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Hello Eileen, I purchased this series about a year ago (maybe even 2!)  - I am new to QuickBooks and also new to managing multiple files – I have mostly been an in-house bookkeeper – one company for many years – and tax preparer.   Over the last couple of years I have taken on a few clients.     

I went through the series once, and admit I was pretty overwhelmed with the amount of information - I put them aside - except for Lesson 3 - control systems.  That made sense to me immediately.

Over the past year - I have applied that system to each of my new files -- it got me headed in a better direction with my paper flow.  

In my "second" go through - I identified an issue in each of my sets of books that I wanted to apply as I went through the lessons again.  - for eg.  learning more about items,  cleaning up a list of names that I had inherited from a previous bookkeeper, finding a better way to track credit card purchases, again looking for consistency of approach, applying the learning across files, and building my own control system.    

I am about to go through this series in depth for a 3^rdtime – this time I am working on creating my own procedure manual using the learnings from the videos and my own experience.   As I am a sole operator,  I need a backup plan for my clients if I am ill, or hit by the proverbial bus.    – the procedure manual is part of my “emergency preparedness” plan, as is working in association with other bookkeepers who can in an emergency step in,  and access files – even if only to return them to the clients. 

It has taken a couple of years to get here,  and I have been implementing as I go – and reviewing the series as a new issue arose.  Coupling this series with some of the e learning resources from Intuit has been very instructive for me, and has really helped me to be able to see beyond the day to day data entry and see a larger picture.     

Just wanted to let you know how this product has been helpful to me.  Thanks for taking the time to make them, and making them available.  

Gail Silvius

The fixing a mess question. How does one fix a mess? Two ways I've used successfully:

1) Ditch the old file. Start over with the records, create a new file and design a proper system for keeping records. Sort out the records, banking, deposits, credit cards, purchases and sales. Reconcile and adjust the sales taxes and income taxes from what was filed to what should have been filed.

2) Start from today forward with a new file, and fix the historical records to end where the new records start. You can do this at any point. It separates out the messed up past and allows you to move forward with a clean slate. The old records eventually have to agree at the end to the new records start point.  Keeping that in balance can be challenging, but it is necessary. You can divide out the labour this way too. If one person tackles moving forward with the owner/manager and the other tackles fixing the books up to that point, it allows the business to move forward with current information and allows for discussion about internal controls and systems design, plus documentation of procedures. That can lead to solutions about how to fix the books up to that date.

The way that's not so successful? Picking your way through thousands of transactions that may or may not be real, deciphering why coding is the way it is instead of how it should be, undoing bank reconciliations, deleting transactions to reconcile the bank that don't make any sense, reconciling payables that don't tie to the money, deposits that don't tie to the bank, figuring out what was filed for GST/HST and PST, determining why Inventory is negative most of the time... I could go on, but I'm sure you get the picture.

You end up at #1 (above) but it takes far longer than if you'd started over. You spend time on transactions that are completely messed up when you should be focused on what the records should say rather than what someone else thought they might say.

Once the mess is fixed, what are some best practices to stay out of a mess in the first place?

1) Work Backwards. Figure out what the end result should be, then create a system that will work with the end result in mind. Keep checking that the results are what you expect they should be.

Yesterday I had a call from a frustrated business owner who said that there was no way he could accept that the books were done properly as none of the outcomes were what he knew they should be. Business owners, at least the savvy ones you want to work with, should know what their books ought to look like.

2) Reconcile the accounts constantly, bank first, then AR, and AP, then every other account on the Chart of Accounts that has a register

3) Delete transactions that don't make sense and don't reconcile. Transactions that don't reconcile shouldn't be left in the records unless you expect them to reconcile next month. Each of your customer's books should be perfect, and reflect perfectly what the financial transaction records of third parties say. The bank, your customers and your vendors have something to say about what's on your books. They issue statements. Use those statements to reflect back what happened. If there's a transaction that your bank, customer or vendor doesn't show, call them to talk about it, or delete it because it doesn't belong. If your bank and your customer disagree, you definitely need to be talking to both or reviewing the transactions to figure out if the naming is correct.

4) Review the links to your accounts from your Items to ensure that each Item's links work. Sales link to Income and purchases to cost of sales. Linking your Items to the wrong accounts will lead to much confusion and dismay at the end results. Understating revenue or expenses isn't acceptable. Netting reimbursements against expenses isn't either. Reimbursements are income - required by both GST/HST and PST and accounting principles.

5) Be consistent in your application of your design principles. Create rules. If you design a system, stick to it. Document your system by creating a procedure manual for that system.

If you want to learn more about how to establish best practices to stay out of a mess, IPBC encouraged me and sponsored my courses for members to help them with exactly this process. We recorded them. If you purchase them, you own the video's. They are stored on your computer, so you can watch them over and over, or share them with your staff/accountants for lunch and learn.

You'll find the Table of Contents for the 10 sessions here:
http://www.flipsnack.com/TaxDetective/

To help you with figuring it all out, here are free sample data files created during these courses so you can follow along in QuickBooks.

http://www.taxdetective.ca/Samples.html

Poor record keeping practices can stunt your business growth. To grow your business, you'll need to design systems and procedures to handle even more transactions as you grow.

Confidence that your record keeping needs are being met allows you to have the confidence to grow your business. It doesn't have to cost thousands of dollars, but I will warn you, it will take at least 100 hours.

The alternative? Hire a bookkeeper. But, when you don't know how to keep records yourself, if they get stuck, or don't know what to do, it will cost you THOUSANDS of dollars and lost productivity.

That's time you could have spent learning how QuickBooks works so you can check the bookkeeper's work, every day, week, month, so that year end isn't a huge headache. There's other benefits too, like always knowing what your finances are because your books are current...

You can learn how ... for only $290, it's all here in these webinars.

You choose, solid training content for $290 or mega-thousands of dollars and heartache to fix that mess, AGAIN. It's time you took control.

http://www.taxdetective.ca/bundled-products.html

One hour free consultation online when you purchase the bundle.

What's key is the person with the DTC usually doesn’t get a refund. They don’t have enough income.  It is in the transfer or apportionment of the DTC to supportive family, plus claims for additional payments by supportive family that become claimable as expenses, medical, child care, attendant care, disability supports. Other family are able to claim a refund under the fairness provisions for up to ten years, upon approval of the DTC by the person with the disability. Now the person with the DTC approval has to prepare a tax return, maybe for the first time, but it's really not a big deal. They just report their minimal income, and claim their credits, making those credits transferable to supportive family. 

Signed JF June 19, 2013

Dear JF, I had this dream, long before I started recording videos, of sharing how I learned to effectively and efficiently share the bookkeeping work between members of a large bookkeeping/accounting team. We were five people, keeping records for about 30 companies.

It's all in the organization of the paperwork. If the paper is dealt with in a certain way, and everyone knows the rules, it's really easy to keep the work moving forward, no matter who has their fingers in the pot.

If there are two or three people in your office, it doesn't matter whether it's just one set of books, or thirty sets of books, if you don't have clear boundaries around how you handle the paper, life will become incredibly messy.

If that's resonating with you, talk to me. I can help with effectiveness and efficiency. You'll be reconciled, bank, AR, AP will be up to date, and you'll be able to instantly put your hands on any piece of paper in your office if you follow my system, and bring everyone else on board.  It's all about setting up clear rules for the movement, entry and storage of the paper (and even if it's partly paperless, you'll still need these rules).

Signed Eileen

In March 2011 we started a minor saga. www.IPBC.ca asked me to create a series of webinars on how master QuickBooks.  At the time we called it, "So you think you know QuickBooks". It ran for ten days, two hours per day, with a select group of bookkeepers/accountants in attendance online.

People purchased the webinar series, which is now included in a bundle of products (there's over 44 items in the bundle) and it sells for $290.00, (hence the saga);

www.taxdetective.ca/bundled-products.html

From time to time there were always grumbles about the lack of a table of contents to reference to find where they had seen something in the videos. Many purchasers were telling me they were watching the entire series three times as it was so content rich.

Today I finally made time to pull together the ten tables of contents from the PowerPoint series and published it in a "FlipSnack" so you can click to flip through the 10 weeks of content rich topical material covered in the series. 

Hope this is what you were looking for...

http://www.flipsnack.com/TaxDetective/ftmlw5mp

And... if you are looking for support with clients calling to say they want to use QuickBooks Online for free, what they are saying is that they'll be giving you access to their file via the "Plus" (they can now give that right to 2 people over and above their 5 person access, so the bookkeeper and the accountant can both have access)  See the marketing for QB Online at www.quickbooks.ca for more info.

Anyway, I'm setting up a support group for accountants and bookkeepers who want to dig deeper into how best to use both Desktop and Online versions.

See the previous blog post for details. This will be an exclusive group and space is limited, so sign up now if you want to be part of this coming year's group. July 2 is the first meeting.