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5 QuickBooks Online Add-On Apps You May Need in Add

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cpa texas richard crowNot finding quite everything you need in QuickBooks Online? Here are some handy add-on apps available.

QuickBooks Online may work for you just fine as is. After all, it was designed to meet the needs of the millions of small businesses that want to manage and track their income and expenses, create records and transactions, and run reports to gauge their financial health. QuickBooks Online was also designed to grow along with your business. But there’s no need for Intuit to add internal features to do so. In fact, that would make it too expensive and unwieldy for many companies.

Instead, Intuit has partnered with other small business websites to provides add-ons–applications that extend the usefulness of QuickBooks Online in one or more areas, like accounts receivable and payable, inventory, and expense-tracking. They integrate easily to share data and do the extra work you need. Here are some of them to consider.

Bill.com

Bill.com automates your accounts receivable and payable processes. It supports electronic billing and payment, as well as multiple approval levels.

You can certainly enter and pay bills using QuickBooks Online. And you can send invoices to customers and receive payments. But adding a connection to Bill.com gives you more advanced options for accounts receivable and payable. Simply send your bills to Bill.com by scanning, emailing, faxing, or taking a picture with your smartphone. The site’s automation tools turn them into digital records and route them through your specified approvers. Once approved, they’re paid electronically or by paper check. Invoices are just as easy to process; customers can pay by using PayPal, credit card, or ACH. Bill.com’s mobile app makes it possible to keep up with invoices and bills while you’re out of the office.

Expensify

Are your employees still paper-clipping receipts to handwritten expense reports? This method is unnecessarily time-consuming – and often inaccurate. Expensify solves both problems. Your staff can take photos of receipts with their smartphones. Expensify then converts the expense information into coded digital records and submits them for approval based on your company’s policies. Credit card purchases can be automatically imported, too. All data is synchronized with QuickBooks Online in real-time and coded to reflect your preference of QBO’s expense accounts, customers/jobs, etc. Once you’ve approved a report, you can have the money deposited in the employee’s bank account the next day.

TSheets Time Tracking

TSheets employee scheduling software automates tasks that QuickBooks Online doesn’t do: scheduling and remote time-tracking for your hourly employees. Your staff no longer has to fill in paper timesheets. Instead, they can use their smartphones to track their hours and GPS location points. And while Excel is certainly better for creating schedules than paper, TSheets takes over that task, too. After you’ve approved timesheets, that information is sent over to QuickBooks, ready for use in your payroll processing.

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Your employees can easily “punch” in and out using their smartphones. TSheets also uses GPS technology so that your staff members’ locations are always known to you.

SOS Inventory

QuickBooks Online performs some basic inventory management tasks. You can create records for items and use them in transactions, and keep track of the number of items in stock so you know when to reorder (or have a sale). SOS Inventory goes well beyond those capabilities. You can create sales orders, track cost history and serial numbers, and document work-in-progress (WIP). SOS Inventory supports multiple locations and the entire pick/pack/ship process.

Insightly CRM

You can create thorough customer records in QuickBooks Online and document some of your interaction. But it doesn’t facilitate true Customer Relationship Management (CRM) nor project management. Insightly CRM does both. It lets you build exceptionally thorough customer profiles so that you can view social streams, email history, and any events, opportunities, or events related to them. Its project management features include the ability to track by pipelines or milestones, define contact roles and custom fields, and generate advanced project reporting.

QuickBooks Online Integration Key

All of these apps can work in standalone settings, but their integration with QuickBooks Online and their mobile capabilities create powerful partnerships that help you serve both your customers and your employees in ways that QuickBooks Online alone can’t.

We’re not trying to sell you applications here. Our concern is that you’re getting as much out of QuickBooks itself as you can. We can steer you toward add-on solutions if that seems necessary, but we’re always happy to work with you on getting to know QuickBooks Online better and matching its capabilities to your company’s needs.

 

If you’d like to learn more about how our professional advisors can help you make the most of your QuickBooks system, call 512-255-7110 to set up a no-cost, no-obligation consultation.

Growing Pains: Structural Considerations for Growing Your Business

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tx cpa and accounting firmAsk any small-business owner what he sees as the major challenges to growing his business, and chances are he’ll say: winning more sales. Ask any medium- or large-business owner what her major challenges have been, however, and she’ll probably say: structural growing pains — putting into place the necessary processes and structure to accommodate a higher volume of business. In fact, one of the most common reasons businesses plateau at a certain level is their inability — or unwillingness — to develop the structure needed for growth.

But aligning structural changes with sales growth is not simple. It is often more of an art than a science. The systems, processes, staff, and organization changes needed to grow are ongoing and dictated by myriad factors such as the nature of the business, its capital requirements and, ultimately, customer demands. Nonetheless, certain structural growth concerns — excluding financing and office/production space issues — are shared among all growing companies and fall into three overall areas: organizational structure, policies and procedures, and systems/technology.

Staffing/Organizational Structure

Among the most common growing pains small companies experience are those related to organizational structure. Organizational structure and reporting hierarchy for a 25-person company is quite different than it is for a five-person organization. Typically, an entrepreneur can manage fine until there are about a dozen people in the organization. At this point, the initial structure — where everyone usually reports to the owner — breaks down. In effect, nothing can be done without involving the owner, creating a communications log jam and a barrier to growth. A telltale sign of such a situation is the line of staff outside the boss’s office — waiting patiently for a decision before work can recommence. The best way to overcome or prevent this from happening is simple: Trust your key employees and learn to delegate. A good place to start is to look at where you are spending your time. You can still have final say on any important decisions, but you need not be involved with the time-consuming, day-to-day issues that can prevent you from focusing on larger, more strategic matters. It’s also important to formalize delegated authority with an organizational chart and job descriptions. These will help you better define functional expertise for a given job and for various departments across the organization, and provide the foundation for the growth of future personnel and key management staff.

Lack of functional expertise is another common growing pain of small companies. Too often, businesses fail to recognize that specific expertise is needed as they grow. Typically, small businesses are organized around the manager’s area of expertise, such as marketing, accounting, or production. This specialized expertise often prevents the business owner from recognizing problems that may arise in other parts of the business. It’s a good idea to periodically get an outsider’s opinion of where expertise may be lacking. These need not be paid consultants, but are often trusted business acquaintances. Tapping into this same group, you can also form an advisory board to give you periodic feedback on strategic direction.

Policies and Procedures

For most smaller businesses, written policies and procedures are often nonexistent and sometimes cursed. Typically, they are associated with the bureaucracy and inefficiency of big companies and the enemy of customer responsiveness and quick time to market. Not surprisingly, most smaller businesses have few documented operational policies or procedural guidelines. But it is precisely this lack of documentation — and the thought that goes into it — that can put a stranglehold on rapid growth. If your business is growing fast enough to require frequent additions to staff, formalized policies are a must for training purposes. Even if you are expanding at a moderate pace, documented policies will likely be necessary once you reach 20 or more employees.

What warrants a formal policy and what should be documented? This will depend on the nature of your business and average skill level of your employees. In general, however, it’s a good idea to document all HR policies in detail, expense approval authorization levels, inventory control policies, billing and collection procedures, and any operational policies that could materially affect your business if they went amiss. An annual budget and sales projection, updated monthly, are also a necessity if you are ever to obtain outside funding or sell your company. Later on, consider putting together a comprehensive policy manual where employees can get answers to questions when decision makers are unavailable.

As you grow bigger, you will also need to put into place more formalized communications channels for employees and customers. An informed and involved staff is usually a more productive and enthusiastic one; whereas a staff that is left in the dark often feels alienated and unappreciated. Regularly scheduled employee meetings, periodic e-mail updates, and a cascade communications policy are several ways to make sure your internal communications channels facilitate, not constrict, growth.

Is your business suffering from growing pains?

Here are some sure signs that structural changes may be in order.

  • Sales continue to grow but profits do not.
  • Everyone is working increasingly long hours.
  • People spend too much time putting out fires.
  • There are constant lines outside the boss’s door.
  • There are no regularly scheduled meetings or employee communications.
  • The “system” is constantly down.
  • Aging equipment is not replaced.

Systems/Equipment

Perhaps more obvious than organizational or procedural growing pains are those associated with systems and equipment. Smaller businesses are often the last to upgrade to new technology, usually due to cost. Yet the costs of not upgrading are usually much higher. Low productivity, frequent down time, and incompatibility with newer client systems can cripple a business that’s poised for growth. There’s also the matter of keeping up with your competitors both operationally and across product and service offerings.

The average computer is virtually obsolete in just three years, and most of the widely used software applications come out with new versions every two years, so keeping on top of technological advances must be an ongoing endeavor. Start out by working regular capital upgrade costs into your budget. Consider dedicating a full-time person to information technology (IT), if you don’t already have one, and make sure he or she is current on the latest technological developments in your field. Even though you may not be able to afford all the latest equipment, at least you’ll be on top of technology trends in the industry and know what your competitors are up to — or are capable of.

Discover how the business and financial consulting services from Round Rock, TX CPA, Richard A. Crow and Associates can increase revenues and improve performance for your business. Request a consultation online or call us now at 512-255-7110.

Important Facts About the New Laws on Mortgage Interest Tax Deduction

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If you are one of the millions of Americans who own your own home, you should be thinking about how President Trump’s latest tax bill helps or dents your finances; particularly when it comes to the ever-popular mortgage interest deductions. This article should put you ahead of the subject.

First off, if you are a homeowner with no intentions of changing anything soon, your mortgage deductions are unaffected (with a couple of exceptions we deal with below).

ISo in the main, the new laws apply only to those buying a home after 15th December 2017. If you fall into this category it boils down to understanding 3 key items:

  • There’s a cap of $750,000 (previously $1 million) on your total mortgage value (covering private and secondary homes in aggregate) that qualifies for interest deduction.
  • Discussing interest rate deduction on new home purchase goes hand-in-hand with the cap placed on Property Tax Deduction – now set at $10,000 (previously unlimited).
  • The Standard Deduction has been nearly doubled for all categories of tax filers in 2018 onwards.

Logically, anyone who intends buying in expensive locations or/and locations with property taxes above $10,000 should stop to think about it:

  • High property prices of course generally call for higher mortgage financing, And it often happens that premium locations are also the ones with the highest real estate taxes – a double whammy effect if you will.
  • In situations like this, it seems that the traditional enthusiasm around interest rate deductions may become somewhat jaded. It gives a whole new meaning to the popular realtor’s mantra, “location, location, location!”

The one escape hatch is to simply forget about itemizing interest payment and property tax claims; go to the expanded Standard Deduction now provided. But then again, the apparently increased relief offered by this new provision should be viewed alongside the knowledge that individual personal exemptions have been removed – which brings family size into the equation. If you have a lot of dependents (e.g. children or elderly parents) you may find yourself after all is said and done unchanged – or worse still, going backward.

Here’s another curveball that throws the cat amongst the pigeons: irrespective of when you bought or intend to buy your home/ homes (i.e. before or after the December 2017 law, it’s all the same) interest on second mortgages and on mortgages attached to unrented vacation residences is no longer deductible. Period. Given this, and all the other considerations are drawn into the conversation (as outlined above), it is impossible to provide a quick “catch-all” solution on interest rate deductibility. We can say this, however:

  • It is likely there’ll be a homebuyer movement away from expensive property purchases for the foreseeable future, resulting in a growing tendency to relocate to tax-friendlier regions.
  • The upper-middle class homebuyers will need to analyze these new tax provisions with a fine toothcomb, and even consider renting out vacation homes for part of the year to bring interest rate deduction back into the equation.
  • Those buying at home prices under the $750,000 cap limit with under-$10,000 property tax limits should have a far easier passage.

Conclusion: It’s at times like this that astute tax advice paves the way forward and dispels doubt. As you can see there are numerous considerations, especially for larger families and those fortunate enough to own more than one home. Also, those on the cusp of relocating should be looking at all the variables as well as state taxes before making the move. Our team is geared to answer your questions on every aspect of real estate related deductions. Contacting us sooner than later may be the wisest decision you can make this year.

When we work with real estate professionals, we deliver a comprehensive package of accounting services and tax strategies that will make your business strong and resilient, come what may. Call Richard A. Crow & Associates at 512-255-7110 today for more information or request a free consultation online now.

Retirement Plan and IRA Rollover Advice

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When moving your retirement money to an IRA, you should follow this one rule of thumb. If you fail to follow the rule I’m about to reveal, you can face two big problems:

  • First, your check will be shorted by 20 percent.
  • Second, you will be on the search for replacement money.

Here is this significant rule of thumb that you need to follow: Move the money using a trustee-to-trustee transfer. Nothing else. There are two types of transfers that can be used to move qualified plan distributions into IRAs in a tax-free manner: (1) direct (trustee-to-trustee) rollovers and (2) what we will call traditional rollovers.

If you want to do a tax-free rollover, do nothing other than the direct (trustee-to-trustee) rollover of your qualified retirement plan distribution into the rollover IRA. This is easy to do.

Just instruct the qualified plan trustee or administrator to (1) make a wire transfer into your rollover IRA or (2) cut a check payable to the trustee of your rollover IRA (this option is not as preferable than a wire transfer). Your employee benefits department should have all the forms necessary to arrange for a direct rollover.

How to Keep Your QuickBooks Data Safe

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You work hard to make sure your QuickBooks data is accurate. Make sure it’s safe, too.

Your QuickBooks company file contains some of the most sensitive information on your computer. You may have customers’ credit card numbers and employees’ Social Security numbers. An intruder who captured all that data could create tremendous problems for you and a lot of other people.

That’s probably the worst-case scenario. But other situations could also spell disaster for your business, which involves losing your company data through fraud, hacking, or simple technical failures.

We can’t overstate the vital importance of protecting your QuickBooks company file, especially your customer and payroll information. Whether someone steals it or it’s inaccessible for another reason, it’s gone. Keeping your business going after such a loss would be very difficult – maybe even impossible.

Here’s what we suggest to prevent that.

Internal Safeguards

No business owner wants to believe that his or her employees could use their QuickBooks access to commit fraud. But it happens. Your company file contains credit card and checking account data that could be used for nefarious purposes. As we discussed last spring, you can restrict user access to specific areas and actions of QuickBooks.

You can limit your employees who have QuickBooks access to certain areas and activities.

To get started, open the Company menu and select Set Up Users and Passwords | Set Up Users. The User List window opens. It should have at least one entry there, for you (Admin). Click Add User and enter the employee’s name and password in the next window that opens, then click Next.

Tip: Your QuickBooks license limits you to a specified number of users. If you’re not sure how many you’re allowed, click F2 to open the Product Information page. The number of user licenses you’ve paid for appears in the upper left.

On the next page of this wizard, click the button in front of Selected Areas of QuickBooks. The following screens will let you define that employee’s access permissions in areas like Sales and Accounts Receivable, Inventory, and Payroll and Employees. When you’ve clicked through every screen and reviewed the summary displayed, click Finish. Your user will now be able to sign in and access the areas you specified.

You can—and should—take numerous other steps to keep your QuickBooks data safe. If your company is big enough to have a dedicated IT expert, he or she will handle most of this. But there’s a lot you can do on your own to prevent data loss and theft.

Keep Your Operating System and Applications Updated

Don’t ignore this dialog box.

Software companies’ occasional updates offer more than just adding new features and fixing bugs. They sometimes refresh your software to ensure greater security based on new threats. Don’t forget about those all-important antivirus and anti-malware applications, as well as QuickBooks itself.

Keep Your Networks Safe

Just as a cold virus spreads around your office, so, too, can unwanted intrusions like computer viruses. Don’t allow an electronic epidemic to get started; take steps ahead of time to prevent it:

Discourage employees from excessive web browsing. This can be a hard rule to enforce, as some employees probably need internet access for research, timecard entry, and other work-related tasks. Create a firm policy legislating what workers can and can’t do on company-issued equipment (including tablets and smartphones) or any personal devices that use your wireless network.
Ask employees to refrain from using public networks on work equipment. Enforce the rules vigorously, and make compliance an element of performance evaluations.
Minimize app installations on business smartphones. Employees should ask for approval. Viruses and malware get in that way, as well as through some websites and email attachments.
Use monitoring software. If you can’t afford to pay for “managed IT” (a la carte, third-party IT services), install an application that alerts you to problems.

Use Common Sense

You can fight data loss and theft by being cautious. Be diligent about backups, and if you create them on a local, portable device, don’t leave them in the office. Cloud-based solutions are better. Shred papers that have sensitive information on them. Log out of QuickBooks when you’re not using it or when you leave your office. Be aware of who may be around you, looking over your shoulder.

We take data security very seriously in our own office, and we strongly encourage you to do the same. If you’d like to learn more about how our Round Rock QuickBooks advisors can help you make the most of your QuickBooks system, call 512-255-7110 to set up a no-cost, no-obligation consultation.

What are the Tax Advantages of Being a Landlord?

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Owning rental property can bring in extra income, but it’s not without its downsides. If the furnace breaks or a pipe bursts, you can be sure you’ll get the call — sometimes in the middle of the night. But for all the hassles that being a landlord can bring, there are some bright spots. One of them is the ability to deduct certain expenses from your total rental income on your tax return.

Owning a rental home, apartment, or other residential property may entitle you to take some or all of the following deductions.

House Calls

Real estate taxes and mortgage interest on rental property are potentially deductible, as are fire, flood, theft, and liability insurance premiums. Services, such as lawn care, performed on the rental property and any wages you pay employees in connection with the rental activity may be deductible as well.

Wanted: Tenants

You can deduct expenses associated with renting the property, including management fees, commissions, and cleaning and maintenance.

This Old House

The costs of repairs that keep the property in good condition, such as painting, are deductible in the year you incur them.

Cost Recovery

You generally can begin claiming deductions for depreciation on rental property in the year the property is ready and available for rent. In addition, you can recover the cost of improvements that add value to your property, such as replacing the roof or adding a deck, by claiming depreciation over time.

Over the River, Through the Woods

You may be able to deduct the expenses of traveling to your property when the main purpose of your visit is to collect rental income or to manage and maintain the property.

It’s important to keep complete and accurate records of all expenses related to your rental property. Keep in mind that there are tax law limits on deducting losses from rental activities.

Don’t deal with tax issues on your own. Call us right now at 512-255-7110 to find out how we can provide you with the answers you need on your real estate accounting and tax needs. Our Round Rock, TX CPA Firm has experience working with all types of real estate industry professionals.