Business Discussions

Hey Community friends! I hope you all are well. I wanted to step out of the box a little bit today and share a positive post that I hope will motivate you to do the same. Let's talk about what we love most about our jobs! After all, if you "do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life." My official title is Digital Engagement Specialist and here are some reasons I enjoy doing what I do:Helping othersThis is probably the most satisfying part and definitely grants a sense of purpose. When I'm not working in the Business Discussion area of the Community, I spend time in the Q&A space to answer technical questions. I love receiving positive feedback from a customer I've spoken to. Assisting in this space is really important as many businesses rely heavily on QuickBooks to manage their businesses. Just a simple, "Thanks Morgan! That really helped." lets me know I've done my job.       Working with people from all over the countryAnother favorite aspect of mine

We need your Help And we need to help each other I times like this. https://www.gofundme.com/f/small-business-can-use-your-help?utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=customer&utm_campaign=p_na+share-sheet&rcid=2b1c32e69aae4685a4affe00d9dd0358

Hi!  I'm new to posting to the QB Community, so not sure if I'm in the right place...I need some resources and I think some of you may be able to help.  I have a client who has a large amount of credit card debt and needs to engage some kind of debt counseling to help her consolidate or recommend a plan of action.  Do any of you know good debt counseling programs/companies?  Non-Profit programs are preferrable, but as long as it's reputable I'll appreciate any suggestion.  Thanks! 

                                                              1. Send Invoice            2. Receive Payment into       3. Bank Deposit "Undeposited funds”   After you’ve sent an Invoice and received the payment into your Undeposited Funds account, you need to deposit these payments into an account in QuickBooks (typically into your savings or checking account), just like you would when you visit the bank at the end of the workday. Remember, transactions in QuickBooks should reflect real life - if money is in the actual bank, this should be reflected in QuickBooks.   The Bank Deposit feature serves two functions. If payments are received into the Undeposited Funds account, you can group payments and deposit them as a single record into

I am very concerned of Intuit lack of forward measures to protect wholesale billing bookkeepers and accountants during a state declared quarantine. A run of Quickbooks Online clients are asking for a temporary suspension of billing since state have imposed strict normal business operational restrictions. This is a special case with small businesses not related to essential services. Intuit does not provide a temporary suspension function under the firm dashboard.  Currently, the only way to stop billing is to do a Transfer Whole Billing to Client operation. This action of course carries very adverse consequences to the firm because the client eventually will return to normal business operation under Intuit platform without a reinstatement to the firm billing line. If no concrete measures are taken to protect the firm interest, Intuit is grossly and unfairly will be taking  an unfair advantage from this national emergency.  In a short term, this opportunist

Discover a whole new way of doing business with our new QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise with Hosting. It offers protected anytime, anywhere, and on any device access to your data. Your team all works with the same information, at the same time - no matter where they are and no matter if they're using a Mac, PC, or tablet. Now, everyone can get more done.     Intuit Hosting Powered by Right Networks Who is Right Networks? QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise Subscription With Hosting Pricing What does Intuit Hosting do?     New to hosting FAQs Can I have third party apps? To view a full list of third party apps, visit the Right Networks Application Directory   How long does onboarding take?   How many users can I have? Your Right Networks users need to match your QuickBooks user count.  Example; If you have a 5 User Enterprise Solution subscription, you can have up to 5 hosting users.   How do I add users to Right Networks?

It's finally Friday! I know we're all ready for the weekend but maybe you've just recently had a major "light bulb" moment for a brilliant business idea and it's time to get the ball rolling.     Today, I want to take a moment to share a few ways to brainstorm and protect your new idea. Here are a few tips that were recently published by Forbes:       1. Identify a niche. You may have already done this step, but identifying what the market needs is key. Spending time and effort on something you think consumers will love, only to find out otherwise can be pretty discouraging. You can avoid this by studying your best-selling products and checking your sales results compared to industry standards. From here you may be able to come up with an offshoot that no one else is selling.   2.  Do market research on your new business idea.Expand your initial market research by focusing on your new idea. Take a closer look at your customer base to see where y

Hello, everyone! I wanted to stop by today and talk a little about marketing. Specifically, differences between marketing for an online based store and a physical brick and mortar location. Since I'm not a business owner myself, I wanted to get an inside look from someone I know who has done both. I spoke with a family member [Kara S., Owner of Heart + Soul Boutique] who previously ran her business online and recently transitioned to an actual storefront. Here's what she had to say:   Brick and MortarA physical location for your business makes marketing easier, as it draws people in on its own. This can be as simple as people being out and about on any given day and just seeing your store and stopping by to check things out. Social media holds a major role when it comes to marketing and updating your customers as inventory circulates. This is a great way for your customers to stay engaged and interested. Without a website where they can purchase your product, they may be more apt

Hello All, I just discovered the Community, despite having been using Quickbooks for six months now. I am Brazilian, with a degree in Law in Brazil and a Certificate of Paralegal Studies in the USA, where I live since 2017. I work with legal translation in the areas of Intellectual Property and Immigration. I'm also a Notary Public in Florida. Anyone who wants to learn more about me, feel free to visit my website at www.scglawandlanguage.com. Have a great day, everyone! Post 2.jpg

Good afternoon, Community! Today I want to talk about blogging. I know about blogging but at the same time, I didn’t really know what blogging was. Does that make sense? No? Ok, how ‘bout a definition. According to Wikipedia, a blog is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries.   That leads me to ask – do you currently use a blog for your small business? I found that this practice is a great way to casually inform and interact with your clients and customers. Aside from positive engagement, there’s so much room for creativity in a space of your own. Some great ideas I came across for blog topics include:   Sharing the history of your business in a storytelling format. Sharing a customer success story. Discussing future plans. Creating a list of influential people to follow on Twitter. Answering FAQs. These kinds of discussions allow avenues to open up for personal interaction with y

Hey everybody, and happy Friday! We’re already in the third month of 2020 and daylight savings time is upon us. I’m sure you’ve got big plans for this year, and an extra hour during the day means there’s more time to work on those plans. I’m here today to share a few helpful tips I found that will help you stay on top of the game. Here we go:   Break down big projects into small tasks with staggered deadlines. Extended projects go hand-in-hand with a variety of deadlines and checkpoints. So you don’t get overwhelmed, it’s always a good practice to break each project down into manageable tasks. Additionally, making sure major deadlines don’t overlap is something to always keep in mind.   Prioritize tasks that depend on other people. As a business owner, you’re in charge of overseeing each project to completion. But, you also have a variety of other duties and you’re only one person. Don’t be afraid to divvy up responsibilities, and help yourself by allowing others to help you.

We are a small business in Charlotte NC.  We are wanting to hire a office assistant.  We have received a lot of resumes for the position but one thing that scares us is the job hopping.  No one stays at a job for more that 2-3 years.  Its a big investment to hire people that won't stay at a job longer even if the pay rate is good.What are your thoughts?

  There are a multitude of strategies out there that businesses use to try to boost sales. As a small business owner, I’m sure you’ve tried several. Does it ever feel like these may be quick fixes and aren’t really helping in the long run? Forbes recently published an article that offered four universal truths of successful business sales. Here’s what they had to say: Stop selling to your customers. Instead, start helping your customers.I’ll go ahead and say it, there are times when I really don’t want to hear a sales pitch. I just need some help. Promoting your product or service in a way that truly helps your customers rather than just selling, will ultimately bring about a more positive engagement. Given the amount of information available with today’s technology, when a potential customer reaches you, they’ve already made part of the buying decision. Now it’s your turn to let them know how you can help. Take advantage of technology to maximize your efforts.Paper and pencil r

Hello everyone! I hope you all are having a lovely Wednesday so far. I thought I’d stop by and switch things up with today’s post. The other day I read about the importance of having a daily routine. Some of the points mentioned were that a routine:   Makes us more efficient Reduces our need to plan Creates structure in our lives Saves time Instills good habits   I don’t know about you, but I could certainly use an increase in each of those areas. My daily routine includes waking up, showering, getting dressed, and then, I can’t stress the importance of this enough – coffee. I usually work at home so after the coffee gets started, I get my computer up and running. I log into the Community and start browsing posts to see where I can help out. Around 11:00am, I take a quick break. During this time I usually make some brunch. Lunch time is around 1:00. I try to get outside and take a quick walk to get some air and refresh my brain to finish up the work day. After a few more ho

To build and maintain a successful business relationship, it's important that both parties are happy.  Share your experiences in the comments below. 

 Everyone is moving to cloud hosting platform to enhance their business, Now the question is how to find the best one with the qualitywise and price wise as well. I read many articles about the best cloud hosting service provider and each one has shared some common points which I want to add here so that you can get best cloud hosting provider- Check where the data center is located so that you will able to identify how much your data is safe there to host How frequently they used to take backup of data how flexible environment they offer to access the Data Availability of Technical support team Availability of Customer support team  Cost for services  

Hello! I have a consulting firm where most of the consultants are 1099 contractors (a few just receive referrals and pay a commission back to the firm). I am trying to set up QuickBooks Online to track this well. As a general example a consultant might have 10 total clients. They work with each a few days per year. The cost to the firm is ordinarily comprised of the subcontracting cost of the dedicated consultant plus possibly some reimbursable expenses. To date I have very little else to expense on a per-client basis.  Also, each consultant pays a monthly fee to be part of the firm, so they are both a CUSTOMER and a CONTRACTOR at the same time, which is painful. I have a few questions/challenges and I'd love your thoughts. Can I have the same company (the consultants are all LLCs) be both a CUSTOMER and a CONTRACTOR? My research says no. I need to enter all the same information twice and have one character in the name slightly different. What a pain.I am using

“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.” – Willie Nelson   Running a business is hard work. That may be the understatement of the year. It takes so much time, effort, and probably even some blood, sweat, and tears. Through all of that, it may be difficult to maintain a positive way of thinking. I read an article that offered some great pointers on how to build a positive resilient business mindset.   Celebrate the challenges of the journey How you approach challenges can have a major impact on your level of positivity. Try this on for size: Rather than thinking, “Darn, I have to go to work today!” adopt the way of thinking, “I get to go to work today, and move one step closer to achieving my dream!” A good tip is to have a designated journal and write down each challenge of business ownership, along with the solutions as they come. Boost your self-belief As a person who started a business, you’re already in a very sma

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snap Chat, you name it! We probably all have at least one of these accounts set up that we use on a daily basis. I follow countless businesses and use these platforms to stay connected with family and friends, post silly memes, and maybe too often, share pictures of my cute kid. But social media is also a great tool that can be utilized for your business as well!                       Small businesses can use social media to connect with hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people they may not have been able to previously reach. Did you know you can even create your own ad within the systems? You can make a specific campaign, select your traffic, create audience tests to see who’s viewing your ad, and control the amount you’d like to spend.   We have this technology right at our fingertips, so why not put it to good use? These modern avenues allow us to update our viewers with new products or

Greetings and salutations, to all. Okay, let’s tone it down. It is Friday after all! I hope you all are ready for the weekend like me.   I wanted to take a moment to ask, how do you keep your business’ culture thriving? Do you do this by constantly checking numbers and records to make sure everything is where it should be? Do you plan fun events that get your name out to the public? I stumbled upon an article that offered one, yes one, thing to always remember that will ultimately keep your company culture on track.       What is this one special thing you ask? Your vision. Not your eye-sight vision, but your company’s overall vision of goals and what you’d like to achieve. Other than the state of being able to see, vision is defined as, “The ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom.” Yeah, that’s what we’re talking about!   I’m curious to know, and I hope you’ll take the time to share with us your company vision. The umbrella state

I use intuit online for payroll, they only file 1099s for federal filing, then tell you to look up what to do for your state.  I'm in California, and the link tells you NOTHING about the 1099 filing form for the state. Does anybody have information on this? Thanks so much

Happy Wednesday, folks! We’re half way to the weekend.   Since I began exploring here in the Community, I’ve came across a pretty expansive variety of business types and industries. Whether you’re an independent marketing consultant, hometown baker, a photographer, or anything in between, we all come from very different walks of life.   I’d like to use this particular post to ask you all to introduce yourselves and share your industry! This is also a great opportunity to connect with business owners who are in the same line of work or share similar interests.   Let us know!

I have a small retail store. The problem that I have is that I sell items that is delivered in batches i.e. I order 1 box of cat food and receives 5 packages in the box which I sell separately. So if my stock level is down to 3 items and I create a Purchase order I need to order 1 items (box of 5). So when delivered I copy PO to Bill which automatically increase my stock levels. the problem is that it only increase the stock level by 1 instead of 5. I can't amend the qty before I copy to bill as that will increase the PO value incorrectly.  I would appreciate any advise on how to deal with this. currently after I copied to bill I manually adjust quantity but it assigns it to stock shrinkage which is messing up my financial information. Regards,Danie

Are there things in your daily life that have transitioned to the digital age and you think would have been better left alone? On the other hand, perhaps you can think of a system or two that are in dire need of being pulled head-first into the twenty-first century. A recent Forbes article lists Five Planning Practices That Ensure Legacy Modernization Success.   I quickly realized that these ‘modernizations’ have been happening all around us, all the time, for as long as I can remember. Think about the systems your business uses for accounting, payroll, scheduling, time management, communication, inventory, quality control, etc. Were you using those same systems 10 years ago? Even if you were, I’d bet they’re shadows of their former selves.     Now think back to a time when you transitioned to a new system. Inevitably, there were pains of change. How could the transition have gone more smoothly? That’s the focal point of the piece, and there are a couple steps that reso