What’s New in QuickBooks 2015?
Posted on January 1, 2015 byIt is the goal of this column to answer questions about QuickBooks® and how it is used in the REI arena. Know how to record transactions in the proper way and have your set of books in good shape when it comes time for taxes. It is our intention to do this by you the members submitting questions to Karen@smallbusinessadvisor.biz, and getting answers here in this column.
QuickBooks Pro 2015
If you have QuickBooks 2013 or 2014 and are thinking about purchasing 2015 version – there are a few changes to this update. I will point out just a couple here but there are many more.
The same as 2014, QuickBooks Pro 2015 has a “What’s New”yellow bar on the side of many of the windows that have new features. When you click on the bar an overlay feature will pop up to indicate where the new features are. Most of these are in your shortcut windows. Once you have viewed them and are comfortable that you know the features you can turn off the yellow bar under the “Help” drop down list. You can always turn it back on if you need to refresh your memory about a feature.
When you call up a report there are tabs at the top to do various tasks. A new tab COMMENT ON REPORT allows you to go to a single line or all the lines and each column to put a comment/questions directly into the report- at the bottom of the report you can expand the list of comments/questions and send/print the report for the person who will be able to respond easily.
On the Home Page there is an additional tab called INSIGHTS this works best in accrual format. This page provides a quick overview of how your business is doing. You can customize this page for the information that you want to see at a glance.
In the CUSTOMER CENTER and VENDOR CENTER you can select the Notes tab and collect data when you are tracking specific information on a customer e.g. collection calls – make notes on what the tenant has told you when the payment will be made or other important conversation you have had. You can then “pin” the note so you can see it easily when you open that customer/vendor. Also you can now access the INCOME TRACKER from the customer center
QuickBooks Pro 2015 continues to have the INCOME TRACKER short cut. This window lets you visually see at a glance and in detail who has open invoices and how much money is outstanding. At a quick view you can see totals for unbilled estimates, unpaid invoices, overdue invoices and paid in the last 30 days. There is a detailed list below these headers. While this gives you a quick view but if you are making collection calls I would run an “Open Invoice” report and/or a “Collections” report to actually make your calls for payments.
The LEAD CENTER is in the drop down for the Company. In this window you can add a prospect with all their information and notes without using up your customer list space. When they actually become a customer just a click of a button will move them over to Customer List and you are set to go with all their information in place if you entered it all in the Lead Center. You can mark them as to Hot to Cold and keep specific information in the notes so when you follow up you know what your last conversation was. You can add them to the calendar that is in QuickBooks to know when to do the follow up.
There is an APP CENTER which recommends a number of applications that will work with QuickBooks. Such as: Mavenlink, e-Billity, Intuit DataProtect, Sales Force for QuickBooks and many more. The idea here is to provide you with additional tools to help you be more efficient in running your business.
If you have any questions on QuickBooks 2015 or to help you decide if you need to upgrade, please feel free to call 770-356-1234 and ask for Karen.
Karen Bershad is The Small Business Advisor. Most small business owners have a challenge handling all the different areas of running a business. The accounting can be a challenge, particularly if the software seems overwhelming. The Small Business Advisor is what you may need to get you to the next level of your business. We work at your office or provide off site assistance in getting things under control by providing a wide variety of services that are specifically for the small business.
