Is QuickBooks Right for a Wholesale Distributor?

Question:
I am looking for the best software solution for my company. My (new) accountant likes QuickBooks. My old accountant (now ex) had our company's accounting totally "un-integrated". Accounts receivables in Maccola which I despise since most reports must be generated thru Crystal (ugh!). Accounts Payable, Payroll and G/L are run in QuickBooks but for some reason I can't understand it's not integrated. G/L entries are posted manually.

Our business is small: 20 employees, wholesale distribution; 6 stations; 1200 invoices a month; 900 inventory sku's; 800 customers; 10 salespeople; we need strong sales analysis reports, of sales per item and per customer; sku's purchased per customer; to send monthly to our manufacturers.
We also have a store for which I need a POS system integrated to our customer database.

So you think QuickBooks is the right software for us??? Thanks for any advice you can give us. The best way to contact me is thru email.

Answer:

I agree with your new accountant, your current accounting software is unacceptable for a company of your size. I played with one of the QuickBooks sample files for a while and I believe that you can get all the reports that you mentioned. I would suggest that you have your accountant set you file up, because to get all the information out that you want, the setup is going to be critical. Also if you or one of your employees plans on doing the entry, then you need to make sure that they are trained in the finer points of QuickBooks.

I personally have never had a client that used the QuickBooks Point of Sale Edition, but I have heard that it works relatively well.

Since you do both retail and wholesale distributing, you might talk to your accountant about the possibility of using 2 QuickBooks files...one for each segment, then combine them on the tax return at the end of the year. I say this for a couple of reasons:

1. Retail sales are subject to sales tax and wholesale sales generally are not, so their is the risk of screwing this up.

2. The reports that you want seem to be geared more to the wholesale aspect, so I imagine that you don't want them to be cluttered with women who come in your retail store to buy one tube of lipstick.

You could also use classes to distinguish between wholesale and retail, this would be something that you and your accountant can decide on.

Posting A/P & A/R entries.

Question:

My name is Greg and I am a Business Manager for a non profit. Our year goes from July 1 to June 30 and our full year audit is due today. I went to post the year-end journal entry and quickbooks is telling me that a customer name must be provided on this split line entry. I am confused and getting frustrated. Any advise or help would be greatly appreciated.........

Answer:

Anytime that you post to an accounts receivable account, you must include a customer on the split line, otherwise your receivable accounts would be inaccurate. The same is true with accounts payable...you must include a vendor to keep A/P aging reports accurate.

The FAIR TAX - Finally a Solution to our Income Tax System.

I have been an avid listener to the Neal Boortz show, I also make it a point to read "Neal's Nuze". He has done a great job over the last few months explaining how the travails of our current tax system can be fixed by the "Fair Tax." Through my experience as a CPA, I have seen both low income and high income taxpayers for lack of a better word...screwed by our tax system.


With a consumption tax, you are taxed when you spend...but don’t worry, there will be no 4 dollar gallons of milk. Under the current system, when you pay for that gallon of milk you are paying for the income taxes of the dairy farmer, the dairy/bottler, the wholesaler, the truckers that distribute the milk, and the grocery store. Under the "Fair Tax" that all goes away plus you keep 100% of your income (look ay your pay stub that will probably be a 30-50% raise...not bad).

On top of this, all taxpayers will be given rebate checks for the amount that the average person would spend on basic necessities.

This is a truly fair system...you don't spend...you don't pay tax. Rich or poor there are no loopholes and you don't have to pay me $300 to find out how much you owe (I hope I still have a job).

'You absolutely need to check out this book, I can't wait to get my copy.

Customer Insurance Payments.

Question:

We are an insurance company and are setting up QuickBooks for the first time. In some cases the insurance company we are placing the business with will not accept customer check. We write the insurance company a check and the customer writes us a check. We are unsure how to enter these transactions into QuickBooks as they are not income or expenses. They just wash each other out. Thanks for the help.

Answer:

This is a very common question in your industry. The way that I have my clients set this up is as follows:

1. Set up a new current liability account named "Insurance Transfer Account" or something similar.

2. Set up a new invoice item named "Customer Premium Payment" classify it as an "Other Charge" and have it post to the account that you created above.

3. Receive the payment and deposit it just as you would any other invoice item.

4. When you pay the insurance company on behalf of your client, put the Insurance Transfer Account as the expense on the check expense section.


This has worked very well for several clients who are in this industry. You can always check the amount that you have in this account by looking at the current balance sheet.

NetSuite Conversion. Help Needed!

Question:

We are converting from QuickBooks to Netsuite. Is there an easy data transfer program so that we do not lose all of our previous data?

Answer:

I am not aware of anything designed for this purpose...Is anyone else aware of something?

Netsuite is a big time accounting package, so I am sure that they offer a conversion service. However, with any of the big time accounting software packages come big time consulting fees. If you are just now buying their product you may be able to negotiate a good rate as part of a package deal.

Cougar Mountain Sucks!!

Question:

We are a small company (9 employees) that does amazing business! We currently use Cougar Mountain Software and we all agree on one thing: it BITES! We are interested in converting to QuickBooks. However, it took the owner of our small company 6 weeks to convert us to CMS! Needless to say, she is not too interested in that process again. Is there anyway to convert easily? Do you have any suggestions to make the task less daunting? We are desperate not to give anymore money to CMS for support of their lousy software... Any help would be appreciated.

Heather

Answer:

I'm sorry that your current software bites. I have never used it, but after visiting their website I can't say that I was incredibly impressed. Since I have never used your software, I can't give you specifics regarding how a conversion might go.

However, one thing that I usually tell clients who are converting is to forget converting history. I usually try to have the file set up and ready to go January 1 (if you are a calendar year filer). I then have them start fresh at the beginning of the year at the transaction level, when the tax return is completed then I transfer the opening balances.

The only thing that would take considerable time is actually keying your vendors, customers, etc.; and inputting your A/R and A/P balances. I can't imagine that this would take anywhere near 6 weeks.

One other thing that you should consider before you convert...you should have someone with more intimate knowledge of your business assess your needs. Because as sucky as it may be, Cougar Mountain may offer some functionality that you need...that QuickBooks doesn't offer. They hold themselves out to be geared to middle market companies and database driven. QuickBooks is a small business software application.
So depending on just how amazing your "Amazing" business is, you may have already outgrown QuickBooks.

Changing Classes for Many Transactions.

Question:

Hello, I am going through the tedious process of reclassifying several posted expense accounts from one class to another. There are multiple entries in each category. Is there a way to "select all" or "fill down" and change class without opening each entry and laboriously changing class one by one. This client has 300 entries a month and I am working back from January due to her decision to change "classes" in some categories. Thank you.

Answer:

Sorry, there is no easy way to reclassify groups of transactions. It appears that you have the right idea...You might want to prepare the client for a big bill though.

QuickBooks Data Loss Problem.

Question:

I had a win 95; QuickBooks 4.0 computer which crashed. I’m trying to restore my 4.0 and the company data to a win 98se computer. I am able to copy the QuickBooks 4.0 with no problem, but the one data file that I am able to restore successfully, is current to only 2003. The other two files (one of which is my more current data file) won’t allow me to copy it because it says it’s a read only file (can’t change the attributes either). My backup 4-floppys won’t restore either, they get through two floppy disks and the restore process begins all over from start. Help!!!!! Steve

Answer:

I have a few possibilites to consider. First, the file that is telling you that it is read only, is it a .QBB file or a .QBW file? If it is a .QBW file, these cannot be restored, it is a working file...not a backup. The problem with your disks, may be that the files have gotten corrupted. I have seen this with floppy disks. I reccomend that you use a CD-RW Drive, ZIP drive, or a USB Hard drive...I see problems with these much less frequenly.

This is something that you may need Intuit's help with. They may be able to help you get the .QBW file and it other componants off your old hard drive.

Otherwise you may have to rebuld your 2004-2005 data...Not Fun.

Repayment of an Employee Advance.

Question:

I gave an employee an advance to his pay via check (not through
payroll)He now wants to pay it back but I am not sure on how to enter this part
of the transaction.

Joe

Answer:

First of all congratultions, its rare to see an employee who wants to pay back an advance. The question I usually get is how do I set up a garnishment on their payroll check to get my money back. So give the guy a raise!

To answer your question, there are two ways to go about this:

1. Set up a payroll advance item on his payroll check. This is probably the way to go if you give advances fairly frequently. QuickBooks Payroll should walk you through this. You may have already done this when you gave him the advance. If so, tell him to keep his money and then deduct the amount from his next paycheck...via the same item that you used to give it to him (just input it as a negative this time).

2. If payroll advances occur infrequently for your company, just use a journal entry to put the money back.

DEBIT - Cash/Checking
CREDIT - The account that you put the advance in the first place. (Usually, Payroll advance - Employee Name (a current asset account)).