5 QuickBooks Features That Small Business Owners Can’t Live Without
QuickBooks has for many years been a friend to small business owners, mainly through offering key tools for managing money. Since small businesses in particular always face a problem of limited resources and the aim of growth, QuickBooks is a complete package to handle all their accounting needs, prepare taxes, and easily track finances. Indeed, it is chock-full of features, but here are several that are very useful for small business owners who want to be free of the headache of calculating everything on their own or employing another person for this purpose. Well, here are five QuickBooks features that successful small businessmen cannot consider themselves without.
- Automated invoices and generally automated payments
In small businesses, cash is the oxygen of business, and invoicing is the way through which business gets that life-giving oxygen. The invoicing tab within QuickBooks is very strong and enables users to quickly create easily professional invoices using templates, as well as automatically forwarding the invoices to the clients. Some features that QuickBooks possesses to automate small business invoicing include: in particular, small business owners can set up routine invoices for frequently used clients to minimize its manual intervention and at the same time guarantee time-based issuance of invoices in every billing period.
One of the most useful extra options to the invoicing feature is the possible option to accept the payment online. QuickBooks Payments allows the integration of invoices to accept payments through credit cards, debit cards, and ACH payment methods, making it easier and more convenient for the client. This integration also improves cash flow because you have convenience, which is important when it comes to payment processing.
Another advantage of using this system is managing due and overdue receivables. QuickBooks provides for invoices that have been unpaid for a certain period or those that the company intends to follow up on with clients. This saves a lot of time required for tracking and also enhances business relations between business owners and clients. Everyone is busy, so no regular follow-ups are made for payment.
- Despite being a less visible category, expense tracking and receipt capture seem to receive the most attention from most business applications of mobile technology.
One of the bigger concerns of small business owners is managing their expenditures, which involves tracking their costs well. Given that the categories of expenditures range from paper and pencils to traveling, utilities, and many others, expenses come into a complex category. One particular task that QuickBooks has a solution for is the task of expense tracking; each of them can be classified and sorted depending on the category. QuickBooks allows one to connect bank accounts and credit cards directly to QuickBooks, where the transactions are downloaded and sorted as soon as they are processed.
The receipt capture feature in QuickBooks is another level up from this functionality. Photocopying receipts is eliminated, and instead, the barcode on the receipts is scanned and a copy of the receipts is uploaded into the system, from which QuickBooks can extract information of date, amount, and vendor. It eradicates most of the papers used in record keeping and eliminates lost receipts during a particular period, especially during times of filing for tax returns.
Moreover, all expenses are grouped and categorized, so small business owners can control, budget, and analyze their spending, possibly reducing expenses and increasing incomes. This feature also helps to better control deductible expenses, which might have a massive influence on a business’s taxation situation and profitability in general.
- Through our Real-Time Financial Reporting and Insights services, we deliver an up-to-date analysis of the financial market.
This has probably been QuickBooks’ greatest asset for small businesses, as it allows real-time reporting on the status of the business. Small business owners can obtain a clear picture of their financial status by preparing special financial statements, including profit and loss accounts, balance sheets, cash flow accounts, and sales accounts; therefore, being knowledgeable in accounting is not compulsory. These reports are usual for the decision-making process and can be needed for an explanation of the monthly expenses, the rate of revenue, or the total commercial profitability of the enterprise.
QuickBooks also enables users to generate specific reports per the desired period, departments, or projects, enhanced than the usual report types. For example, a small retail business owner may prepare sales reports in categories to determine which good is most popular. A service-based business owner can use cash flow reports during the worst times when they are likely to lack adequate cash to cater for various costs.
Another nice feature of this feature is to create reports and have different dashboard choices for different key items. These graphical views provide business owners with the ability to track financial performance and make business decisions that prevent future problems.
- Payroll processing and compliance entails the orderly preparation of wages, salaries, and their associated accounts together with adherence to legal requirements on wages.
The process of payroll is one of those tasks that requires time and skill to master, particularly for the owners of small businesses who may initially be writing checks to employees or themselves or engaging with contractors for the first time. In a more simplified way, QuickBooks Payroll directly assists in the computation of payroll, tax deductions, as well as payment processing. QuickBooks makes it easier to pay employees the right amount at the right time and minimizes the chances of findings that may attract penalties or make employees develop foul attitudes towards the company.
Another feature provided by QuickBooks Payroll is the feature of tax management; thus, QuickBooks Payroll computes and pays the company’s payroll taxes. It is important, particularly for small business people who may not be conversant with these complex tax laws. One major benefit is that it maintains federal, state, and local compliance, thereby minimizing the legal repercussions that come with payroll taxes.
Another advantage is the direct deposit feature; the employees have to be paid cash in their bank accounts without writing checks. To the contractors, QuickBooks makes it easy to generate a 1099 form where small business owners can discharge their tax requirements without much fuss.
Since payroll is one of the key areas that may positively or negatively affect employees’ morale and legal requirements, QuickBooks Payroll is one of the most prominent features that any small business owner managing a team should have.
- Best Practices of Inventory Management for Businesses, specifically Product-Based
Stock is a continuous issue for small businesses that deal in tangible products because it determines companies’ revenues and profits. The QuickBooks inventory tracking feature helps business owners manage the stock quantities to avoid the losses that result from stock-out situations or the purchase of excessive stock, hence keeping the stock in advance.
QuickBooks keeps the number of stock items in real-time, meaning that when a new sale or purchase is made, the program will update it. It can also produce alerts when the level of stocks in any inventory gets low, hence enabling the owners of businesses to order the items before they get out of stock. This proactive approach to inventory helps avoid delay, and on the other side, it must maintain customer satisfaction because the products are easily available.
The other benefit of the QuickBooks inventory system is that it is possible to allocate different costs to different items; thus, QuickBooks business owners are in a position to know the actual cost of goods sold more keenly. This insight assists in determining potential profits in a given project by giving a clear insight into the production or procurement cost of each product against its market price. Likewise, QuickBooks presents reports on the valuation and turnover of inventories, which empowers the small business owner to make better decisions on stocking.
For firms that supply through multiple channels, QuickBooks can also be among platforms such as Shopify, Amazon, and eBay, thus keeping track of stocks accurately across channels. This integration is important, especially for those firms that wish to keep, say, a single product’s inventory in check across different channels so that they do not run into a situation where they overpromise on stock and deliver otherwise or vice versa.
Conclusion
QuickBooks is an indispensable application solution for small business owners because it contains a large number of features that meet the most important financial requirements of these businesses. Eliminating manually writing invoices or processing payments, helping in making streamlined payroll, and providing a detailed summary of its financial status are some of them that reduce tedious complexity and let the owners concentrate on their business.
Electronic invoicing helps maintain cash flow, and identifying and capturing expenses also facilitates proper bookkeeping. Real-time reporting offers the possibility to make a decision; payroll helps with respect to compliance; inventory helps in maintaining proper management of stock. Collectively, these QuickBooks features are time-effective and also provide small business people with essential tools to compete effectively in their lines of business.
