Managing your money as a business owner is an incredibly important task. Mismanagement can result in audits going awry, misplaced monies or extra money owed to the IRS. For small business owners, hiring an accountant can be an extravagant cost your business cannot afford. For those people, QuickBooks may be the best solution for your business. Included here are a few things you should know about QuickBooks in order to begin successful finance management.
QuickBooks Manages Inventory
With an additional installed program on your QuickBooks account, you can link all your purchases to your inventory. This means with one simple piece of software you can keep track of income, cash flow and inventory stock. You will not only save time and money doing inventory, but you can avoid common human errors in the process.
Security is Key
You may be one of those people who defaults to the routine “12345abc” password for everything, but it is crucial you set-up a secure password for your QuickBooks account. You are placing all of your financial management in one software system and must do your best to protect it from hackers. Most financial experts recommend changing your password every quarter to increase security.
Input Information
QuickBooks only works as well as you can use it. Be sure to input all customer information appropriately and be sure invoices are running properly before utilizing the system. It is also necessary to integrate their preferred payment methods into the program.
To build up your company and payroll capabilities, add the information for each of your employees and vendors. While QuickBooks will prompt you to input a large amount of info about each individual, often that excess is unnecessary as long as the basics are covered. Vendors should be added as well, so you can have a record of where all of your business money is coming and going from.
Track the Monies
Now for the most important part of QuickBooks, utilizing that “banking” tab to monitor transactions. You should be able to track the inflow of money and outflow of costs in this section. Within this function you should have the capability to cut checks, as well as monitor credit card and cash expenses. It is important you trial run all of these tools before utilizing QuickBooks live with customers.
Coordinate With an Accountant
While QuickBooks is a fantastic resource for money management, it can be highly beneficial to enlist the help of a professional accountant as you get started. Be sure you have used the program properly and ask the accountant if all expenses have been labeled adequately. If your expenses are incorrectly categorized it can make taxes a headache at the end of the year. The Shopify QuickBooks integration allows you to sync data between the platforms automatically.