Advanced Features

QuickBooks Pro can be used to manage many different files. In your case, you could have a QuickBooks file called "Business" and a completely separate QuickBooks file called "Home" to manage the separate checkbooks. For more information on creating a new company file, click on File in the menu bar, then New Company.

QuickBooks has tools that help you track all of the inventory. If you're conscientious about making use of them, you should have a good sense of the state of your inventory, wherever you store it. Here’s how to do it:

1. First, you have to tell QuickBooks that you will be selling products. It asks for this information during the EasyStep interview, but if for some reason you haven't set this up, you can still do it.
2. Next, check your Chart of Accounts to see if you need to add any accounts to meet your inventory needs.
3. Then you'll have to define your company's products.
4. QuickBooks also lets you create assemblies, groups of items that are sold together as a kit.

The desktop versions of QuickBooks can help you manage your bills so you're always aware of what's coming up and don't get any nasty surprises. This keeps both you and your vendors happy, and minimizes the chance of affecting your credit report adversely. You can also maximize cash flow by being hyper-aware of when each bill is due and timing them appropriately.

In difficult times, you can stay nimble by closely managing your prices. In some cases you may need to ratchet your prices up to cover a commodity cost-spike. Or, you may want to offer special deals to your best customers to help retain their business. Here are four methods you can use to manage prices (and change) within QuickBooks:

1. Create discount calculations – Targeted discounts are just one way to try to encourage your customers to buy more.
2. Use price levels – Price negotiations are becoming more prevalent and you may find that you have to offer a standard discount to one or more customers in order to keep their business.
3. Change item prices – Competition or other pressures may mean that you need to globally change all of your prices at once.
4. Add a surcharge – At some point, you may need to consider adding a fuel or other type of surcharge to help recover costs beyond what you've factored into your existing prices.

Billing for inventory parts is easy. Simply pick the items from a list, specify a quantity, and you’re done. Billing for costs, time, or mileage is a little more complex. QuickBooks has built-in tools to help you do this, but the process is slightly complicated and involves turning expenses into invoices and then into income. Let us know if we can help. We are your partner in building a successful business.

Managing the life cycle of your fixed assets is a long-term process. Fixed assets are physical entities that you purchase to help your business generate revenue, like property, vehicles or a commercial oven. By definition, they must be in use for over 12 months.

QuickBooks can help you track these, but both the value of your company and your tax obligations — and the sale price, should you eventually sell them — are affected by how the book value of your fixed assets is depreciated. It's important that you work closely with us over the life of each one. What you can do on your own, though, is to maintain absolutely accurate records in this area.

How do you let your customers know how much they owe you, and for what products or services? QuickBooks can help you both create the invoices and record the payments. There's also another type of sales document that you can use in certain situations: the sales receipt. You'd probably be most likely to use one of these when customers pay you in full for products or services at the same time they receive them.

If you have no experience dealing with paychecks, deductions, and payroll taxes, we strongly recommend that you call the office before you get started. While QuickBooks simplifies the actual mechanics of setting up and running payroll, there's still a lot you need to know.

It goes without saying that accuracy is critical here. You're responsible for your employees' livelihoods and for maintaining any benefits they receive. Federal, state, and local taxing agencies will count on you to submit the proper payroll taxes and filings on time; failure to do so can result in stiff penalties and worse.

There's so much to know about working with Payroll Items and assigning them to employees. When you're ready to start processing payroll in QuickBooks, don't hesitate to call the office for help getting started!

QuickBooks provides tools that help you create, print, and track checks. But you don't just head to the Write Checks window every time something needs to be paid. There are numerous times when you would record a payment in a different area of the program. For example, if you've already created a bill in Enter Bills, you'd go to the Pay Bills screen to dispatch a check.

Other examples here include:

• Issuing paychecks (click the Pay Employees icon)
• Submitting payroll taxes and liabilities (Pay Liabilities icon)
• Paying sales taxes (Manage Sales Tax icon)