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App Review: Kickin’ it with Xero

October 26, 2010 by thriveal | 1 comment

Image representing Xero as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

Xero is a pretty sweet accounting system in the clouds (which means we automatically love it).  It’s double entry, so it works perfectly for a corporation interested in operating in the cloud.  And the Xero team out of New Zealand continues to develop the software as it takes over the world of accounting!  They are a solid mainstay in the cloud-delivered software world, and are definitely here to stay.

We’ve enjoyed supporting Xero’s move into the North American market.  And with recent announcements of additional investment from Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal, Xero continues it’s march into the US market.  Yee haw.

We can:

1.  Perform conversions of your QuickBooks and Peachtree files over to Xero (because we kick it like that).

2.  Do some cool stuff to upload your bank feeds directly into Xero.   We try not to use CSV to import into Xero because it’s tricky.  Instead, we convert CSV over to QIF and then import from there.  Much easier.

3.  Setup your initial file and draft your $29/month if you need us to support you.

4.  Tie in your needed Freshbooks time and billing software and other CRM systems to deliver solid workflow to your entity.

Why you might like Xero:

1.  If you need your accounting in the cloud,

2.  You need your accounting on your mobile phone,

3.  You like to reconcile your bank account (Xero has a sweet way to reconcile bank accounts),

4.  You need multi-currency,

5.  You hate QuickBooks and Peachtree,

6.  You know other businesses using Xero (which actually makes it easier for you to do business too),

7.  You need a CPA focused on innovative ways to deliver tax, payroll and accounting solutions to your business no matter where you are.

It’s time to move into the cloud!

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App Review: Virtual Time + Expense

September 6, 2010 by thriveal | No comments

As we move our firm into “virtual” mode, I’ve been looking for a solid cloud-based time and billing program that totally syncs with QuickBooks in a remote hosted environment.  Believe me, that is hard to find.  To perform this well takes a company with the ability to build a sync tool that is robust, and will sync all of the popular functions of QuickBooks (like job costing and classes).

I’ve looked at tons of options and then decided to go with one recommended by SmartVault, our firm’s DMS.  Virtual Time + Expense is just the time and billing system I was looking for.  So I called them and told them I was ready to make the switch to Virtual Time + Expense.  To my delight, they told me CPA firms were eligible for a free account.  Freakin’ icing on the dang billing cake!

Virtual Time + Expense will also track all of your employees’ expense reimbursements too, but I didn’t activate that part (you can paperlessly attach your receipts directly into the system, or through SmartVault, if you did use this feature).  You can turn on and off many different features within the app.  Though it seems difficult to setup at first (because there is so much you can do with it), it does move pretty quickly when you figure out what you are doing, and when you get some support help from Virtual.  As a suggestion, you need to clean up your QuickBooks file before performing the initial sync.  Get rid of inactive employees, vendors and customers before doing the initial sync.  Virtual Time + Expense will pull all of your data right out of QuickBooks upon the first sync, so the cleaner your file the better.  Read this great Sleeter review article of the app here.

The program is very robust, making government DCAA (Defense Contractor Audit Agency) compliance billing a great option for your client if they work with the government.  It’s also a great option for

  • staffing companies,
  • accounting firms or
  • other professional service industries needing to track their time and sync with QuickBooks.

With that being said, we’ve added this software now as part of our CoreCloud Services.

Though this product doesn’t sync with PayCycle, the online payroll system we use, it does sync with ADP, Paychex, and SurePayroll.  And like most cloud-based companies, they are committed to continue their sync with other accounting technology products in the cloud.

Let me know if you have any questions about the product.

Virtual’s contact info: sales@virtualsoftware.net or 1-888-874-1118.

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Updates to Personal and Business Financial Products…

May 6, 2010 by thriveal | 4 comments

One awesome benefit of putting your business processes and financial systems in the clouds is that you get constant updates for free.  So Sweet.

Here are a couple of notes on cloud-based financials systems with recent great updates.

Mint.com Updates

Mint has added some pretty cool features to make it more useful to you, and more like your checkbook (BTW, you need to throw that thing away).  Mint used to simply import your bank feeds and populate your online account with the transactions.  But now, you can go into Mint and enter checks and debits BEFORE they come through your bank feeds.  That makes it truly more like an online check register.

You can even put in something called “pending transactions” that are transactions you anticipate (like your recent spending spree at the mall) coming through your bank account.  Just make sure to key in the correct date and amount so Mint can match it up to the real charge when it comes through your bank.

How to:  login to Mint.com, hit “Transactions” at the top, then hit the button that says “+ Add a Transaction.”.  You’ll see a new transaction open up.  Look for “TYPE” and chose cash, check or pending.

QuickBooks Updates

A maintenance release (R6) has just been released for QuickBooks 2010 (you’ll find it here).  They’ve resolved some issues with 64 bit Windows operating systems creating PDFs properly.  All square now.

And now you can start a payroll run in QuickBooks, leave the payroll run to go to the bathroom, and come back and finish your payroll run later.  It won’t send the payroll until you come back and finish everything.  Pretty cool.

Other fixes include nerdy stuff for accountants like improvements to the Client Data Review feature, and fixes to various bugs that caused system crashes.

How to: if you aren’t prompted to upgrade your QB the next time you open the program (you should be), then open QuickBooks, go to “Help” at the top and choose “Update QuickBooks…”  This release is a biggy and you’ll have to reboot when you are done installing.  Do it when you ain’t got nothing else running (excuse the double negatives).

DON’T LIKE QUICKBOOKS?  MAYBE YOU SHOULD LOOK AT XERO.COM.  Read about it here!


Becoming Paperless in Your Business: Bill.com (Video)

March 11, 2010 by thriveal | 2 comments

We implement and deploy this system called Bill.com.  So sweet.  The firm uses it internally too.

Makes your business paperless (we’re paperless), and could even eliminate staff!  The bomb.

And when you hook it to our remote hosted QuickBooks offerings, you’ll be the envy of your competition.

Check it:

QuickBooks Pro 2010 is Here!

October 16, 2009 by thriveal | 1 comment

QB Pro 2010QuickBooks Pro 2010 is here!  You can get it online at Amazon or you could simply have our firm upgrade you to the 2010 version for $50 per month.  That is, if you are currently on the 2009 version within our QuickBooks Remote Hosted environment solution (read more about this amazing new technology solution from our firm here), then you will always be upgraded to the latest version every time it comes out.

QB Pro 2010 has some sweet paperless document management solutions built right in, so you’ll want to go out and get this one immediately!

Other cool features include:

-Invoice Customization

-A newly designed Report center

-Add or Edit Multiple Entries into QuickBooks with a new “spreadsheet” view – makes mass data entry easier!

Let me know if you have any additional questions.

Review of the Free Online Personal Financial Software: Mint.com

July 29, 2009 by thriveal | 6 comments

Mint.
Image via Wikipedia

Mint.com is a pretty cool online software that helps individuals manage and track their personal finances.

A friend showed it to me, and there really are some neat things about the software.  There are some drawbacks too, but overall I think I’m liking it.  It’s uber neato.

And it’s free too.  Sweet.

Pros:

1.  when you log in, your data automatically starts pulling from your bank account (after you’ve linked it to your bank), posting it to the memorized accounts that you’ve already assigned and create real pretty graphs to help you know how you are doing.

2.  the user interface is much more enjoyable to look at for non-financial people.  I use QuickBooks to manage my personal finances, and my wife gets a sick feeling when I start discussing actual-to-budget reporting, and comparing our net worth statements to prior years.  But she really liked the mint.com interface.  The graphs really are cool and populate and grow right before your eyes (see the Trends tab).

3.  the makers made “mobile” a focus.  You get cool looking emails, and “over-budget” alerts on your iPhone letting you know when your McDonald’s budget is $1,500 over the allowed expenditure limit.  Again, similar to #2, the alerts on your mobile phone look great.

4.  the “transactions” tab is where you define how your checking account splits things out to the various types of expenses you’ve created.  And this same tab has some really rad detail buttons on the right-hand side letting your quickly see how much you’ve spent in various detail levels of categories.  For example, you can see how much you’ve spent on groceries in total, or at Publix, or you can see your spending at Publix compared to the US Average.

5.  they have a budget feature, but I haven’t tried it yet.  But I’m for anything that helps us pleasure-loving Americans budget our lifestyles and keep us in check (I know I need it).

Cons:

1.  they don’t have every banks listed so if you use a local community bank, then this software basically eliminates you as a patron.

2.  same for #1 above, but insert “credit card,” “mortgage account” or “investment account” in the above sentence.

3.  mint.com uses some kind of service to value your home for you… just put in your address.  I don’t know where they get the data from, but it’s definitely wrong.  And it updates for you periodically, but if you ever change it to what you think your house is actually valued, then it will cease to update that value.  The lack of correct house value skews your whole net worth statement, so you can’t really use it as an official statement of your worth (but my net worth statement in QuickBooks has hip non-realized gains and losses journaled directly into equity, so there, dang it).

4.  they built a “Ways to Save” tab into everyone’s account to read your data and give you personalized ways to save money based upon your information.  But a lot of the savings involve getting a new freakin’ credit card.  Obviously, this is how they keep the software free… they have tons of credit card vendors paying to get in front of all of the mint.com patrons.  But I ain’t buying it (literally).

You should try it.  After all, it’s free, and it takes only a few seconds to get your bank setup.  Let me know how you like it.

Thanks, Jason M. Blumer

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GoSee: Thriveal's Three on Thursday (the Intuit version)

June 3, 2009 by thriveal | No comments

project_intuit_logo_91x27I love Intuit.  They are mostly known for their accounting software, QuickBooks, but they are highly innovative in their use of technology, their creation of new technologies and their commitment to resourcing their current and future products.

1.  Did you know that Intuit has a whole marketplace of third-party add-on software that can do anything QuickBooks is NOT designed to do (from Fund Accounting to Auto Dealership Management to Law Practice Tools to Meter Billing to GPS and Dispatch Tracking)?  And they are all designed to fit right inside QuickBooks and sync with QuickBooks to perform the related task and tie it to your financial software.  Browse away – GoSee

2.  Intuit also has IntuitLabs, where they are always experimenting with the latest and greatest technologies and new software apps.  I note that they are doing a lot of development aimed at the mobile phone, like Intuit GoPayment, where you can accept credit cards on your phone (the lame stock photo of the geek in a hard hat kinda stinks, but look past it, will ya?) - GoSee

3.  For major geeks that like to write software and do it with a platform used by virtually all small businesses in North America, Intuit has a place for you.  It’s called the Intuit Developer Network and you can geek out to your heart’s content on the SDK, Xtify Application contest ($7k grand prize) and Federated Applications (where you can immediately publish your app to some “25 million employees within the 4 million small businesses using QuickBooks”) Bring it! – GoSee

Thanks, Jason M. Blumer

Wow… Free QuickBooks at Staples

December 21, 2008 by thriveal | No comments

Check it out… Staples is offering QuickBooks Pro 2009 for free on Monday, December 22nd.  Merry Christmas.

freequickbookssoftware

Successful THRIVEal Classes

June 3, 2008 by thriveal | 2 comments

Hanging with my peeps before class

 

Last week was a great week of our THRIVEal classes! 

These classes are part of our THRIVEal Business Success Series.  We offer free classes to our clients every May and November on various topics from Marketing and Branding to the proper tax structures to operate their businesses in.

Here’s a recap…

Monday- Running Your Business on QuickBooks: An Introduction – We touched on the “need-to-know” stuff.  We don’t hit every participant with the whole program.  That tends to overwhelm.  We focused on letting our clients know what they had to do in order to be successful with the program.

Tuesday- Tax Class 101 – We laid out the various tax structures an entrepreneur can operate within, and explained what they were for.  We got a little “techy” and had to use some tax-related language, but overall the group learned a lot.  We went through a very eye-opening example of switching a client from a sole proprietor structure to an S Corp.  We were marveled at the tax dough that can be saved by doing this.

Wednesday- Strategies for Success in Your Business – Clearly the best class of the week!  It’s a topic I love and one that our participants responded to.  We passed on a heavy theoretical dose of management theory to our clients, why they do business, and how we consult with our clients toward growth.  We focused on technical people going into business to do business work, and how entrepreneurs have faulty mentalities when starting new businesses.  With examples from a great book, The E Myth: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It, we helped our clients transition their thinking from one of faulty thinking to one of successful thinking.

Thursday- Efficient Use of Business Technology – We brought in a guest lecturer for this one.  He went through all of the various areas of technology that may help a startup or entrepreneur so that they might leave with one or two ideas of how to improve the efficiency of their office/business.

Friday – Future-Oriented Strategies: How to Budget for Your Business – We spoke of the value of looking ahead in every aspect of life (we all use future-oriented strategies in many aspects of planning for life).  Budgeting for your business should be no different.  We went through some of our high-end software that does regression analysis (statistics are so much fun!) on historical data and projects that data out into the future.  Fun stuff!

Overall the classes were a great success, and I believe they were of great benefit to our clients.  Thanks to all who participated.  E-mail me at thriveal@gmail.com for a pdf of any of the outlines.  Looking forward to November…

Peace out.

Thanks, Jason M. Blumer