when we input this information it came back as invalid.  Intuit was, of course on top of it and there is a patch for this and a phone number you can call.  Here is a link to the KB article on their website:
       http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/Pages/KnowledgeBaseArticle/1011176

• Cash Register Plus Items Disappeared.  Well, at least we thought they did.  All products, as they are created, must be put in a department.  As we were developing our product list and departments, we decided that one of the department names was incorrect, so we changed it.  Well, then we went to review the items in that department and there were none there and they were not in any of the other departments that we could find either.  Fortunately, after a few guesses at what the original name was, we got it right and the items appeared again.  We then created a new department with the name we wanted, moved all the products from the poorly named department to the new department.  All was good from there.

• Cash Register Plus Department Oddities:
  - There are two system departments; None and Gift Certificates.  At first they started out at the top of the           department.  Later they moved themselves to another location, but not alphabetically and we could not tell or find a way to reorder them. 
  - As we created new departments, they appeared in the department selection side bar, but were not alphabetized.  When it got to the point where we had created a list that exceeded the first page, the automagicallly alphabetized themselves, except for the "None" and Gift Certificate" departments, which assumed the fourth and fifth position on the first page of the department list.
  - Name spacing - Cash register plus has a goofy interface in that it does not recognize that it should either split lines between words or hyphenate them.  Look what it does to department names in the column displayed below.
  
  

  Good Surprises - Cash Register Plus is a great product.  We got a touch screen for this installation and I have to say it was the right thing to do.  Navigation is so easy to learn.  If you have a retail outlet and don't need to track inventory, we think this is going to really be the product for you.

October 13, 2008

QuickBooks Point of Sale - Our Favorite New Non-Feature

It finally loads fast - at last, no more long waits - it is that simple and is that important and is more than worthy of just a menion.  We are thrilled!  Thank you Intuit.

October 10, 2008

QuickBooks and/or QuickBooks Enterprise 9.0 - Did Intuit Take a Step Back in On-line Banking Feature?

There is a lot of discussion right now about the new interface for on-line banking in the most recent release o QuickBooks.  While we do not use this feature internally for bill pay or even tracking our checking account, we do use it for downloading credit card transactions and have long been a huge fan of this great time saving data entry tool. 

Since we don't use it for checking account activity, we are reserving our judgment when it comes to dealing with that side, it could well be that what they have done is a large improvement and time will tell as more of our users make their thoughts know.  However, for those using it to simplify the process of using credit cards in their day to day business transactions, we would have to say that we are disappointed.

First, the add multiple feature has been changed in such a way as to make the vendor matched transactions not appear by default and, furthermore, to review them, it seems you must "Show" them and then review them one at a time.  Furthermore, the typical way in which Quickfind works to locate accounts from the chart of accounts seems broken (although it will work if you first click on the corresponding drop down.  The page layout on our system also seems to have been written to a resolution greater than 1024 X 768.  The result is that is difficult to see the button used to add a transaction to the register once you have coded it appropriately.  Furthermore, what was previously the simple task of creating alias' for vendor names has been replaced with a feature called "renaming rules" which are seeming awkward to use.  To make matters seemingly worse, what used to only take a few mouse clicks, now seems to take at least twice as many and twice as long.

There are built in video tutorials that attempt to teach you how to use the new feature, but they don't seem to help much.  We hope to document the process in the near future and intend to share our write up with our readers.     

October 7, 2008

QuickBooks Cash Register Plus - A Call for a Few Needed Improvements

First, I want to say that I love this product and I don't want to see this become to complicated, its simplicity and level of functionality are its strengths; lets not turn it into QuickBooks Point of Sale.  For replacing a cash register in an environment when where you only need one register and you want customer and item sales reporting with extreme ease of use in ringing up sales and integrating with QuickBooks Accounting software, this software is fantastic!

So, what do we want to see improved:

We want to be able to print bar-code labels so that we can scan items for sale that do not come pre-barcoded from the supplier.  Sure, the manner in which you can departmentalize products and look for them from within that department is great and very helpful - plus the ability to sell "Misc" items can get the sale made and done, but if we could barcode our own products - now that would be really great.

We want better support for receipt printers.  Getting a receipt printer that you have on hand to work is probably not going to happen, you should just purchase the hardware bundle from Intuit.

We want the ability to upgrade to QuickBooks Point of Sale.  This is a great entry level product, but some retailers will be growth oriented and look to Intuit for a path to migrate their data and history from Cash Register Plus to QuickBooks Point of Sale.  We hope this is on the short-range radar for Intuit.

We want to be able to connect at least two Cash Register Plus Systems.   As it stands now, one is the maximum.  Sure you could run two registers, but all the data (customers, items and departments and the history) would all be separate and have to be separately maintained.  I think two is enough, if you are going beyond that you should probably be looking at QuickBooks Point of Sale.

Thanks,

Steve

October 2, 2008

QuickBooks Point of Sale - Change to Remote Store

The scenario behind this story comes down to this:  You currently have an HQ location and want to change it.  

I run into this situation at least once or twice a year and, in general, I try to determine why the change needs to be made and see if we can find some way to leave HQ where it is.  Often I discover that the clients pain point can be solved in some way that is less painful than changing the location of  the HQ data file.  Of course, there are enough good reasons why a client might need to move their headquarters store to a different location that we will go through this somewhat time consuming and painful process.

While the icon has been in QBPOS for year and has appropriate uses, the use has not been to relocate HQ.   Best practice for relocating HQ  as shared with me by QBPOS support out of Tuscon has, for years, been to simply make a backup of the HQ data file and restore it at the new HQ location.  You would then do some work to re-establish preferences, address  issues with order documents, create transfer slips to move inventory and a whole host of other processes.  In general, this process means some of your history seems to be in the wrong location, but things work pretty well on a go forward basis.

Recently, a client needing to relocate HQ spotted the "Change to Remote Store" button which ended up facilitating my need to fully test how this might work out.  My journey started with a call to support which had recently been outsourced to an offshore vendor.  When i called in to support, they assured me that this feature would work.  They offered up some tips about exporting and importing the item list and encouraged me to go for it.  

Given the history of what was considered best practice, I decided that a thorough lab test would be required.  In general, the process was to export the items from the original HQ into an excel format and import them into new file for the new HQ location and then change the old HQ location to a remote store.  While this sounds okay in theory and seemed to work, I am still not comfortable recommending this. Here are a few bullet points about what I learned that concerned me: 

• The function of importing the item list into the new HQ file results in differing system ID numbers for the items - which will result in duplicate items be self created (although without much of the needed information) so they will have to be deleted in HQ. This will also result in some surprising accounting entries in QBFS

• You will still have to do a full inventory counts and update the files appropriately - This will also create new accounting entries in QBFS to watch out for

• Purchase orders and sales orders will remain at the new remote location, but because they use the old item, they will need to be deleted and re-entered so that they use the new item.

• History at the Item level is lost.

• Sales of prior item can no longer be broken down at the department level - it will appear as if all sales were from one department.

• You can never return an item based upon pulling it up from the original sales receipt.  Doing so will create a duplicate item and will cause you problems with duplicate items and item numbers.

·       So, are there any benefits?  Well yes.  History of sales will be retained at the customer level and will be reflected as sales from the remote store – both locations can see this history.  Is that a good enough reason to do this.  I don't think so.  Just keep another copy of the data file on another machine at the new remote location and review history as needed in that file.

What I would still be willing to test:

If you had a limited number of items (say less than 500), I might consider testing another approach wherein you would not export and import the item list, but let them come over from the remote store and update them manually to pickup the missing information (which might even be facilitated by matching on ALU).   

Thanks, 

Steve

September 30, 2008

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions (QBES) 9.0 Available - How To Locate a Solution Provider

With the release of QuickBooks Enterprise Solution 9.0, Intuit has added some Web-based tools to help make your business even more productive.  These features include:

• Warehouse Management ES - Accurately manage inventory in multiple warehouses using QBES and this web-based application.  Real time inventory tracking and order fullfillment
• Field Management ES - Syncronize office and field technicians (dispatch) with real-time updates through wireless devices - One user is included with the purchase of QBES
• Sales Management ES - Capture, organize and share customer information for your sales team - tasks, calendars, qoutas and forecasts.  One license is included with the purchase of QBES

Find a local solution provider to assist you with these and all your QuickBooks needs by visiting:

   http://enterprisesuite.intuit.com/resources/experts/

and click on "Find an Intuit Solution Provider

September 29, 2008

QuickBooks Point of Sale - Requesting New Features

Recently, I received yet another request from a client to be able to add a new payment item to QuickBooks Point of Sale.  Unlike QuickBooks Financial Software, QuickBooks Point of Sale does not have the ability to add payment items.  In this last case, the client wanted to track PayPal as a type of payment.  While we came up with a good work around to solve for this particular situation, I also asked the client to please send feedback to Intuit requesting the ability to create additional payments items.  The response was, of course, why should I bother followed by how do I request new features?.

Why should I bother?

You should bother because the more people request features, the more likely they are to be in a new version.  Now, having said that, a new version is not a patch.  If something were to get added to the program and that was a feature you really needed, you should expect to have to buy the upgrade version of the software. 

 How do I request new features?

It is simple, on the main menu click on Help and select Send Feedback as seen below:

A QuickBooks web-site will open up where you can  offer a product suggestion (or even report a bug).  See the example below:

September 24, 2008

QuickBooks Cash Register Plus is just about to hit the market.  We have been testing it and we love it.  What a great offering from Intuit for the small retailer that needs to track items, departments and customers.  It even interfaces with QuickBooks Financial Software and with just a few clicks of the mouse (or touches of the finger) your accounting is updated with all the pertinent sales information you need.

If you need to track inventory, Cash Register Plus is not for you, but if you are looking for a simple to use application that will give you a lot of information in return, you are going to love cash register plus.