Quickbooks Question

[Booger]

Hello everybody. An out-of-state client of mine is using Quickbooks Premier Contractor Edition (2007).

Not having any exposure to Quickbooks myself, I have some questions:

1. If I want my client to download their quickbooks files on a CD and send the CD to me for adjusting/tax prep,

do I have to have the SAME version/type of Quickbooks to access their files?

2. Will Quickbooks allow me to adjust & reclass items, download the changes to a CD, so that I can send

the CD to my client to upload?

3. How difficult is it to use Quickbooks? I believe that it must be pretty easy, since it is made for

non-accountants.

Any suggestions/comments/advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

Booger

[Tax Prep by Deb]

Quickbooks has an accountants version and though I have not personally seen it in action, everything I read about it states that it was designed so that clients can send info corrections can be made and then put back into their program.

Quickbooks (all versions that I know of) has a utility that allows you to make what is called an accountants backup. The theory is that they send this to you, you install their file make what corrections you can (you are limited as to what you can correct) and then back it up to send back to them and they in turn install the corrections.

I do not know if you must have the same version but I believe that unless you get the accountants version the answer would be yes.

Hopefully somone who has actually done this can answer you better, but yes you are right, Quickbooks is not really difficult, but just like all software, some parts work wonderful and other parts not so wonderful!

Deb!

[Booger]

Quickbooks has an accountants version and though I have not personally seen it in action, everything I read about it states that it was designed so that clients can send info corrections can be made and then put back into their program.

Quickbooks (all versions that I know of) has a utility that allows you to make what is called an accountants backup. The theory is that they send this to you, you install their file make what corrections you can (you are limited as to what you can correct) and then back it up to send back to them and they in turn install the corrections.

I do not know if you must have the same version but I believe that unless you get the accountants version the answer would be yes.

Hopefully somone who has actually done this can answer you better, but yes you are right, Quickbooks is not really difficult, but just like all software, some parts work wonderful and other parts not so wonderful!

Deb!

Thank you, Deb! I wanted to check out this board before I purchase Quickbooks Accountants Edition.

Have a great Thanksgiving!!

Booger (Mike)

[Lion EA]

I'm just a neophyte, but here's what I know. If the client gives you a back-up (e-mail or CD or flash or whatever) you can make ANY changes and return to him; however, your version will overwrite his, so he can NOT work in it while waiting for you. If your client uses the Accountant's Back-up feature, he CAN continue working. You will be limited to the types of changes you can make, but when you give the file back to your client, it will MERGE with his existing file and not overwrite any new work he's done.

You need a version at least as new as he has, 2008 or whatever, and at least as "high" as his, pro or premier or whatever. If yours is newer or higher or both, you can read his. But, do NOT convert his to yours or you will not be able to give it back to him; or look to see if you have a "save as an earlier version" feature. How to give it back to him when your version is newer or higher is something I don't know.

QB has a tutorial and sample company files, so you can try out something without risking trashing your client's file.

My favorite feature when a client has given me their file is being able to drill down to find detail. Point to an amount on the P&L or Balance Sheet or any other report, and click on it to get to the detailed list of items that made up that amount.

[Gail in Virginia]

I believe that even if you are using a "higher" version of QuickBooks (i.e, you have Premier and he only has Pro) then the accountants copy merge will still work. However, you do both have to have the same year. So if he is still using 2007, and you buy 2009 to be able to read his data, once you have read it into your later version, you will not be able to convert it back to a for he can use on his 2007 copy - he would also have to upgrade to 2009.

I am not an expert, but I use QuickBooks for clients who insist on using it and this has been my experience.

[Booger]

Thanks for all your responses. Found out that I can "remotely access" my clients quickbooks records and

make the necessary changes (to a degree).

Everybody have a great holiday season!

Booger (Mike)

[OldJack]

Quickbooks is a software that you have to plan to purchase a new copy every year. I have one client that uses the "internet version" and I can access it (without any copy of Quickbooks) anytime of the year to make adjustments. However, the client pays a monthly fee that I believe amounts to about the same, or a little more, as purchasing a retail copy.

[Slappy Tax]

I have the Accountant's Edition of Quickbooks 2008, and am more or less familiar with these topics.

First and foremost, before you or any of your clients purchase Quickbooks 2009, be sure to go to this link and acquaint yourself with the horror stories there. It's not a pretty picture so don't upgrade yet or allow any of your clients to upgrade. It seems as though the problems are restricted to the online banking features, but there is no way I would upgrade to QB2009 at this time. Here's the link:

http://community.intuit.com/post/detail/db...vSr3yp1acfARklS

I agree with the other posts on here. You can read data from older versions of QB via a client's backup file or portable company file. But as others have mentioned, once you import that data file into a new version of QB, you cannot turn it back into data that the client can restore unless he/she has the same "year" version of QB.

Quickbooks definitely has a learning curve. To state the obvious, don't go by what's on the box or what you see in flyers and ads. These are all sales fluff from Intuit, and Intuit is far from being accurate or honest in its sales pitches. Just review the link above if you need evidence of that.

The accountant's copy does have a procedure for allowing the client to send you a data file and to keep working in his copy while you tinker with his data before exporting it back to him. However, these procedures require alot of savvy on both ends, yours and the client's. It's not for the faint of heart, and I have never found it to be worthwhile. The idea that someone proposed of remote accessing QB on the client's computer is what I would consider a better procedure. If you're not familiar with QB, I would have the client send me a portable company file which I could experiment with. Once I was sure of the changes that need to be made, I would then set up with the client for me to access his QB remotely from my computer.

The Accountant's version actually has a close-to-foolproof way of doing this. I've used it, and it works fairly well. Remember, though, the weak link is typically the computer expertise of the client. Both of you will have to have patience to get this to work.

[OldJack]

What Slappy Tax said.

Also, I have one client that converts all his Quickbook data for the year to a Excel file and emails or CD's it to me for a special report required by a state contract. It is in the same format as a detail general ledger with all transactions per selected accounts. I can then audit, format the printout, and change anything in my Excel program.

edit: Quickbooks is great for dummy's but a nightmare for professional accountants. Its a cheap little overpriced database that non-accountant clients love so get use to it.

edit-edit: Booger, expect that your contractor clients Quickbooks data will not be anywhere near accurate with Quickbooks unless the program was set-up and input by a qualified accountant.

[Booger]

Thanks again. Old Jack, you're right about the client not setting up the COA or even knowing where to post

items correctly. My approach is the following:

1. Set up the COA correctly

2. Review/analyze what is in each account

3. Create an Excel worksheet for my working trial balance

4. Give my AJE's to the client for booking

The only thing that I'm using the remote access for is to "fix" the COA for the client.

Booger

[Gail in Virginia]

What Slappy Tax said.

Also, I have one client that converts all his Quickbook data for the year to a Excel file and emails or CD's it to me for a special report required by a state contract. It is in the same format as a detail general ledger with all transactions per selected accounts. I can then audit, format the printout, and change anything in my Excel program.

edit: Quickbooks is great for dummy's but a nightmare for professional accountants. Its a cheap little overpriced database that non-accountant clients love so get use to it.

edit-edit: Booger, expect that your contractor clients Quickbooks data will not be anywhere near accurate with Quickbooks unless the program was set-up and input by a qualified accountant.

I am curious about the client that converts the entire year to an Excel file. Does that let you actually see the journal entries that QuickBooks is making? One of the things that I like the least about QuickBooks is trying to trace journal entries throught checkbook registers and drill downs, when I would rather just see a real, honest to God journal entry.

[Lion EA]

I also "lose" JEs. Sometimes instead of a JE, I actually create a split transaction even though it nets out to zero, just so I spot it when in the check register and don't have to remember that a JE exists and track it down. Booger, if your client didn't even customize their chart of accounts, do you really want to rely on them booking your JEs? As long as you can access their file, why don't you book the JEs and anything else you would do if you were sitting at their site...

[Catherine]

Thanks again. Old Jack, you're right about the client not setting up the COA or even knowing where to post

items correctly. My approach is the following:

1. Set up the COA correctly

2. Review/analyze what is in each account

3. Create an Excel worksheet for my working trial balance

4. Give my AJE's to the client for booking

The only thing that I'm using the remote access for is to "fix" the COA for the client.

Booger

First step with a new QB client is _always_ to fix the munged-up COA. Unless they had a pro set it up correctly going in (very rare; in ten years I think I've seen it twice). And even then, folks will do things like add in new credit cards as "bank accounts", and worse, later on.

Second step with QB: NEVER upgrade when the new version is available. ALWAYS wait until at least one major revision package is available and checked out. The community links are good for keeping on top of this.

With the Accountant's Edition, you can pretty much read anybody's file of the same year's version or earlier. You can export back to the same version only. The Accountant's Copy feature sounds better than it is; most of my clients can't even _make_ the copy without me there, let alone re-merge the two files. And if I'm there anyway....

One really nice thing about QB is that you can _fix_ just about any mess the client makes without too much difficulty -- AND set up future transactions to post correctly (instead of the same old mistakes time and again). And the reporting is getting better with each new version; very configurable and you can memorize those reports for re-use while they are on-screen and you see exactly what you've got. I always hated the "Crystal Reports" that comes with Peachtree and most of the MAS-series. I can never get them the way I want them. QB also lets you export just about any report to an Excel format.

It's an annoying program -- until you learn to think of it as "job security".

Catherine

[Booger]

Thanks Catherine & Lion for your input.

Catherine, now you know why I LOVE you!

XXOO

Amorous (sp?) Booger

[OldJack]

>>Does that let you actually see the journal entries <<

You see all the transactions in whatever account you are exporting therefore, the journal entry for an account is just another transaction. However, you do not see all the debits and credits of journal entries together as such. Its the same as a detail general ledger printout but in an Excel spreadsheet.

[JohnH]

I'm puzzled by the problems with General Journal entries that some of you are citing. It's easy enough to select "General Journal" and look at any set of Journal Entries in the same format as a traditional GJE. Also, I've found that a Transaction Detail Report can be configured with "Debit" and "Credit" columns to resemble the traditional format. I will often set up a custom Transaction Detail report and memorize it when I'm trying to work backwards to straighten out some data entry problems. As Catherine pointed out, memorizing it enables me to jump in and out of it as needed. Like Old Jack, I'll often toss the info out to an Excel spreadsheet, but the custom Transaction Detail report can often eliminate that step, especially with some creative use of the filters.

I totally agree that clients can do some incredibly dumb things with the COA. I'd like to see an option that prohibits making any changes to the COA unless the accountant is in the room. I'd also like to see an option that prohibits making "Deposit" entries until the client is forced to skip over the "Undeposited Funds" account with a "do you really want to do this" prompt requiring two steps and maybe the entry of a password.

One helpful modification I have found to be very handy is to set up an "Accountant Review" account. This allows the clientt o post transactions to this account when they aren't sure what to do with them and can't reach me. Rather than have them hidden somewhere, they are right there in the "Accountant Review" account with a red flag hanging from them whenever I look at the QB file.

[Randall]

With the Accountant's Edition, you can pretty much read anybody's file of the same year's version or earlier. You can export back to the same version only. The Accountant's Copy feature sounds better than it is; most of my clients can't even _make_ the copy without me there, let alone re-merge the two files. And if I'm there anyway....

I've copied a section from the manual into a pdf file with the instructions on how to make an accountants copy and how to merge the accountants changes. I send it to the client. According to QB, you can do the accountants copy for one version back. For QB2008, you should be able to get a client's accountants copy from their QB2008 or their QB2007 and they should still be able to merge the changes. I can't verify this though.

[Catherine]

Thanks Catherine & Lion for your input.

Catherine, now you know why I LOVE you!

XXOO

Amorous (sp?) Booger

Why, Booger, I previously had no idea that you love me! I am flattered. I think. Should my husband be jealous?

Happy Thanksgiving to you and to all!

Catherine

[Catherine]

I'm puzzled by the problems with General Journal entries that some of you are citing. It's easy enough to select "General Journal" and look at any set of Journal Entries in the same format as a traditional GJE. Also, I've found that a Transaction Detail Report can be configured with "Debit" and "Credit" columns to resemble the traditional format. I will often set up a custom Transaction Detail report and memorize it when I'm trying to work backwards to straighten out some data entry problems. As Catherine pointed out, memorizing it enables me to jump in and out of it as needed. Like Old Jack, I'll often toss the info out to an Excel spreadsheet, but the custom Transaction Detail report can often eliminate that step, especially with some creative use of the filters.

I totally agree that clients can do some incredibly dumb things with the COA. I'd like to see an option that prohibits making any changes to the COA unless the accountant is in the room. I'd also like to see an option that prohibits making "Deposit" entries until the client is forced to skip over the "Undeposited Funds" account with a "do you really want to do this" prompt requiring two steps and maybe the entry of a password.

One helpful modification I have found to be very handy is to set up an "Accountant Review" account. This allows the clientt o post transactions to this account when they aren't sure what to do with them and can't reach me. Rather than have them hidden somewhere, they are right there in the "Accountant Review" account with a red flag hanging from them whenever I look at the QB file.

I have set up customized reports to give me journal entries and saved those; it is a failing of QB that you don't get those automatically.

I really like the no-change COA and the Deposit screen ideas; those would eliminate a number of nasty mess-ups I've seen in plenty of QB files over the years.

Rather than an "Accountant Review", I make that account "Ask Catherine" (I think Intuit now has a default "Ask My Accountant"). That's the first account I check every time. Whatever it is -- you aren't sure, put it there, I will fix it.

Catherine

[kcjenkins]

I wish you COULD 'lock' the COA. but if you think about it, that is impossible because the very thing that we hate about QB is what the clients love. That is, if you type a check and don't have an account set up tor it, QB just makes another account for you. That is why you can end up with three or four 'rent' accounts, if you are prone to typos. But the client does not even notice that, they just know that entering their 'bookkeeping' is easy with QB.