Making sure that your accounting transactions are properly recorded in your accounting program, is paramount in the business world. There is nothing the IRS likes better than finding a discrepancy in one of your tax returns. If you use Paypal to receive invoice payments, how do you account for the fee that Paypal charges for the transaction? Always start your transactions with gross amounts and net the amounts out on the final handling of the transaction.
Procedure for Quickbooks:
Create invoice for $100.00
Client pays $100.00 via Paypal
Paypal deducts 1.9% of the $100.00 to give you a net of $98.10
Record the gross payment as $100.00
When you make your deposit, net it out to show +$100.00 and -$1.90. Assign the -$1.90 to your bank fee general ledger account.
This way, your records will match the 1099 form that you receive for tax purposes and the IRS will have no reason to double check your return.
Wow, sorry that I have been so neglectful in my blogging lately. You see, I have been busy helping a number of people with emergency checkbook reconciliations. Funny how more than one person has had the need for my talents in this area lately but they hit a point where they couldn’t understand why their checkbook was overdrawn.
From these disasters, each one of my clients has learned a valuable lesson – always balance your checkbook each month or it will sneak up and bite you in the butt. You see, the cause of the overdrafts was rooted way back in time – we’re talking years. But, if you know you have thousands of dollars in the bank and aren’t alerted by the dreaded overdraft; you would never know you had a problem unless you reconcile each month.
Quickbooks Tool #1
Using Quickbooks to keep track of everything and make sure both your transactions and the banks transactions are correct is so easy – especially if you use their online bill paying feature. With the online bill paying feature, you never forget to enter transactions into your checkbook register because they automatically get recorded when you pay the bills. Deposits, on the other hand are another animal.
Always be sure that when you record a payment in Quickbooks that it is held in the “Undeposited Funds” account. This is a preference that can be set through the Edit menu by selecting Preferences. (See left)
With this preference set correctly, all payments or sales receipts recorded will sit in the Undeposited Funds account, just like the checks sit in your desk drawer until you go to the bank. Now, when you are ready to pull out those checks and take them to the bank, click on the Make Deposits button in Quickbooks and the Undeposited Funds window opens. Just select the checks you are depositing, hit ok and the deposit slip that appears on the screen should be identical to the handwritten one you just filled out. Now, when your bank statement arrives, your deposit amount will be the same in your checkbook register! Easy reconciliation – less than 5 minutes if you are diligent about entering the transactions in the first place.
Quickbooks Tool #2
Another way that I like to use Quickbooks is to track my and my client’s credit card accounts. This account will be even easier to keep up to date than the checkbook account because every credit card company offers access to your account via the Internet. Go ahead, get your latest statement, and I’ll walk you through setting this up.
Navigate to the credit cards website and create yourself an online account in order to access your transactions. (Remember to record your login information.) Now, go Quickbooks:
Set up a new general ledger account and choose Credit Card for the type
Enter the closing date of the credit card statement you have in your hand
Enter the ending balance from the statement
Click OK
Now, open the register up for the account you just created and click the “Download Card Charges” button at the top:
The first time you do this, you will need to choose your Credit Card company from the drop-down menu. Quickbooks will ask you also for your pin number – this is the password only that you used to sign into your credit card website.
Quickbooks will connect to the credit card site and download all the transaction that are available. You are able to indicate which date forward you want to download. Use the day after the closing date of the credit card statement. This way, you only get new, recent transactions.
Now, next time your credit card bill comes; go online, download the transactions and then click on Banking, Reconcile Credit Card. Reconcile this account just like you would your checkbook. When you are finished, Quickbooks will ask if you want to pay the balance in full or create a bill in accounts payable to be paid at a later date.
Without the ease of use of these two tools, accounting using Quickbooks would not be very easy. Happy reconciling!
What do you do when you have a group of business people that have different personalities? Personality is really what makes the world go around and keeps life interesting. I believe the best way to interact with the varied people-types is to understand this basic reality and lack of this understanding is proof of another personality trait – immaturity.
How do you handle someone who has the groups best interest in mind, gets really excited by new ideas and wants to take the ball and run with it? Do you allow this person to become overwhelmed by being over-worked or do you step in and offer your services in your specific area of expertise?
What do you do with the “step-back” people who are easily frustrated by new ideas and attempt to avoid confrontation but still expect to have the task done to their liking? What about the “associators”? The one’s that want to be “involved” but never take on any responsibilities? How do you handle the one’s that will point out the short-comings of others in order to turn them against one another?
Is there any hope for a group of people with these personality traits to work together successfully?
Every single person has admirable qualities along with the bad. It’s just the way God made us. Every one of us needs to strive to improve our shortcomings in order to make ourselves a better person.
Please share your secrets to dealing with the vast personality-types that you come across during your day. Do you have specific stories to share? Post them here. Have you had someone point our your personality defect? How did you deal with it? What did you do to try and overcome this issue?
Once you have created the appropriate profiles for yourself and have begun to engage your network in conversation on your relevant platforms, it is time to begin sharing your knowledge in order to let people know what you are about and what you have to offer. If you are a web designer, try providing some helpful tips about web creation. A financial adviser could provide tips about how easy it is to set aside money for retirement investments. Are you a salon or spa? The topics are endless – provide knowledge regarding upcoming seasonal hairstyles, benefits of proper skin care, bust myths regarding acrylic nails!
Don’t feel that if you are sharing your knowledge in your particular field that you are providing others with the tools to do your job. This just isn’t true. What you are doing is positioning yourself as the expert in your field. Dedicated readers will be able to learn all that you have to offer and will be more apt to contact you for your services!
While poking around in my Google Reader this morning, I came across this blog post by Chris Brogan. He was working with a gentleman who runs a barber shop in Columbia and made these suggestion for moving his business forward. I believe they are tips that everyone can use. In fact, I use one of these tactics regularly. I offer all of my clients a referral benefit when they send new clients my way. The existing client receives 10% of the first invoice to the new client that they referred.
It’s one thing to be actively posting on the different social media venues; it’s another thing to use them to their fullest potential. Posting alone will not build your reputation or your business. You need to interact with the people you are connected to. Engage in conversations, even if it seems like fluff; commenting on a post about someone’s bad day will build that relationship and you will benefit by being recognizable and memorable to the contact.
I found this Chris Brogan Kitchen Table Talk this morning and was surprised to find that Chris was in my hometown, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The interview is with Joe Sorge, owner of three Milwaukee restaurants, including AJ Bombers whose success was built completely with Twitter. This success story reinforces my belief that social media does work for local businesses if you have a plan and follow through with it.
Whether you have hired a virtual assistant or social media specialist to write your social marketing plan or if you have written it yourself, now is the time to start implementing it. The first thing that needs to happen is to create your branded profile at each social marketing site on your plan. It is very important to keep this profile consistent and attractive in order to gain recognition.
This blog post by @TimeOnTaskVA caused me to review how I spend my day. This is a very good thing to do in order to review if you are making the most of your time! I now consider myself optimized.
Making sure that your accounting transactions are properly recorded in your accounting program, is paramount in the business world. There is nothing the IRS likes better than finding a discrepancy in one of your tax returns. If you use Paypal to receive invoice payments, how do you account for the fee that Paypal charges for the transaction? Always start your transactions with gross amounts and net the amounts out on the final handling of the transaction.
