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IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
The QuickBooks Help Blog has moved!!. All new content (and there’s already plenty of that already) is being posted here:
Brand new QuickBooks forum!
Hi Everyone! I have great news! We now have a QuickBooks discussion forum which is rich in features so PLEASE direct all QuickBooks questions there, by going to this URL: http://nerdenterprises.com/forum/
We already have a questions topic – you DO need to register, but HEY I’d love to get to know who you are anyway so please visit the forum now and post a question / comment or go to the general discussion for things that are not directly related to QuickBooks.
Also we will be slowly migrating selected content (we’ll pick the best stuff and get it better organized) from here to a new blog location so stay tuned and check back often. The URL http://www.quickbooksnerd.com will be forwarded to the new location once it is ready.
10 Keyboard Shortcuts to things you frequently do in QuickBooks
Like the car above you want to be fast. Here are some ways that you can become a Ferrari among QuickBooks Users:
- Receive Payments (from Customers): ALT +U, Y
- Reconcile: ALT +B, L | Bonus: then use ALT + [down arrow] to activate the drop down and select the account.
- Enter Bills: ALT + O, B then to pay bills ALT + O, P
- Run Profit and Loss Standard: ALT + R, F, S | for a Balance Sheet ALT + R, F, B
- Chart of Accounts: CTRL + A
- Make General Journal Entries: ALT + C, J
- Make Deposits: ALT + B, D
- To edit an item in a list: ALT +E, E
- Enter Sales Receipt: ALT + U, S
- Customer Center: ALT + U, C | Vendor Center: ALT + O, V
For an hour video of more tips to help you work faster in QuickBooks download our full length video tutorial:
Accounting For Donated Inventory
I have always felt that it is important to give back. The more successful we become the more important it is to give back and help others to achieve success. If we don’t give back as much as we can then the success is literally wasted on us. So I love when clients ask me how to account for donated inventory. It means they are giving back and helping others and I love that.
When you donate inventory you essentially sell it for 0. When you sell inventory for zero what you have is a situation where your sales are zero and your inventory is then transferred at cost from the Balance Sheet Account “Inventory” to the Profit and Loss Account “Cost of Goods Sold”. So donating inventory is actually pretty simple. One additional step is required to get the cost out of “Cost of Goods Sold” and into “Charitable Contributions”. The donation is recorded at the lower of cost or market (in this and most cases that will be cost). So it is NOT recorded for the value of what you would have sold it for, but for what it cost you to acquire it.
There are 2 steps in accounting for donated inventory in QuickBooks. The first step in to record the invoice for the donated inventory. The second step is to record the transfer of cost from Cost of Goods Sold to Charitable Contributions. This means that in between these two steps we will need to determine what the cost was.
Please enjoy the video web cast:
Click the image to watch
28 Tweets about Nerd Enterprises, Inc.
If you’re watching our videos here or on YouTube or anywhere else then there is a good chance you have a small business.
If you are a small business we can help you grow. Nerd Enterprises, Inc. is still a “small business” – so we know the struggles you face.
If you have 500 or fewer employees then you are a small business.
If you are a small business then you probably are or should be using QuickBooks
I’ve been there. I started this business from nothing back in 2003 because I was frustrated working for someone else.
I was tired of the condescending bosses that offered venom instead of help and training.
I was making $40,000/year which in Los Angeles is barely surviving.
I taught myself a little bit of web design. You would laugh now if you saw the original site. Some of you have.
Then I started posting ads on Craigslist. Craigslist worked and the clients started coming in.
All we had to do was get the first client. That one lead to the next and so on.
I realized there were a lot of people who knew their business but really needed help with their accounting.
I also realized that there were a lot of bookkeepers out there quite frankly making a mess of things.
I started going in to clean up those messes. I found that I really like to organize things for people.
The expression of gratitude on people’s faces when I help them is worth more than what I charge!
Then I realized I could only take on so much on my own, so I started hiring bookkeepers. They had to be passionate like me.
It was easy for me to find good bookkeepers because I understand what they need to understand. I know accounting and bookkeeping.
Accordingly we’ve been very successful at finding good bookkeepers for our clients, but we are NOT a recruiting firm.
In order to make our services available to anyone, anywhere, anytime I started the Learning Center http://bit.ly/Haee9
Then I started our QuickBooks Blog http://www.quickbooksnerd.com/ and our Excel Blog http://www.msexcelguru.com/
Before I knew it people were asking for one on one online training in QuickBooks and Excel.
The one-on-one online trainings have been most popular. People really love the fact that we can record the session and provide that FREE.
Our short videos are designed to help you learn some tips and tricks on how to use these programs more effectively.
The full length videos found in our learning center will take what you learn in the short videos 100 steps further.
Do you want to learn the secret to our training? [next tweet in one hour]
Our secret is that we do not simply show off our knowledge – that doesn’t help you. We explain things in a way that help you retain them.
Call (866) 945-8070 or visit us on the web. We can help you with your bookkeeping and accounting.
We can show you how to grow your business. It starts with understanding the numbers so you know where to grow your business.
Your accounting is an inventory of your resources. You have to know this to know what you have to spend and where you should spend it.
Transferring a credit from one job to another
Sometimes you have a customer who hires you for several jobs. This is great! For one thing it means they like your work. For another thing it means revenues for you and that is the lifeblood of every business. Many of us have been in the situation where perhaps we have more than one job going for the same customer. Maybe a construction company doing build-outs for 2 different locations. Ideally you will want to tell your customer that in order to keep the accounting clean you need to invoice separately and get paid separately. Most customers will appreciate this because they will want to job cost your work separately as well. This is always the cleanest way, but it isn’t always the most practical. Also we have seen plenty of situations like this where a customer over pays on one job and asks you to apply the credit to the other. When this happens we are presented with a problem in QuickBooks. The payment was assigned to the one job when it was originally received, and will show an over payment on that job. If you go to your customer payments screen and pull up the other job, you will not find the credit there such that you could simply apply it. The only way to fix this is through a series of journal entries. I take that back. You could do some QuickBooks gymnastics with credit memos and invoices – but that’s messy. We like clean. Theoretically you would simply book one journal entry debiting Accounts Receivable for the one job and crediting Accounts Receivable for the other so that you could simply transfer the credit and then apply it. Here we run into another obstacle. QuickBooks in order to protect you from yourself does not allow you to post to more than one Accounts Receivable Account or Accounts Payable Account in the same transaction. You could make quite a mess of your books if you don’t know what you’re doing – especially if you don’t know your debits and credits. So in essence you have to accomplish this by splitting it up into 2 entries. How do you do that? Funny you should ask. We set up a clearing account and run it through there. The clearing account always has to be zero before you walk away from the computer or close QuickBooks. If it is not zero something is wrong and all kidding aside you really want to fix it immediately or start over by deleting anything you posted there because it will be much harder to figure out later on. Then you will have to hire us to log in remotely and fix it for you. And we love that, but frankly we would rather you hire us for more interesting things where you will really benefit from the money you spend with us.
So what does this all look like? Well first let’s create the “Clearing Account”. I always set this up as a “Current Asset” – it really doesn’t matter as long as it’s on the balance sheet so you have an account register to work with and I like Current Assets because it puts it near the top of the chart of accounts.
First, open your Chart of Accounts:
Then Add a New Account:
Set it up as an Other Current Asset:
Then Name the account “Clearing”, and choose Save and Close.
Once you have done this you are ready to book the journal entries to transfer the credit over from one Job to the other.
This video tutorial will show you how.
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Send us your QuickBooks file
Upload your QuickBooks File to us and we will give you a free exclusive video report with our analysis of your books.
Simply click the link on our main site at www.nerdenterprises.com
Oh and hey! If you use QB for mac please save a backup for Windows (we do not have MAC computers in our facilities even though we know QB for Mac very well).
10 Tips to help you work faster in QuickBooks
- Learn the keyboard shortcuts – hold ‘ALT’ and note any underscored letters in any menu items.
- Use the tab key to move between fields, Shift + Tab to move backwards between fields.
- When doing something repetitive, count your keystrokes (eg it takes 5 Tab key strokes to get from the amount of a check to the account.)
- When entering dates you can use a “.” to separate the components – this is faster than using the “/”.
- All numeric fields provide for you to perform calculations, just enter a number and then enter an operator (+, -, /, *)
- When in a date field or a ref# or check # filed hold CTRL and press an up or down arrow to advance the date or number.
- CTRL + 1 Gives you your company file location and in QB 2010 you can copy and paste that into windows explorer for quick access to the file.
- In a drop down or date field hold ALT then press your down arrow. Then release ALT and use your arrow keys alone to navigate from there.
- Try not to have too many window open – especially in a multi-user environment that really seems to slow QB down.
- While reconciling, check off the box at the top right that says “Hide transactions after the statement’s ending date”.
If you want a video tutorial showing you tips 10 X more powerful than these add this to your cart:
QuickBooks Tips and Tricks
QuickBooks Help 