There are TONS of bookkeeping programs and software out there. It’s easy to get caught up in which one will work best for you and your business – but you MUST use SOMETHING to keep your bookkeeping in order. Bookkeeping is essential to run any business – big or small. As a small business owner, I have used Quickbooks software for 10 years, so I am pretty familiar with it. And it came in handy, just last week. One of my clients was randomly chosen by the state to get audited; which is not as big of a deal as if the IRS decided to do it. When you get audited by the state (at least, for this client), the state just wanted to see that all the reports they sent in to federal and state levels matched up with the numbers.
So the state rep came out, and was impressed that they had printouts from Quickbooks for all their quarterly tax filings, W2’s, W3’s,and 1099. She was even more impressed when I could maneuver through Quickbooks for my client and pull reports for paychecks written for a specific employee for a specific quarter. We were even able to scroll through the check register easily for the rep so the rep could make sure all the payments were legit for last year.
The sweet ending? My client got a clean audit, and it only took a couple of hours because it was so organized. YAY 🙂
Now, if you (your bookkeeper/VA/admin/whoever) know your bookkeeping program as well as I know mine, then you could have the same results. Quickbooks fits my organized personality, and the fact that I want everything to balance and match up. It bothers me when it doesn’t balance or match up – even a penny. That’s just my personality when it comes to bookkeeping and keeping the numbers straight.
Quickbooks is part of the Intuit company,and they have expanded their services in recent years. I have the software that is downloaded on my computer. But, recently, they have come out with an online version that could be great for a mobile business. I’ve been thinking about switching/transitioning to the online version, but I still need to hear some feedback and research a bit more to decide if I should or not. Intuit also links with my bank account so I can write a paycheck and it direct-deposit that paycheck into my personal account. Which saves on paper 🙂 I use Intuit Payment Network to send invoices and receive payments that go straight to my bank account, and it links up with Quickbooks as well. So there is really a lot you can do with Quickbooks 🙂 I’ve found it to be pretty user-friendly once you get the hang of it, and the customer service people have always been patient and helpful when I have called with a question.
Let me know if you have used the strictly online version, and what you thought of it – I would love some feedback!
