As the owner or manager of a small business, likely you have faced or will face the challenge of selecting an accounting system to manage the financial side of the business and also to have as a useful tool for tracking and measuring the growth and profitability of the business. Many are now choosing to use the software QuickBooks, and often they choose the online version.
QuickBooks Online can be a very useful tool for small businesses and, in some cases, is required to interface with other useful programs such as a customer service management system. A customer service management system is intended to streamline tracking and operating systems whether cloud or desktop based.
In my experience of working with our clients, a company has to be sure to have sufficient understanding of accounting principles when using QuickBooks Online, or any other accounting software for that matter. QuickBooks Online tries to provide an accounting system that’s simple and usable for everyone, which it does regarding accessibility via the internet cloud. But the company staff still have to know what they are doing or entries are going to end up in the wrong place or be organized incorrectly to begin with. The issue to watch out for is that QB Online can fool you into thinking it is simple to do bookkeeping and anyone can do it.
The result could be confusion for your tax accountant (which will cost money to get sorted out) or misinformation for your company that could lead to problems like inaccurate sales tax reports or incorrect payroll liabilities, not to mention showing you misleading sales or cost information that leads you to false conclusions about how your business is doing. That can make an accounting nightmare. I had a recent case where a company was using QB Online and appeared to have good sales but no money in the bank – that is, the number of sales implied there should be money in the bank. It turned out the sales deposits weren’t being recorded properly in QB resulting in the double recording of a certain amount of sales. Oops! Sales weren’t what was thought, and that’s why there was less money in the bank.
So, bottom line (yes, pun intended), if you want or need to use QB Online, or any accounting software, to do your bookkeeping, be sure you have sufficient knowledge and/or take the classes offered by Intuit (QB), or whatever software provider you use, to ensure that you do it all correctly.
If we can help you here at CVC Success Group, we are as close as an email or a phone call.