QuickBooks Pro Advisor

[Bees Knees]

Why not just go to the QB Board and not tie up this board with QB. Not everyone is a fan of Intuit or QB,

The intent of this message board is to allow tax professionals to freely exchange ideas concerning their tax practice. QB is certainly an appropriate topic for tax professionals to discuss. I see dozens of QB financials from clients every year. Obviously, learning how to use it could add some value to the services you provide to your clients. Personally, I use Peachtree, but I have often thought about switching to QB simply because so many of my clients use it.

[Lion]

Qb

That's exactly why I've been getting deeper into QB. My clients bring in their P&L or give me a disk or call me with a question in QB while trying to get their info together for taxes. In order to pull the info I need for their taxes from them, I have to know what they've done or might have done in QB. For instance, usually COGS is really their new purchases, and their equipment is seldom under assets but often in office supplies.

I have more than ever on extension and needing amendments and otherwise keeping me working on returns, but I'm determined to spend no less than 30 minutes every day or two to bang out this QB ProAdvisor course.

The QB message boards are more unwieldy than this one and not geared to the tax use of the information. And, I was hoping to draw tax preparers who support their clients on QB who might not have thought about joining in on a QB discussion.

I'm barely into the course, just the first two quizzes in the first of three modules. There will be three major tests. By the way, for anyone just starting, you can pick more than one answer in the multiple choice quizzes -- so you can pick a correct answer but still be wrong since you didn't pick ALL correct answers. But, don't worry, you can retake quizzes.

My software is due to arrive Monday.

Thank you GeekGirlDany, for your offer of hosting a QB study group. With Bees Knees blessing (now I have a picture of him in my head at the piano!), we can continue on here and hope to attact more tax preparers who have clients using QB. Now that I have the EA under my belt, I'm ready for more certifications!

[oceanlovin'ea]

QB questions

Well, now I know who to ask when I have questions about QB. I have used parts of QB in the past. A travel agency I worked for the 2 years between HRB and my own business had QB and I did accounts receivable on it. But that was all.

Now I QB Pro Edition. I got it because one of my clients had 2 departments to his business and Taxslayer books didn't have the capabilities to break them out. So now I am just putting all my bookkeeping clients on QB.

But there are times when I just don't understand how to do something or why a figure goes where I don't want it to go. So if you all don't mind, I might occasioanlly ask for help.

I'm not in a position this year to spend more money on QB seminars and trying for certification. But I might in the future. I have a friend that was working toward certification and may be certified now. She charged $$$$$$$$$ for cleaning up QB messes people had. So that might be a good addition to our list of services we offer.

Linda F

[Gretel]

When I started my practice I was totally opposed to QB. Only because so many clients use it, did I surrender to using it myself. Right then I also decided to do it thoroughly and become an Advisor.

I am so glad I did, because, as well as clients can create a big mess, accountants can too, since QB doesn't use the same logic as professional accounting software. I played around quite a bit to better understand how QB works and I wished QB had better instructions in regards to that.

I think an accountant who doesn't thoroughly understand QB should not have clients who just drop off financials for the tax return, and think these reports are correct.

[geekgirldany]

I've also seen this happen Gabrielle. Accountants who are not very familiar with QBs and just get the financials. They can be really wrong.

One of my clients sold their business... well the new owners wanted a CPA and found one that knew QBs. He prepared their taxes with a negative 20,000 showing up on Accounts Receivable. Now I know when I see this that there is something going one with payments not being applied or possible bad dating on invoices. This accountant listed it as Customer Deposits and filed the Corp return.

Well they did a split year thing and the old & new owners asked me to double check the corporation for them. I did a quick look and that immediately stood out to me as well as retained earnings seeming to be wrong. So of course this messed up the income portion. Reporting less/more. Also add that somehow some payments got put back into 2004 because of the client back dating invoices.

New accountant said he would handle it. They did a split year on the S-Corp. So I got the new K-1 for my client. New owners said new accountant told them he didn't have to amend the tax return it only affected the K-1s. I just said okay although I believe it does have to be amended because the income should have increased.

I know alot of accountants say they don't audit a customer's information. But something like should really stand out enough to double check.

Anyways I just hope this accountant does know QuickBooks and just let this slip by. Things like that can happen though when a customer is putting things in wrong and you have to go back to correct it.

[geekgirldany]

She charged $$$$$$$$$ for cleaning up QB messes people had. So that might be a good addition to our list of services we offer.
Linda F

I had someone come to me about cleaning up a nonprofit QBs file. Told her I couldn't do it because I am not familiar with nonprofit accounting. She had found someone else and they wanted around $1,500 to clean it up. Don't blame them either it can be a mess.

[geekgirldany]

What version of QBs?

What version of QBs do you guys use. The Premier Accountant Version Or Enterprise Accountant Version?

[Gretel]

Premier Accountant Version.

[geekgirldany]

Thanks Gabrielle. Do you know what the difference is between the two? I guess I can look it up on their website. Oh btw Intuit did refund my money today

[Gretel]

That was fast with the refund. Good for you.

I don't know much about the Enterprise Edition but that you can have more users simultaneously and speed is much faster.

[Lion]

Premier Accountant

I've been using the Premier Account edition 2005 and will install 2006. My box of software and manuals and information arrived Monday. I think the relevant difference for us is that in Premier you can toggle to all the other editions in your year, but in Enterprise you can't. QB did include the Enterprise software for us, though. It handles more simultaneous users, longer lists, and I think better at inventory. There are nice comparison charts on the QB website (and in our ProAdvisor notebook, too!). I've done three quizzes, so far.

[Safire]

I am a ProAdvisor, certified for 2005, currently taking the certification course for 2006. In order to offer any QuickBooks services you almost have to have the latest edition and being a ProAdvisor, you always have the latest edition.

With tax, it's was $732.90 this year for the ProAdvisor program and payroll tax tables.

Pricey, but worth it in my opinion.

[Lion]

Upgrades

Hi, Safire,

Welcome to our QB blog. I agree with your reasoning. I had enough different clients using different QB versions and upgrading from time to time that I was starting to upgrade every year. And, I did want more training, too. So, with the discount I received by attending a QB seminar, I recently paid only $349 plus tax for all the software and the big notebook of manuals and other information, as well as the 15-hour online course. Renewals will be $399 plus tax. And, if I grow with what I offer in QB, I might be offering their payroll at some point, so that discount on their fairly pricey payroll services was a consideration, also. It seemed like a good price for the whole package and a "set" price so I could budget and plan ahead.

[oceanlovin'ea]

Lion,

Was that price of $349 just for the program? You also paid another price for the seminar didn't you?

Linda F

[Lion]

Free Seminar

Hi, Linda,

QB was hosting free half-day seminars to teach us about the 2006 version and offering a free QB Premier Accountants' version to attend. Much too good to pass up! Then, at the seminar, they gave us lots of other goodies, such as the $100 discount on the ProAdvisor program for the first year, a free Simple Start or whatever it's called, we can download for a client and lots of 20% off coupons for QB products at major office supply stores to give out. And, the speaker was really good, a local cpa who works in the trade and speaks for QB around the NE and Eastern seaboard. The handbook was pretty decent, too, if a bit of a commercial, but still plenty of meat about QB 2006. There was someone there from QB payroll (they gave us little leatherette portfolios) and from the group that provides support to ProAdvisors. I think we also received a disk about accepting credit cards, haven't referred to that yet. Lots of free goodies and people who could really answer our questions. It was designed for accountants who support their clients on QB, trying to get them and ultimately all their clients to upgrade to 2006. I'm a tax preparer, an EA, and do some bookkeeping, so figured if I could get a free upgrade to 2006 and maybe even learn something I would be glad to sit there for a morning. I even got a CEU certificate that Block accepted! It was a very worthwhile few hours.