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Upgrade QuickBooks Enterprise v9 to v12 by May 27th and receive

30% off and avoid interuption to any of your connected services. *

 *to be eligible, you must be a current QuickBooks Enterprise client using v9.

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The ability to accept credit and debit cards within QuickBooks is one of the program’s ten best features. It attracts customers who might not otherwise buy. It improves cash flow. And it saves trips to the bank and paper-shuffling.

Intuit Merchant Service for QuickBooks is a merchant processor. It facilitates connections among your business, your customers, your bank and your customers’ financial institutions. It lets you move money from a customer’s debit or credit card into your bank account, and finally, into QuickBooks itself.

Authorizing a payment

There are just a couple of steps in this process, once you’ve established an account. We began to explore the card authorization process in Intuit Merchant Service for QuickBooks Improves Cash Flow and Streamlines Accounts Receivable (August 2011) by entering a credit card number and expiration date manually in the Receive Payments window (Customers | Receive Payments).

Let’s delve deeper into that process. Once Receive Payments is open, you’d find the invoice being paid, either by selecting it from the Received Fromlist or clicking Find a Customer/Invoice. The invoice details automatically fill in. Either enter the card information manually or click Swipe Card (the latter makes you eligible for lower rates). Be sure that Process XXX payment when saving is checked.

QuickBooks opens a browser window and accesses your merchant service account, then opens the Process Credit Card Payment window, which looks like this (in the 2012 version; versions prior to 2009 are different):

Figure 1: Before you request payment approval, you’ll enter the card verification number in this window.

Authorizing the card

Intuit Payment Solutions has carried over your customer’s name, address, credit card number and transaction amount. Enter the Card Security Code in the box and click Submit.

Once your transaction has been approved, the Processed Payment Receiptwindow opens. Fraud detection tools check to make sure that the address and Card Security Code match what is on file for that customer.

You’ll also be given a Transaction ID and type, as well as an authorization code. This keeps you from accepting a fraudulent card and helps you avoid chargebacks. Print a receipt if you’re satisfied or void the transaction if a match was not made. Click Close. QuickBooks marks the invoice as paid.

Figure 2: This window provides authorization information if the payment is approved.

There’s a lot more to learn about Intuit Merchant Services for QuickBooks, which we’ll continue to explore. Questions? Just ask us.

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As we all start to prepare for the Christmas holidays filled with family, fun and laughter, the Friendswood Blue Santa program is in full swing helping to support for families who will not experience the joy of the holiday season.  Last year, as a result of generous contributions, more than 130 Friendswood children received gifts through the Friendswood Police Officers Association Blue Santa Program.  In addition, truck loads of toys were collected for the Galveston Police Department Blue Santa program.

This year, VARC solutions is proud to help with the Blue Santa effort.  If you bring in an unwrapped toy for the Blue Santa Toy Distribution Program you will get 10% off of any of our Computer Services (Computer Tune-Ups, Set-Ups, Backups, Repairs, and More). A great way to help a child *and* to get your computer tuned-up all at the same time.

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No matter which version of QuickBooks you’re using, there are always ways to make your workday easier. As with any software, we tend to learn the features we need and not much more. But small changes in the way you operate can add up to significant time savings and more accurate files. If you jumped into QuickBooks without a thorough introduction, consider these tips.

Use the Open Window list

 Spend some time in Preferences, and you’ll be surprised to learn that you have more flexibility than you knew. QuickBooks is designed to work for a tremendously wide variety of businesses, so it comes with some features activated but many dormant.

The Open Window list is a good example. Do you tire of closing windows to find a screen that you used several tasks ago? Make sure that you’re in one-window view (View | One Window), and then click View | Open Window List. Click on any entry to move to that page.

Figure 1: The Open Windows list lets you easily move among active screens.

 Make account assignment mandatory

 QuickBooks lets you enter transactions without assigning them to accounts. So your Chart of Accounts has two accounts labeled Uncategorized Income andUncategorized Expenses that serve as repositories for these transactions. This means that when you run reports or prepare for taxes, you may have a hard time remembering the circumstances of those transactions and will find it difficult to assign them to accounts.

Do yourself a favor. Set up QuickBooks so that you must assign an account to every transaction. This will take extra time upfront, but not as much as if you try to recall the transaction three months from now. Go to Edit | Preferences | Accounting | Company Preferences and make sure that Require Accounts is checked. If you have questions on this, please call or email us.

Use the Account Prefill fields

Speaking of accounts, here’s a little time-saving tip. If you have vendors that are always assigned to the same account(s), you can establish this constant in the vendor record. Simply open the Edit Vendor window for a client and click the Account Prefill tab. Select the appropriate selection(s) from the drop-down lists. If a payment is sometimes split between multiple accounts, you’ll handle this division when you add transactions.

Figure 2: Designate vendor accounts to save time when creating transactions.

 Use “Pending Sales”

 Invoices, sales receipts and credit memos can be earmarked as “pending.” These sales do not show up in registers or reports (except for the Pending Sales report) and can’t be used for transactions where payment has already been applied. Create the transaction and click Edit | Mark [form name] As Pending. To finalize it, open the form and clickEdit | Mark [form name] As Final.

This action can be useful in multiple situations, including:

• Backordered items
• Draft approvals
• Estimates
• Time-tracking for jobs
• Profit and loss reports that show the impact of pending sales (choose Either as the posting status [Non-posting or Posting] under Filters)

Figure 3: You can mark a payment as “pending” in several situations.

 Be kind to your accountant: Set a closing date

 Once we’ve worked with your QuickBooks file up to a certain date, entering, editing or deleting transactions prior to that date wreaks havoc with the balance of your books. To be safe, your administrator should password-protect the ability to do this, so that no one does this intentionally or unintentionally. Go to Edit | Preferences | Accounting | Company Preferences and enter a closing date and password. We will change the date each time we complete our work.

Figure 4: Password-protect closed periods to preserve the accuracy of your books.

These are just a few examples of ways you can customize QuickBooks to make your workdays more productive and your record-keeping safer and more reflective of your business. We can help you further tailor the software to make it a better fit.

If you have questions on this or any other QuickBooks feature, call or email us. We’re your partner and we’re here to make your business better.

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We’re excited to announce that we’ve expanded our QuickBooks Referral Program. Our QuickBooks Referral Program is designed for independent consultants and/or IT professionals who would like to offer their customers Intuit solutions including: QuickBooks Pro/Premier/Enterprise Solutions, Intuit Payments & Intuit Payroll but may not have the technical expertise in each to right by their clients. For more informaiton, check out our Referral Program page

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Intuit has asked our own Robin Hall to be a member of the Intuit ISP Advisory Council. The council members share their insights, experience, and expertise with Intuit as the company develops new products and services for accounting professionals and advisors, as well as clients nationwide. Council members serve one or two year terms. Participation on the council is driven by participants’ desires to contribute to the development of technology products and services that increase productivity and help grow accounting businesses, and those of their clients.

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Intuit Corporation, makers of QuickBooks accounting software, announced VARC Solutions as the Intuit Solution Provider of the Year. The Solution Provider of the Year was selected from a group of nominees based on their dedicated use of Intuit software and solutions provided for their customer needs.

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Bob Scott’s Insights, a publication of the Progressive Media Group, is pleased to announce that VARC Solutions has been selected as a member of the 2009 VAR Stars, a group of 100 organizations that are being honored for their accomplishments in mid-market financial software.

“This award is made to honor organizations for factors such as quality performance and leadership in their arena. It is made without regard to the volume of annual sales made by these businesses, although their ability to achieve notable growth is considered,” says executive editor Bob Scott.

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