ProStrategic Blog

Mid September QuickBooks News

2010-09-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

New Features In QuickBooks 2011
QuickBooks Premier will have several new features in 2011.

Multi-Instance by the ability to be working in two different company files at the same time.
File manager - Manage all your clients QuickBooks files, user names and passwords in one place.
Balace sheets by Class - you can now create balance sheets by class.
ProStrategic.com will have a special blog announcement when QuickBooks 2011 is available for purchase.

Intuit Payroll 2010 Implements Payroll Update 21016

Intuit has released Payroll Update 21016 which includes changes to tax forms, tabes and program improvements. If your state hasn't made any recent changes, it's important that you download this payroll update so you can take advantage of the other included improvements. Make sure you have your automatic updates turned on.

Benefits of Starting a 401(k) Plan

You can cut your income taxes by up to $5,000 this year when you participate in a 401(k) plan. The tax money goes directly into your retirement account.
You get special business tax credits when you start a 401(k) plan for the first time. You can qualify for a $500 tax credit for each of the first three years of the plan.
You gain competitive advantage in hiring by having a 401(k) plan that gives you an edge.
Some of the advantages are low monthly costs, low asset fees so you keep more of what you earn for retirement, fund selection by a leading investment service, U.S. based support for any questions, and easy online access to manage your plan.
Mourningstar Investment Services, Inc. is designed for small business 401(k) programs.
A free copy of Intuit's 401(k) guide is available.

Septemer 2010 News

2010-09-05T21:16:00.000-07:00

Most QuckBooks users are preparing their 2011 monthly budget in QuickBooks. This is a highly recommended practice that will allow you to compare your monthly actual profit and loss statements to your budget month and year-to-date.
Certified QuickBooks Advisors are now receiving the new QuickBooks for 2011. Users will be able to purchase this new edition very shortly. If your version is three years old, it will be time to purchae a new edition for support and proper maintenance.
QuickBooks released a new update for QuickBooks Pro, Premier, Simple Start, and Enterprise 10.0. If you have your system on auto update you should be on Release 8. This release include technology improvments addressing how QuickBooks works with 64 bit Microsoft Office applications. This revision also fixes some bugs which cause QuckBooks to crash when performing certain tasks.
If you are considerig QuickBooks training, refer to last month's blog and e-mail Bill@ProStrategic.com to setup an appointment for your training at your location and computer.
QuickBooks now offers multi foreign currency conversion to US dollar values and you can print statements in both your foreign country monitary funds and US dollars. You can pick the day of the month and the conversion factors.
QuickBooks has a client data review routine now to help users find errors in recording transactions. This is a very helpful tool that will identify errors before year-end and audits.

August 2010 News

2010-08-05T14:21:00.000-07:00

New Website Design: The ProStrategic.com website has been redesigned for a new look for QuickBooks consulting. We now have a full list of services and bookkeeping for our clients. The Authorized QuickBooks Affiliate Sales page contains all the QuickBooks products on-line. Most of these prices are discounted 15% off the normal retail prices. If you have questions about a product either call 602-762-6968 or e-mail Bill@ProStrategic.com. Intuit does run sales specials and they will be posted to this blog for my clients. A product comparison page will be added to the website in August. Our domain was moved to Go-Daddy and the website is hosted on the Intuit Homestead server.

QuickBooks Training: ProStrategic offers QuickBooks training at your location and computer. The training program is two sessions of two hours per session with a set of written notes for the important things you should have learned and retained. We teach how to close your books in seven working days or less and how to file your reports for year-end handoff to your tax preparation firm. These reports and procedure should lower your year-end tax preparation costs approximately 20%. We also like to see our clients prepare a monthly budget in QuickBooks so you can compare your monthly actual results against your month and year-to-date budget. This process does serve as a motivator for attaining your plan goals. Some of the newer training helps clients with on-line banking in QuickBooks, client data reviews to find many common errors, proper setup of your system for payroll and payroll tax payments, and new QuickBooks input methods. QuickBooks has a much improved Report Writer Progam and we can make customized Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet reports. Training fees are $65 per hour and discounts are offered for Institute of Management Accountants members and Fountain Hills Chamber of Commerce members.

QuickBooks System Setup: We find over 65% of our clients have not been setup properly. Some of these errors have cost clients a lot of money and yielded quite a few errors. With years of experience in accounting and being an Accounting Controller for over thirty years, you can be confident that we will set you up correctly, and teach you how to get the maximum tax advantages. We also teach you how to track your weekly performance so that you know where you are as the month progresses toward your planned budget.

QuickBooks Add-on Products: Please be aware there are over 10,000 software programs that can be added to your QuickBooks program to improve your performance and efficiency. ProStrategic is a member of the developer network and can find these Add-on Programs to improve your operation. We can do a search for the program you are seeking and narrow it down to the best three or four vendors. We then have you do a webinar with the finalists and get price quotes for the add-on program and implementation. We can assist you with this phase of the process. The normal fee for this type of search and implementation for an add-on program is a fee of $500 dollars.

It Is Time To Order Year-End Tax Forms: If you use year-end QuickBooks w-2 tax forms or 1099 forms, contact Bill@ProStrategic.com and you can save a lot of money in doing so. Many discounts are offered to ProAdvisors and we can assist you with saving money on these forms.

Quicken Products: If you need to purchase Quicken Products including TurboTax, contact Bill@ProStrategic.com. Significant savings are available for these products.

Intuit Implements Hire Act in Payroll Update 21011. Intuit Supports the Hire Act Social Security Tax Exemption with payroll update 21011. Payroll has setup a step-by-step guide to help you setup a Qualified Employee. If you need this service, please give me a call or e-mail.

Intuit Payroll Releases Payroll Update 21012. This update covers the new Arizona Income Tax Withholding Rates, Hire Act Update, and the IRS Maintenance Alert for E-File Users. Arizona Withholding Tax will now be calculated as a percentage of gross taxable wages from Box 1 of Form W-2. The Form 941 has been updated. E-filing for Enhanced Payroll users will be available after July 1, 2010 due to IRS maintenance changes.

May & June 2010 News

2010-06-06T07:44:00.000-07:00

Quicken Discounts Are Back Thru 7/31/10:
Quicken Deluxe $20 off
Quicken Premier $30 off
Quicken Home and Business $30 off
Quicken Rental Property Manager $50 off

Intuit Statement Writer:
Free Webinar to demo how to save time and produce analysis of business performance for clients.
Create and edit professional reports and statements directly in QuickBooks using the live link to Microsoft Excel.
Save time updating data with one click.
Full refund after sixty days trial period if not satisfied.
You can call support team for 30 days at no additional cost.

International Have customers living outside the United States? Intuit offers the US version of QuickBooks for DOWNLOAD ONLY in the following countries:
Australia
Brazil
China
India
Mexico
Philippines
United Arab Emirates
For a limited time, new customers can try Intuit Online Payroll FREE for 1 month , then 2 months at just $9.95 a month! Intuit Online Payroll integrates with QuickBooks, but is not required.

Payroll Updates:
21008 Update for tax tables and forms for several states.
21009 Update tax tables.
21010 Update tax tables and program improvements.
Hire act may offer you or your clients financial incentives for hiring new workers.

QuickBooks Online Plus adds new features:
Purchase orders and real time tracking.
Purchase orders open list.
Automatically update balance sheet and profit & loss reports when a bill is entered into QuickBooks.
Automatically track quantity on hand inventory and make adjustments if necessary.
QuickBooks now works Online with Mac, iPhone, Blackberry, and Android.
Fifo-based inventory cost accounting.

Credit Card processing security standards are tougher:
Effective July 1, 2010 recent changes require merchant services-enabled QuickBooks accounts to enhance credit card protection with stringent passwords to meet the Payment Application Data Security Standards. A maintenance release will be issued to handle these changes.

You should be on Maintenance Release R6P as of June 1, 2010.

If you are considering training, please refer to the blog below for the program and the benefits.

ProStrategic February News

2010-02-04T11:03:00.000-08:00

Intuit QuickBooks Payroll Release 21004 was available on 1/14/10. This release contains tax table changes and forms for federal and several states. You can prepare and print your employees W-2 forms and send their w-2 forms to Intuit's turbo Tax at no cost. This will also allow your employees to purchase Turbo Tax at a 25% discount.

QuickBooks Advisors have a new Network Diagnostic Tool for troubleshooting networks and multi user errors H202, H505, and the 6000 series errors for computers running on Microsoft Windows Vista or XP with QuickBooks 2010. 2009, 2008 or Enterprise Solutions 10.0, 9.0, 8.0.

Update Release 5 has made it possible to remove pop-ups in QuickBooks 2010 products. There is an instruction list to block these pop-ups from distracting your use of QuickBooks. Give me a call if you are having these problems, and I will asist you in setting these preferences.

QuickBooks 2009 Users and Enterprise Solutions 9.0 Users need Releases R9 and R10. These two releases correct sales tax report calculations and the sales tax liability report.

Professional Accountants Payroll Products if you are an accountant, Intuit is offering two payroll products. "Intuit Online Payroll For Accounting Professionals," and get the first three months fees free. The second product is QuickBooks Enhanced Payroll for Accountants," and this product is offered on http://www.prostrategic.com/, Online Shopping page.

QuickBooks Productivity Improvements
Art Galleries and clients that have inventories that increase in value, ProAdvisors now have a new method for adjusting these inventories.

Many Enterprise Solutions users are now reporting increased productivity using the new 10.0 version. Also, Premier can be purchase in blocks of five users up to 30 users.

When clients need a "Distributed Solution," many client businesses are best off using the online QuickBooks version that provides "anwhere, anytime" advantages. I have access to a PDF file handout if you would like to see these advantages.

A new law offers tax relief to military families. Two Pro Advisors have developed a client letter for clients married to a member of the Armed Services to avoid paying income taxes in the state they are currently living in. If you need this service, I can assist you in getting this information.

eSort is a new program for accountants to sort client's source documents using secure technology. This is a big time saver for accountants in tax season. This program is available from the Intuit website.

Clients using the Intuit Statement Writer program can save more than two hours per financial statement by customizing financial statements. Intuit has a free webinar series to instruct you how to make these time savings. For a limited time you may purchase Intuit Statement Writer and QuickBooks Premier for $299.90.

Intuit has created an online IRS tax calendar to help you remember important tax deadlines. The online calendar dowloads into your Outlook calendar or other calendars including online calendars (Google etc.) Call ProStrategic at 480-836-1781 if you need this service.

Late December 2009 QuickBooks Changes

2009-12-20T18:32:00.000-08:00

Get 24/7 Tax Help in the Payroll Year-End Center - Be prepared for the upcoming tax season by visiting the updated Intuit QuickBooks "Payroll Year-End Center." It has clickable tax forms, a payroll calendar, and payroll alerts for updates, etc.
Make sure you get QuickBooks 2009 Release 10 - This release corrects released 9 sales tax report issues. Press Ctrl and the number 1 on your keyboard to see which release you are currently on.
Intuit QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 10.0 - It has 6 times the capacity of any other QuickBooks product, it has from 5 to 30 simultaneous users, it can restrict 115 user areas, and has unlimited technical support with 25 GB of online backup storage area.
Intuit QuickBooks Payroll Releases - Intuit QuickBooks Payroll releases payroll update 21001, updates 2009 withholding rates for Arizona, future effective dates for rates, and Intuit introduces 401K for small business. Ater June 30, 2010, AZ Department of Revenue will establish withholding tables to calculat AZ withholding tax amounts based on a new formula.
Microsoft announced it discontinued Microsoft Office Accounting as of November 16, 2009. It is a great time to migrate tyo QuickBooks products and payroll.

December 2009

2009-11-30T20:48:00.000-08:00

QuickBooks Alert –QuickBooks 2009 Release 9 will be sent via automatic update on December 1, 2009. This is a very important update which improves data stability by taking advantage of a new Sybase SA10 patch. This update will improve speed of execution for heavy users.

Intuit No Longer Supports QuickBooks 2006 and older versions. This is a normal twilight procedure which supports the newest three year periods.

Special Sales Promotion – Purchase of QuickBooks Premier Accountant 2010 and Intuit Statement Writer for $399.95. This is a limited time offer. You will receive three months of technical support and one instance of assisted data conversion support.

Expense Reports Made Easy – A new powerful web application named Expensify makes paper receipts and expense reports a thing of the past. This program imports expenses from your credit cards, from your PDA phone, gets IRS-ready eReciepts for most purchases and submits a PDF expense report and receive reimbursements up to $10,000 dollars by direct deposit entirely on line. The Expensify program can be purchased from the new Intuit Workplace App Center at https://www.expensify.com?

Payroll Opportunities –
1. Accounting Professionals can sign up for Intuit Online Payroll and get the first three months free of a year obligation. After the first three months, you may pay as little as $10.99 per month.
2. If you haven’t done so, a new QuickBooks payroll update #20922 is now available for download. This update includes changes to tax tables, forms and operation improvements.
3. Enhance Payroll Special discount For New Users – New customers will receive a 20% discount for purchasing enhance payroll for year service.

November 2009

2009-11-28T13:06:00.000-08:00

2010 QuickBooks Pro, Premier, Enterprise Solutions Enhancements:

Expanded Client Data Review - clean up client files in less time with less hassle. Reclass tansactions, identify negative inventory items, identify incorrectly setup items, fix sales tax liability payments, better use of the Accountants copy to send back correction transactions.

Improved Intutit Statement Writer - Sold separately, create professional financial statements with time saving improvements. Access to over 50 statement and document templates online, set any date range for statements, send PDF format consolidated reports to clients, bring QuickBooks statement numbers into Microsoft documents, build financial statements on a per-class or per job basis, and create up to 16 statements into a workbook and batch print.

Electronically paperclip documents to QuickBooks transactions with new the QuickBooks Document Management Program. Keep important documents at your fingertips and backed up on-line. Scan multiple documents at one time and store as individual files. Easialy attach documents to any customer, vendor, employee account transactions.

Big Input Time Saver - If you are setting up QuickBooks 2010 and you have a large customer or vendor list to input, QuickBooks has a new copy and paste routine that saves lots of hours! Get your customer list or vendor list in a MicroSoft Excel file. Open the esxcel file and copy the data. Go to QuickBooks and select lists, "add, edit, multiple list enteries screen and paste the excel data into the table and save it to your customer or vendor information list.

Make sure you update your QuickBooks software. Intuit improved the security concerning active X software use. All versions in 2007, 2008, 2009 have a patch for this security improvement.

QuickBooks users should be aware that we have over 10,000 add-on programs for special uses and efficiency for QuickBooks. If you spend lots of time on a QuickBooks task, you should contact me to see if an add-on program is available to improve your efficiency. Intuit Pro Advisors have a developer network that can be used for searches for these programs.

Mid-October 2009 QuickBooks News

2009-10-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

2010 Quicken Products are launched today 10-12-2009. Products include Deluxe, Premier, Home & Business, and Rental Property Management. Go to http://www.prostrategic.com for Online Shopping savings.
2010 QuickBooks Accounting Training is available from the Intuit Academy "Intuit Proline." Go to www.accountant_training@accountantservices1.intuit.com. Types of training are the live seminar tour, on demand, e-learning, podcasts, live webnairs, and virtual seminars.
Personalized QuickBooks Accounting Training At Your Location is available from ProStrategic by calling 480-836-1781 or going to www.ProStategic.com website and completing a survey request for service.
QuickBooks Enhanced Payroll Electronic Payment and Filing is becoming the trend. Several banks are discontinuing Form 8109 federal tax deposit coupons. The e-file and pay service is built into enhanced payroll product and higher versions.
ProStrategic LLC will offer payroll services for small business operations starting 2010. This payroll service will offer small business lower processing costs for weekly, semi-monthly, and monthly payrolls. Call 480-836-1781.

October 2009 QuickBooks News

2009-09-29T20:32:00.000-07:00

QuickBooks 2010 Products launched September 28, 2010, go to www.ProStrategic.com on-line shopping and see the new products and pricing. Some of the new improved features are expanded client data review, document management, adding or editing multiple list entries, and more improvements to the statement writer. (Some of these features are only in the Premier Accounts edition) Several price improvements for Premier and Pro are now available with the 2010 versions.
QuickBooks Assisted Payroll subscription price changed to $99 for one year compared to the regular starting price of $720 dollars.
The QuickBooks updated website has fact-filled videos on most features, a download trial version of QuickBooks Premier Accountant 2010, and comparisons of 2010 features versus previous versions.
Quicken and is acquiring Mint.com by the end of 2009. Mint.com is a fast-growing provider of online personal finance solutions, providing more than 1.5 million users a fresh and easy and intelligent way to manage their money. Quicken useres can expect the outstanding Quicken product plus the Mint.com enhancements.
QuickBooks and Quicken Clients Training is available at very reasonable rates at ProStrategic.com. Complete the survey page from the website or call 480-836-1781.

August 2009 QuickBooks News

2009-08-15T15:10:00.000-07:00

I have completed and passed the 2009 QuickBooks Professional Advisor Certification. I plan to take the advanced Certification for Interprise Solutions very soon.

QuickBooks users should make sure you have Release 8 update. When in QuickBooks press the control key and the 1 key and you can see what Release you currently have. If you do not have Release 8, goto help and update QuickBooks and press Update Now button. You should set your program for auto updates in this screen. Significant changes have been made in online banking, payroll, multi-currency and the database operations. Changes do affect the client data review, live community, Intuit statement writer, installation, help, preferences, backup and restore, and accountants copy.

QuickBooks users considering using QuickBooks payroll should be aware if they contact me, I can call and get a 15% discount on your processing fees if you are in startup of your payroll. This discount is passed onto my customers. Users should be aware that using QuickBooks Payroll requires no journal entries to record payrolls, they are automatically recorded when you submit a payroll. QuickBooks completed acquisition of PayCycle Inc. on July 23, 2009, and several robust features in PayCycle will be incorporated into our payroll routines in the future.
Microsoft Money Customers were told that on June 30, 2009 the program will be discontinued. Microsoft Money Customers should consider using Quicken which has over 25 years of experience.

June 2009 Promotions & Advisor Notes

2009-06-01T19:44:00.000-07:00

The 20% off Enhanced Payroll promotion has been extended throught June 30, 2009.
The first six months free for Intuit Online Payroll has been extended through August 31, 2009.
Quicken discounts of $20 for Deluxe, $30 for Premier, $30 Home & Business, and $50 for Rental Property Manager will be extended to June 28, 2009
Free Quicken online mobile. Works well with Apple and iphones.

Advisor Notes:

QuickBooks 2006 versions are now twilighted and no support is offered by QuickBooks Help Desk.
Make sure you check this blog and my website sales page for promotion savings. You can also call me to check on certain product sales.
New business startups should use the New MyCorporation program.
Don't forget about the QuickBooks Merchant Services Offers.
Big savings can be had if you need the QuickBooks Retail Bundle package.

QuickBooks Training Program

2009-03-02T18:51:00.000-08:00

The ProStrategic QuickBooks Training Program for clients consists of two, two hour training sessions with a set of notes for each session. The notes contain the key tasks you should remember from each session and a list of office files the client should maintain for record keeping and client handoff to your tax preparer. Clients are given instruction to make sure they can prepare their monthly data and financial statements by the seventh working day of each month.

Training Session #1

Install QuickBooks and setup interview
Setup a custom chart of accounts
Two types and methods of recording expenses and checks
Two types and methods of preparing invoices or cash receipts
Two methods for recording payments or deposits
How to record credit card charges, reconcile statements, and prepare checks for credit card payments
Proper backup procedures for a QuickBooks company file

Training Session #2

How to reconcile your bank accounts
Proper steps for the monthly closing process
Preparation of journal entries
Preparation of general ledger and report
How to modify reports
How to memorize transactions
Preparation of financial reports (balance sheet, profit or loss)
How to prepare your budget and business plan
List of file folders for maintaining records
How to prepare an Accountants Copy of QuickBooks for handoff to your tax preparation firm

This is the training program that has been developed over the last six years and several hundred people have benified from the instruction, notes, and imporved business performance. ProStrategic offers one free hour of consulting before the first session to let clients describe their objectives and goals for uses of QuickBooks. I have over thirty years of accounting experience as an accountant and controller that can assist clients with accounting leadership. If you need this kind of training, please go to my website at www.prostrategic.com and fill out a survey request for services which emails me. You may also call me at my office 480-836-1781 or mobile at 602-762-6968. We provide training services at your business location so you are using your own computer in your enviornment.

QuickBooks System Requirements

2009-01-27T20:16:00.000-08:00

Windows XP: SimpleStart/Pro/Premier minimum requirements

At least 2.0GHz Pentium 4 processor; 2.4GHz recommended
At least 256MB RAM for single user; 512MB recommended
At least 512MB of RAM for multiple, concurrent users
1GB of disk space (additional apace required for data files
4x CD-ROM drive required for CD installs
Display optimized for 1024 x 768 screen resolution or higher; supports 800 x 600 using the Small Fonts setting in Windows Control Panel > Display settings
Disk space requirements for additional software: 50MB for Microsoft Net 2.0 Runtime, Provided on the QuickBooks CD. Google Desktop Search (in-product search) space requirements are determined by the size of the company file and the nature of use. It is not unusual for indices to be as large as 1GB

Windows Vista: QuickBooks SimpleStart/Pro/Premier minimum requirements

At least 2.0GHz Pentium 4 processor; 2.4GHz recommended
At least 512MB of RAM for a single user; 1GB recommended
1GB of disk space (additional space required for data files)
4x CD-ROM drive required for CD installs
Display optimized for 1024 x 768 screen resolution or higher; supports 800 x 600 using the Small Fonts setting in Windows Control Panel > Display settings
Disk space requirements for additional software: 50MG for Microsoft Net 2.0 Runtime, provided on the QuickBooks CD. Google Desktop Search (In-product search) space requirements are determined by the size of the company file and the nature of use. It is not unusual for indices to be as large as 1GB.

William M. Fraser, CQA

Introduction

2009-01-07T12:06:00.000-08:00

The ProStrategic Blog is created to assist and inform QuickBooks or Quicken clients of procedures or changes to enhance use of these programs. Intuit Corporation monitors the Certified QuickBooks Advisors day-to-day comments and when several comments are collected on a problem or short coming they make changes to the program which usually are put out as a maintenance revision update via the internet.

Certified QuickBooks Advisors (CQA) receive alerts, several newsletters, notices of sales for products on our Affiliate web page, best practices, and notices of changes on a daily basis. This data and information will be posted on this blog with links to help users know what is available to assist their operations.

Clients and users should subscribe to this blog to take advantage of this important information and changes. http://prostrategic.blogspot.com/ Many items will be linked to our Company website at http://www.prostrategic.com/ which has an affiliate web page for product sales on-line.

If you have questions about the information on this blog, you may e-mail to Bill@prostrategic.com or call me at 480-836-1781. If you subscribe to this blog, you will be informed when a new blog is posted. This blog will supply clients with the latest changes and data available for QuickBooks and Quicken operations.

William M. Fraser, CQA