Sunburst Software Solutions, Inc. Blog

The musings of a "maad" Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor/bookkeeper turned software developer!

Welcome To Our Site...

QuickBooks is a generic, but highly flexible and functional accounting program.  However, there isn't a lot of training or resource materials for contractors who are in the commercial/government contracting segment of the industry, which makes using QuickBooks for your construction business quite challenging. This section contains our most recent posts.

March 2010
M T W T F S S
« Jan    
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031  

IRS to demand new reconciliations

Posted By Nancy Smyth on January 21, 2010

The IRS plans to require credit card and other firms that process transactions to report gross network transactions to participating merchants—and the IRS—annually starting next year. The IRS will use the reports as it does W-2s and 1099s. Thus, a company whose gross receipts differ from those in these reports will be audited or asked to explain the differences. That means each business  will have to monitor and reconcile the reports and, if there are errors, request corrected statements. [IR-2009-106; REG-139255-08, Income Tax Regs].

Stay tuned for further updates as they become available.

New York Certified Payroll Update Available

Posted By Nancy Smyth on January 21, 2010

The City of New York, Office of the Comptroller, Bureau of Labor Law has revised their certified payroll reporting form; new reporting mandates no longer require contractors to display the full social security number of employees on the reports – social security numbers are now to be displayed as XXX-XX-1234.

For complete details, click here.

Missouri Certified Payroll Update Available

Posted By Nancy Smyth on January 21, 2010

The Missouri Department of Labor & Industrial Relations, Division of Labor Standards has released a new certified payroll report to be used by contractors and subcontractors working on state funded public works projects to capture employee wage and hour data.  This new form went into effect on January 1, 2010.

For complete information, click here.

QuickBooks 2010 – Email Marketing, No Windows Vista or 7 Support

Posted By Nancy Smyth on October 8, 2009

Email Marketing is something else that Intuit has built into QuickBooks 2010.

From the Customers menu choose Email Marketing OR from the Online Services choose Email Marketing.  Your default browser will launch.

The first thing that I noticed about this was that it was very slow and then I got this error message that explained it all!

email-marketing

Firefox is my default browser and this requires Internet Explorer.  {sigh}

So I followed the instructions and copied the url from Firefox and pasted it into Internet Explorer, unfortunately it was even slower to load in Internet Explorer and instead of the error I received I received another window wanting me to install an Active X component.

email-marketing1

So I go ahead and indicate that I want to install the Active X component and receive the usual Internet Explorer Security Warning.

email-marketing2

And I choose to Run the Active X component.  The next message box that I received was even more disappointing – there is no support for Windows Vista or Windows 7.  Guess this isn’t ready for “prime time”.

email-marketing3

————————–

Now really I’m very confused and if anybody can help me out, please post an answer…

If this is an “internet or browser based program” why does it work or not work depending upon which operating system you have?  I thought one of the bonuses of internet based software was that it was compatible with all versions of Windows and Mac’s too?

—————————–

If email marketing and staying in touch with your customers/clients is important to you  I would suggest that you check out Constant Contact (that’s what we use for our email newsletters and have for well over 3 years); for a free 60-day trial, click here.

*Constant Contact is a web-based newsletter, email promotion, email event notification, and survey creation tool.  Internet access is required and it supports Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

I’ll keep you posted about the Email marketing option in 2010.

QuickBooks 2010 – New Customizable “Favorites” Menu

Posted By Nancy Smyth on October 6, 2009

Another new feature in QuickBooks 2010 is the ability to create your own “Favorites” menu – I have to admit my first thought was “ok is this an accounting package or a web browser?”  I’m beginning to get very confused.

It could be just me and the fact that I’ve used QuickBooks for a very long time (since version 1 in DOS) – but I do have to ask……….

How many different ways do I need to have in order to get to the exact same place?

I mean, come on now, we have:

  • the normal menu’s that have been around forever
  • keyboard shortcuts (or am I the only one who still remembers and USES them)
  • the Home Page (which we can customize)
  • “centers” for Customers, Vendors, Employees
  • the Icon Bar with shortcuts to this, that and the other thing……..

isn’t this new “Favorites” menu a bit of an overkill?  What’s next – a utility like “Speedial” which I use in Firefox to organize all my Favorites?

navigation

I guess what I really don’t like is the fact that QuickBooks is getting so “busy that it’s making me dizzy” with all the graphics, icons, shortcuts, etc.  I for one used to really like the older more simple interfaces.

If you want to remove the Favorites menu from the top of QuickBooks, first click on the View Menu and uncheck the Favorites Menu option.

view-menu

But not everyone is like me, so let’s go and explore the Favorites menu.

When you click on the Favorites Menu option, the first thing that you see is a “Customize” option

favorites-customize

From the Customize Favorites option, be prepared to be totally overwhelmed from the amount of “shortcuts” you can choose from, use the vertical scrollbar to view all your choices.  When you see something you want to add in the Available Menu Items side, click on it to select it and then click the Add button.

customize-favs

This will add the item to the Chosen Menu Items side.

customize-favs1

Sometimes I have a rather odd sense of curiosity about things – and I wondered exactly how many “Available Menu Items” there were in the Premier Account Edition that you had access to —— would you believe it was an astonishing 507 items?  Of course there were many that were totally redundant; for example the Chart of Accounts was listed 3 different times:

  • Under Lists -> Chart of Accounts
  • Under Accountant -> Chart of Accounts
  • Under just plain “Chart of Accounts”

And I could add all three instances to my Favorites menu

customize-favs2

customize-favs3

Frankly I think that being able to add the same item 3 different times is a “bug” and I’m going to report it as such.

But back to my original question ————

How many different ways do I need to have in order to get to the exact same place?

Not a “favorite” in my opinion.

QuickBooks 2010 – Rapid List Entry (Add/Edit Multiple List Entries)

Posted By Nancy Smyth on October 5, 2009

The Add/Edit Multiple List Entries is another new feature in QuickBooks 2010; where you can work with Customers,  Jobs, Vendors, Service Items, Inventory Parts or Non-Inventory Parts.  I can see this as being a very useful feature, and so far my favorite new feature in 2010.

New QuickBooks users will be able to quickly add these list entries (speeding up setup time) and existing users can also benefit when they need to update say their item list with new pricing, change preferred vendors, change Expense or Income Accounts.

Access this feature from the Lists menu -> Add/Edit Multiple List Entries to display the following window.  Using the List drop down menu, you can select to work with the following Lists – Customers (and Jobs), Vendors, Service Items, Inventory Parts, and Non-Inventory Parts.

add-edit

Let’s say for instance, that I wanted to work with my Service Item (Cost Code) List, I would select that list from the drop down menu (1), and then I would want to click the Customize Columns button (2) to be able to work with all the specific elements within the item (3).  Once the Customize Columns window (3) is open I can see a list of available columns that I can work with as well as the chosen (default) columns.

add-edit1

I would probably want to select or choose to work with all of the columns that are available – and I would do this by clicking on each item in the Available Column (1) and then click the Add button (2) – this action moves the item element from the Available Column to the Chosen Column window.

add-edit2

Once I had moved all of the Available elements to the Chosen Columns, I would click OK

add-edit3

I would also want to move things around so that the columns more accurately matched the layout of the actual Item Record

add-edit4

add-edit5

Once I had arranged the order of my Chosen Columns, I would then click the OK button so that the flow of data entry would be more consistent with how data would be entered if you set up the items individually.

add-edit6

Once you have the Item List entries displayed, it’s very easy to update costs, change expense accounts, preferred Vendors, etc. and save all the changes with a click of the button.

For example, let’s say that you wanted to change the Expense Account associated with ALL of your items, you would first click into the first cell that contains the Expense Account and using the drop down menu that appears – change the account.

add-edit7

Next, right click the newly selected account and choose the Copy Down feature.  This will replace ALL of the existing entries with the new account.

add-edit8

And ALL of your Expense accounts have been changed to reflect the new one that you just selected.  Very cool!

add-edit9

As with all good things – there are also bad; and by that I mean that we start running into problems with Customer & Vendor record elements that aren’t accessed through this process.  Now this doesn’t mean that the feature is worthless, it just means that you can enter most of the basic information but will still need to edit Customer, Job, and Vendor Records individually to complete the rest.

add-edit10

In the Customer/Job List, you cannot access the following elements:

  • From the Address Info Tab
    • Ship To Address
    • Email Cc info
  • From the Additional Info Tab
    • Preferred Send Method
    • Price Level
  • From the Payment Info Tab
    • Preferred Payment Method

In the Vendor List, you cannot access the following elements:

  • From the Address Info Tab
    • Email Cc info
  • From the Additional Info Tab
    • Billing Rate Level
  • From the Account Prefill Tab
    • Account selection

QuickBooks 2010 – New “App Center”

Posted By Nancy Smyth on October 2, 2009

So what is this Intuit Workplace App Center?

Well the Intuit Workplace App Center is where you can buy or try for free, 3rd party software that lives on the web rather than on your computer. Otherwise known as “hosted” or SaaS (Software as a Service) programs that you don’t own, but rather pay a monthly fee to use this software and all the data is stored on servers owned by Intuit.

Anything that you can currently try for free, will most likely incur a monthly fee for continued use at some point and unless you are connected to the internet you cannot access anything that you have stored in them.

The App Center is accessed via the Icon Bar at the top of QuickBooks

app-center-icon

When you click on the App Center icon, a browser window opens directly within QuickBooks that takes you to the home page of the Intuit Workplace App Center where you can browse through about 25 different programs in 4 categories:

  • Apps that help you run your business
  • Apps that help you to manage your work
  • Apps that help you to grow and manage your customers
  • Apps that help you to reduce your costs

app-center

For those of you who like to own your own software and have that data live on your computers, the Intuit Marketplace still exists with hundreds of beefy applications that really extend the power of QuickBooks – visit http://marketplace.intuit.com to see a complete listing of 3rd party programs that perform a wide range of functions that you cannot obtain directly from within QuickBooks.

Of course, once you arrive at the Marketplace you’ll see the same apps featured there as on the App Center – not to worry, there really are other programs available – use the “Search” feature in the upper right corner and type in some key words.

In my opinion it’s a real shame that Intuit seems to have forgotten their long-time developers (many who have been around since 2002).

QuickBooks Enterprise 10.0 – Not Ready for Prime Time?

Posted By Nancy Smyth on October 1, 2009

From another very reputable blogger (who is both a ProAdvisor & IDN Developer) who has been putting Enterprise 10.0 through it’s paces – while I’ve not even installed it yet.

http://qbblog.ccrsoftware.info/2009/09/quickbooks-enterprise-10-0-not-ready-for-prime-time/

Best Practices – Upgrading to a new version of QuickBooks

Posted By Nancy Smyth on September 29, 2009

Whether you plan to do the QuickBooks installation and/or upgrade yourself or hire an IT person to do it for you, below is a list of “QuickBooks Upgrade Best Practices Tips” to help you through the process.

Some might consider these instruction to be an “overkill”; but it will allow you to KEEP your current version of QuickBooks while running tests in the new version – before you make the final commitment to upgrade. It will also alert you to any potential hardware issues that you might encounter. I have installed QuickBooks 2010 on 4 different computers and am having issues with my Vista SP2 Dell Vostro laptop.

Read all of the information about the installation/upgrade procedure that you can get your hands on to make sure that you choose the best installation process for your situation – procedures will vary if you use QuickBooks on a single computer, a network, or via Terminal Services, and that your computers are “beefy” enough to run the new version of QuickBooks. (*see below for requirements)

  • DO NOT attempt to do the install/upgrade on a day that you run payroll, billing, or know that you are extremely busy – that is just asking for trouble!
  • If you use 3rd party QuickBooks integrated software:
  1. CONTACT the company that produces them – if they haven’t contacted you already – and ASK about compatibility updates and/or any special instructions that you should be aware in order to continue using the product(s). We’ve all had a very tight time frame to test/ensure that our software works as expected with the QuickBooks 2010.
  2. As a general rule; if you use 3rd party QuickBooks integrated software, remove them from the Integrated Applications Preference (Edit menu -> Preferences -> Integrated Applications -> Company Preferences tab -> highlight each application individually and choose Remove) – we’ve seen numerous instances where existing integrated application permissions do not upgrade correctly.
  3. Download and install any QuickBooks integrated software updates and follow the instructions provided by the software developer for updating and reintegrating your 3rd party software with QuickBooks.
  • Rebuild your QuickBooks data file using the existing version of QuickBooks that you have installed to make sure that there are no errors within the data file that could prevent your ability to upgrade. (From the QuickBooks File menu -> Utilities -> Rebuild Data). NOTE: Choose the Rebuild Data function rather than the Verify Data option; as the Rebuild function is more thorough and reliable.
  • BACKUP your data at least twice – do not rely on the backup that you will be forced to make during the rebuild function.
  • Start with the computer that will host the QuickBooks data file and install the new version of QuickBooks there; this could be the server, if you are in a networked environment.
  • During the installation process for Quickbooks 2010

at the “Choose Installation Type” window select the Custom & Network option

install8

from the “Upgrade or Change Installation Location” window select the “Change the installation location” option – this will allow you to keep your EXISTING version of QuickBooks and install the new version so you can run some test data through the new version before making the move final.

install12

  • After you have installed QuickBooks – Restore one of your backups, saving the QBW file to a new location with a new name if at all possible.
  • Once the file has loaded, go to the Company menu -> Company Information and change the company name temporarily to something like Converted.
  • Rebuild the file AFTER it is restored.
  • Run reports from both year versions of QuickBooks and compare them – Profit & Loss Reports, Balance Sheet, Open Receivable, Open Payables, etc.
  • Take a bit of time and enter the same data in both year versions just to be sure everything is working as you expect.
  • When you are happy with the performance of the new version decide WHICH QuickBooks file contains the most complete and update to date information (delete the other one) – uninstall the old version of QuickBooks and open the correct QB data file.

Hardware & Operating System Requirements as of 9/29/09:
It has been our experience for the best performance ALWAYS make sure that your computer exceeds the RECOMMENDED Requirements listed by Intuit.

Windows Operating Systems

  • Windows XP – SP2 or higher
  • Windows Vista – all editions, with UAC (User Account Control) enabled
  • Windows Server 2003
  • Windows Server 2008

Hardware/Computer Requirements

  • 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 processor for use with Pro/Premier OR 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 processor for use with Enterprise
  • 1 GB RAM
  • 1 GB of disk space with additional space for the data files
  • 4x CD-ROM drive for CD installs
  • 1024 x 768 screen resolution

Disk Space required for Additional Software

  • 232 MB for Microsoft .NET 3.5 Runtime, provided on the QuickBooks Installation CD
  • Google Desktop Search (an in-QuickBooks search feature) – space requirements will depend on the size of the QB company data file and is not unusual for it to need as much as 1 GB

Minimum network requirements

  • 100 Mbps network card
  • 100 Mbps switch or router
  • 40 Mbps network bandwidth

RAM requirements for Microsoft Terminal Services

  • 5 users requires 2-3 GB
  • 10 users requires 3-4 GB
  • 15 users requires 4-6 GB
  • 20 users requires 6-8 GB

Review-QuickBooks 2010, Easier Registration with possible “glitch”

Posted By Nancy Smyth on September 28, 2009

QuickBooks 2010 registration seems much more automated, with as much as possible being handled online.  In most cases, this should mean that users who upgrade will have to input less data, which will save them time and trouble.

However, there’s a potential problem that can occur in Steps 3-5 that you need to watch out for.  If you begin registration and have a file open, the data in the file will automatically populate the registration fields. If the open file doesn’t contain the information you need to use for registration this could be troublesome.  I had a “test file open when I began the registration process”.  So in MOST circumstances this should not be a problem.

If you notice that this is happening onscreen, delete the incorrect data and then fill in the correct data. 

Registration Wizard

Step 1 – Begin Registration

register1

Step 2 – An internet connection is established

register2

Step 3 – Create an Intuit Account (option #1) OR sign into your Intuit Account (option #2).

Use Option 1 to create an Intuit Account if this is the first version of QuickBooks that you have purchased OR if you are upgrading from an older version (Quickbooks 2008 or older if I remember correctly).

Use Option 2 to sign into your existing Intuit Account, if you are upgrading from the 2009 version.

register3 

Step 4 – Create a New Profile OR Select an Existing Business Profile

If you already have an Intuit Account, after you sign in – you will have an opportunity to Select the Business Profile that Intuit has on file for this account OR you can create a new business profile.

register4 

Step 5 – Review OR Create your business profile.

If you select an existing business profile, the window below will have the last known inforamtion regarding that profile already entered and you will have an opportunity to review and/or update the information.

When you create a new profile, you will need to complete ALL required information.

register5 

Step 6 – Register QuickBooks

Unfortunately after I’d done all of this, I still had to call Intuit in order to obtain a “Validation Code” :-(

Now THIS could be caused by the fact that I have registered a new version of QuickBooks each year since the 1990’s – beginning with Version 1 in DOS and am both a ProAdvisor and an IDN Developer.

register6