Discuss Your Business

Hi all, Just thought I would share this with all the community members on here in case you had missed it. QuickBooks have recently released a competition to win a grant worth £5000 to boost your business. They will pair you with another sole trader or small business who can provide the goods or services you need to take your business to the next level. To find out more visit this link: Win a grant worth £5000 Good luck everyone who is going to enter!Emily

We're each here because we're among a self-selected group of people who dare to go for it on our own. What are you itching to learn about with and from other small business owners and self-employed professionals?   What's on *your* mind? Let's start that conversation below!

I am new to QuickBooks and would like some advice on the following:-I am a sheep farmer here in the UK and when I sell sheep through the livestock market I receive payment for my sheep with all deductions (levy,commissions and services) already deducted.  All services have VAT and the sheep do not.  How do I go about entering this on QuickBooks?  Thank you.

It's National Memo Day! A new week is ahead and It's time to get organised and on top of your to-do's.   Memo, short for a memorandum, is a document and form of communication, intended to inform a group of people about a particular topic. Memos are used for many different purposes, most often in the workplace.    Do you still use memos/post-it notes for reminders, to-do’s or for messages to your co-workers? Or have you gone digital? How do you use this fun communication tool? Comment below!

  When it comes to making smart decisions about money, Dawn Fotopulos is one of our all-time favourite people to turn to for answers. Dawn, is one of the most popular speakers at QuickBooks Connect. Why? Because she’s incredibly smart, supportive, funny and direct. Most of all, she’s deeply passionate about helping small businesses succeed.   No surprise, then, that we turn to Dawn for straight talking on money matters. We’ve asked her to help us understand how to track our cash better—and keep it flowing.    Count every pound  An overwhelming number of small businesses only have enough cash on hand to operate for 30 days. With this dark cloud looming over the heads of so many entrepreneurs, no wonder most of us put getting our finances in order on the to-do list somewhere between taking out the bins and seeing the dentist.   Instead of dreading—or worse, completely avoiding—getting financial clarity, Dawn says those of us who work for ourselves should st

Hello fellow Community members! Right now I am sitting on a Jet Blue flight headed to New York for the Accounting and Finance Show being held at the Javits Center, and wanted to see if anyone else will be going and would like to meet up? This event marks my first opportunity to promote my QuickBooks Desktop application Vendorsync so I am really excited.  I want to give a big shout out to Analytix for allowing me to utilize their booth to  talk with my fellow accountants. I would love to do a live streaming interview with anyone from the community so come find me in booth 158 ( Analytix Solutions) Hope everyone has a successful week!

Name: Pascal Depuhl Business: Photography by Depuhl   Founded: 1993   Pascal Dephul is a photographer and videographer, but his professional title is “Chief Mindchanger”. This is because he believes we all have a moral and professional obligation to give back. We caught up with him after he returned from Nepal, where he’d been working with an organisation dedicated to helping remote mountain communities get access to life-saving medical services. Pascal tells us about his trip and shares an unexpected realisation that changed the way he thinks about—and provides—customer service.   Why were you filming in Nepal? I was filming a documentary about a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in a remote region of the Himalayas. When I say “remote,” I‘m not exaggerating. People in these villages have to trek for 7 days through insanely rough mountains and valleys just to get to a bus stop. From there, it’s a 15-hour ride to the nearest hospital. Given these conditions, it’s no won

May was the month of imagery! Sometimes appropriate imagery is all you need to get your message across whilst gaining recognition and increasing custom to your business.   They say that a picture is worth a thousand words…   Have you considered if you’re using the correct imagery for your business? Are you communicating the correct message?   How do you visually promote your business? Comment your tips and tricks below! QB Community UK Home          Talk About Your Business          Find Inspiration     

Many small business owners have found success by establishing themselves as the face of their brand.   When putting your business forward, are you front and centre? Do you distinguish between your personal brand and your business brand? 

  Name: Edna Wilson Business: Wilson Marketing & PR Founded: 2015   After years of helping organisations with their public communications, Edna Wilson was ready to strike out on her own. As a marketing professional, she had plenty of industry experience. What she didn’t have, however, was a clear vision of how to position her professional skills with her personal interests and passions. Thanks to the time she spent working with 2 different coaches, Edna found her niche.    How did you get established as a freelance marketer? Before I founded my business, I worked for a bunch of other companies in order to get experience. One of the most wonderful experiences was freelancing for a regional alternative health and food magazine. I did this for 9 years! That helped me get established.   What made you go from freelancing to opening a full-time business? I’ve held full-time jobs and freelanced on the side for many years. Finally, I said “I need to give working f

    When you’re thinking about taking the leap and working for yourself, a lot of things can hold you back. After all, it’s hard to turn your back on a consistent paycheque when the alternative is uncertain. So, we asked the QuickBooks Community to think back on their experiences and share what milestones made them reset a traditional career path to strike it out alone.    Fed up with the corporate world Lee Weinstein, who is now head of his own firm, Weinstein PR, changed his career path thanks to a passionate conviction he needed to do something different with his life. “I’d been at Nike 15 years. I loved working there. I was literally shaving one morning, and I asked the guy in the mirror, do you want to be there 20 years? He said, ‘Hell, no!’ I was surprised I felt that strongly. I didn’t know what I wanted to do if I left Nike, and that led me to a whole process of figuring it out”.   Change of location, change of career Travis Troyer worked in accounting

Is there a way to directly deposit an amount and get a check for the balance?

  You may already have read our checklist for making sure your business is ready for customers. Now we’re focusing on ensuring you get the most out of your very first clients. Here are 4 ways you can kick-start your business just by making your customers happy.   Stop, talk and listen If customers are always right, let them be your most trusted advisors. Find out what drew them to your product or service—enquire about what made them choose your brand over the competition. What do they like about your offering, and what could you do to make it even better? Your first customer “survey” may only garner a data point of one, but it’s an important building block for your future growth strategy.     Aim to surprise and delight Your first customer deserves to be celebrated. Make them feel special by offering an on-the-spot discount or giving a voucher for a future purchase. If your customer is happy, they’re more likely to tell other

Hello All... I need a little guidance? Advice? Real time experiences? I am a small, yet growing, freight brokerage office started in 10/17. I have a constant need to know how we are doing? Are we growing? When can I give myself a raise? I am a report/numbers kind of guy, just cant see it and think it has to be in QB somewhere. I have 3 employees paid as such and 2 partners total (members of the LLC) which are being paid as "member draws" right now. Is there a report where I can see all of this? Can I customize existing P&L maybe, to show all of this? I have a solid handle on monthly expenses and revenue fluctuates a little. I am also looking for a way to gauge how the month is going "real time"? **NOTE** 2019 may be easier as we will change to Chapter S election and will pay everyone as employees. Thoughts? Ideas? Am I looking for too much? TIA  

The next time you feel inspired to do something nice for someone, consider directing that impulse toward your employees - it will make them better workers, according to a recent study.    Employees at a Spanish company were randomly assigned the roles of Giver, Receiver, or Control. Givers were provided with a personalized list of Receivers and a mission: practice five random acts of kindness over the next month.    The benefits were striking. In the short-term both Givers and Receivers actually became more effective at their jobs, rating higher on weekly measures of competence and autonomy. Over the long-term Givers said they felt more satisfied with their lives and jobs, and Receivers reported feeling happier overall. Even better? Receivers were nearly three times more likely to "pay it forward" by performing acts of kindness toward others both at work and at home.    I've written about this before, but given the sheer amount time and en

    Name: Nick Leffler Business: Exprance Founded: 2014     Nick Leffler is no stranger to the side-gig. Whether he was in school studying web design or employed full-time at companies offering Internet communications and digital marketing services, for years Nick dug deeper into those fields by working for himself, too.   In 2014, Nick decided he was ready to focus on helping small businesses reach new customers in the digital age. Today, Nick is dedicated to building his own dream, not someone else’s. Here, the self-declared “online presence coordinator” and founder of Exprance explains why he recommends giving away priceless information for free and why, when it comes to some clients, sometimes it pays to just say no.   Nick, tell us about your business and how it came to be.   I’ve always worked in the field of Internet technology in some way, whether it was web design, online marketing or digital communications. There are plenty of companies of

  You know that working for yourself means doing whatever it takes for your business. And given the non-stop, all-in nature of the job, the idea of one day selling what you’ve worked so hard to build may seem strange.   Yet seasoned entrepreneur and business coach Julie Gordon White wants you to carefully and deliberately plan for a future sale, starting right now. She firmly believes every business owner should have a solid business strategy from the beginning with a specific end-goal in mind: to one day sell your company for over a million.    Why think big from day one?  Julie uses a simple analogy to put her “think ahead” strategy into perspective. “If you’ve ever sold a house, you know it always looks the best right before you sell. You paint, buy new soft furnishings, maybe even redo the kitchen. Then it looks so good you think, ‘Why didn’t I do this years ago? Now I don’t want to sell!’ If you make your business as great as it can be from the very begin

How is QBSE handling the 20% pass through deduction for 2018? I am new to QB/QBSE so a direct answer is so appreciated! Thank you

Name: Gopi Shah Business: Gopi Shah Ceramics Founded: September 2014   When Gopi Shah relocated for her partner’s new job, she found herself unemployed, with no network for continuing her career. Instead of panicking, Gopi decided to nurture her life-long passion for working with clay. She reached out to the local ceramics community and quickly found a mentor who knew all about running a successful art business. Gopi was nervous. But deep down, she knew she was ready for the challenge.    Why did you find a mentor? I’d worked with clay in an academic setting, taking classes at school and university. I knew that experience was very different to running a ceramics business. I figured being an apprentice was a low-risk way for me to see if I enjoyed the work and decide if it was feasible to build my own brand.    What did you learn from working with a mentor? My mentor, along with her husband, was super supportive and taught me so much about becoming a professiona

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Name: Sarah Lin  Business: EllieFunDay Founded: 2013   Sarah Lin was a designer, marketer and creative director in the corporate world for more than a decade before stepping out on her own. She’d long wanted to start a socially-conscious enterprise but never imagined finding inspiration for a business from her beloved baby blanket. In 2013, Sarah founded an organic baby blanket and accessories company that provides a fair-wage and dignified employment to marginalised women around the globe.     What’s the story behind your business?  I'd always dreamed of creating a product that married my love for good design with my desire to support a social need. I knew I had to come up with a product I dearly loved—I couldn’t quit my full-time job for something random.   I kept coming back to my own baby blanket. Whenever my mother washed it and hung it out to dry, I would stand outside by the clothesline holding a corner of my blanket, waiting to reclaim it.  

   Was there life before smartphones? Mine certainly wasn’t as flexible. Smartphones have brought many of us the freedom we wanted to be able to attend to life and our business -- whenever and wherever.   In fact, the entire way we do business has changed so much in the last decade. And it’s only speeding up. Car phones, faxing, phone book ads and catalogue shopping have all been left in innovation’s dust, while entire industries such as hospitality, retail, entertainment and publishing have been disrupted by better, faster and stronger technologies. What did I do before Instacart?   This May, in QB Community, we’ll be exploring these “Business Shifts” and what they mean for you, the small business owner. Expect great discussions on shifting from analogue to digital, paper to cloud, brick-and-mortar to e-commerce, cash to smart pay, “real’ people to bots, even dining out to delivery.   Here are three big changes that can impact you as the future of commerce co

  You’ve heard the saying, ‘If you build it, they will come’. And it’s true—the time and effort you spend getting your business ready for its launch is critical to building a following of happy, loyal customers. So here are five tips to remember when building your business to make sure it’s ready to be a success.    Get your pricing right When it comes to charging what you (and your products and services) are worth, a little research goes a long way. These days, conducting a thorough competitive analysis is pretty simple. A quick search on Amazon and Google can show you how your prices compare with your competitors. Then, you have to think about the type of customers you want to market to and what they’d be willing to pay. Which leads us to the next tip.   Know your customers Who is your ideal customer? It pays to think beyond the obvious here. For example, if you sell handmade scented candles, you’re helping a multi-tasking mum instantly mask the odour of pe

Name: Faye Macis Business: Little Happy Candles Location: London Launched: 2016   Faye Macis was studying for her master’s degree in mental health where she came up with the idea for Happy Little Candles. In the middle of a lecture, it struck her that even the smallest act of self-care can have a big effect on a person’s mental well-being. She knew she’d found her calling: helping to promote the little things in life—like pleasurable scents - that can positively impact people’s lives.    How did you create a business around “making people happy”? In the past, I’d made what I called “happy boxes” as gifts for friends and family. Under the business name “Little Happy Goodies”, I made a product called “The Little Happy Hamper”. It was a small box filled with items such as soaps, lip balms, inspirational quote postcards, nail files—anything I thought would encourage a person to take time out and look after themselves, even if it was just for 30 seconds to moisturise their

  We work for ourselves.   That can feel like we're the only ones thinking about the health and success of our business.   So, what's on your mind right now? Comment below!