I have been using a bookkeeping program that I wrote 20 years ago. It would do everything from track calls and inventory to tax forms. I started it in dBase II and have migrated it upto FoxPro over the years. MS bought FoxPro and did like MS is good at doing and ruined a good program. I put it off as long as I could but my old PC hard drive died so I figured it was a good time to upgrade. I bought Quickbooks Pro 2010 and started to set it up and was wondering if anyone has any suggestions for making this work for a telecom company. I can see already that I'm going to miss the automation that my old system had but this should do a better jobs with the accounting.

Many of us use Quick Books Merritt. What specifically do you need to know?

One thing I noticed is the way it maintain the inventory. It has a part number field but uses Item Name as the key. Also the field titles are confusing no sport for model or brand but it has Purchase Description and Sales Description :shrug: . It also needs a way of tracking jobs in process and service calls. My system that I used before was simple.

When I got a call I entered the phone number of the account and problem. PC would create work order to take to job.

When job was complete enter work order #, material and labor and PC would update account rec., inventory and print Invoice.

When payment was received I would enter Invoice # and amount of payment all the accounts would update.

If I needed a report just click the report icon and enter criteria to print. Besides inventory and accounting my system also help track customer equipment info. If I brought up a customer account I could see past jobs but I could also see info about their system and programming.The only other software I saw that was close to this was Tiger Paw and I can't justify $2400 for a one man operation.

We've been using QB for quite some time now and Cherish, out bookkeeper is a whiz at it. I have set up some things and use it everyday, but I'm not nearly as good or as fast as she is. If you have decided to use QB, however, you have to let go of what you were doing before, and let QB do what it does and don't try to make it do what it can't.

I set up the Item list the way that makes sense to me. Everything is "non-inventory"--mainly because of tax/depreciation stuff---it just makes it simpler, and I don't do enough business to have to track inventory. Every week I just go look in the warehouse. I click on the "sub item" box. The item/name would be "Cat 3 Cable", sub item I have as "002:Cable", Mfgs number I have as "101130". I've clicked on the next box and use the "purchase info" to describe what it is, plus shipping costs and the date of the last price check and price--just info that helps me. In the "sales info" I put what I want the customer to see on the invoice or on the estimate.

There a lot of details that need to be taken care of. It goes on & on.

When we first started the business, a business manager, who was very familiar with QB, said--- the Work Order drives the Invoice. Every job starts with a hand written, 4 sheet W.O. and without it, no Invoice can be generated. It looks like you're a bit more sophisticated than that, but that's what works for us.

PM me if you want. Maybe I can get Cherish to talke to you and give you some tips.

Make sure the PC exceeds the minimum requirements that QB recommends!

You can set your "Items" up any way you like: ie by part number or name. Example KSU, CICS, Ver 7.1, although I just list it as KSU, CICS and list the software separately.

The same goes for clients. I, having a Bell background, set it as "Bxxx-xxxx Joe Blow Engineering" for a business client, without the "B" for a residential client.

I don't use QB for work orders, however you can start an invoice and mark it as "Pending" for an on-going job.

You can also create invoices directly from an estimate.

PM sent

Let me know how you make out Merritt. I'm probably going to have to go the same route. The WIN 98 machine my old accounting software runs on is getting pretty old and since we are coming to the end of the year it's a good time to make the move. I have forms in Word for work orders and invoices so I probably wouldn't even have QB do that. I really only need it to keep the books and print checks. The one thing I hate about bookkeeping software is that it tries to be all things to all people. 99% of what it does I wouldn't care about and just making that 1% fit my needs gets very complicated.

-Hal

Hal, when you're ready to update your PC, give Intuit a call. They used to send out a trial version that would give you 30 logins to play with their sample file so you can get the feel of it.

A nice way to "Try B/4 you buy"

Nahh, I'll bite the bullet and buy it. Doesn't matter if I don't like it, what choice do I have? I'll go with QB because all accountants I talk to know it.

-Hal

I use the free edition of QB for my stuff. It doesn't do inventory, but I mainly just use it to keep track of work I have done and to send out invoices. I can easily see if someone owes me money and how long they have waited to not pay me

I have usewd QB for several years now. I kind of jumped in and started out not knowing what I was doing. Iran across an accountant that was wanting my business and offered some free training. He spent about 4 hours with me and we tuned it up fairly well. Is it the answer to all of your needs in this business? No but it will help. I have redesigned some of the templates for invoices etc.

Mike

I use QB-pro also and subscribe to their payroll option. It makes out all my monthly and quarterly state and federal tax forms. With the payroll option you have to update every three years. You can also e-mail invoices with it. On Dec. 31 I make a back-up and give it to the accountant.

There is another "premier" accounting solution out there called "Creative Solutions". My CPA is moving more and more people to it from Quickbooks.

I don't know the specifics and heck I'm still using Quicken Home & Office for invoices...but from what I've seen, this is more like a real accounting program rather than something to keep track of Granny Smith's craft shop.

https://cs.thomsonreuters.com

Now that I have it setup some and starting to work with it I can see 3 things that I would like it to do.

1. Is there a way to have a spot to enter labor and installation charges to an Estimate and Invoice?

2. Have a spot to do work orders. Something like the Estimates but for simple service jobs.

3. For an item like a phone it would be nice to have all of 1 model in one inventory but still be able to track individual serial numbers.


Any experts know if either can be done Please let me know.

1. Put labor as an item. I have L1 to L9 for different kinds of labor--IT, Installation, Bench, Training, Remote etc.

2. Not that I know of --but you can change and nmake different templates for the Estimate section. This may be a way of entering in a swparate place for labor, too.

3. I have mine separated using all the different manufacturers that we service--Allworx, Avaya, Comdial, Toshiba etc. It's all in the listing of the items. I use different "indicators" so that they all come up in the list in a logical progression.

I'm about ready to give it a try. I have my customer and inventory information imported and have tweaked the settings. I did find a way to create a work order to take the place of an complete estimate form. I also have made an Invoice template that I like better then my old invoices. After I get used to this I just might like it. After working with databases for many years its pretty easy. Heres a sample of my work order and invoice.

Work order looks neat & clean. I don't use them, however if I did, I would add in the area where you say "Thank you for your business" something like "Terms & Conditions have been explain to the client for overdue invoices" or better yet spell them out along with a place for them to sign. This is so that they can't say that they didn't know that there would be interest charges after 30 days, for example.

On the invoice, I like the inlay of the phone. How'd you do that?

I would line up the lines for the "Price Each" column with the "Terms" box above.....just makes it look neater IMO.

I would also remove the "Part Number column" from the PRINTED invoice. I wouldn't want to give the client too much info, so they could surf the net for their next purchase if you know what I mean.

I have multiple invoice templates depending on the situation. My best one is a copy of the main one that I call "Incentive", that I use for a client not covered by a maintenance contract. In the "Description" area at the bottom there's a big box with "This invoice can be reduced or completely credited if you sign up for one of our service plans." I get a lot of call backs inquiring about this. :dance:

Great ideas Dave I'll work on them and may end up like you with different Invoices for different occasions. I am still considering maint. contracts so I'll keep that idea on hold till then. The phone inlay I did from a TranTel phone pic. I changed the contrast and brightness to fade it into the background. When I print them on a laser printer B&W it looks pretty sharp. The work order are mostly for my use. It give me a way of getting the job into QB without doing a complete estimate. I can also print a copy and take it with me for reminder of todays job and a place to write down what the job required. Basically to take the place of the memory that not as good as it used to be.

We use work orders also for the same reasons as Merritt but more importantly to get the customer's signature. They get itemized with all charges instead of the invoice so there can be no question. A signed copy gets attached to the invoice which can cover multiple work orders but usually doesn't. The invoice just has a sub-total, tax and total due.

-Hal

I cleaned up the invoice as Dave suggested and it looks even better. Thanks for the tip Dave I guess it hasn't got cold enough to give you brain freeze yet. Here is the newer version in gray scale like it prints but the printed copy the fonts are a lot cleaner. I can also add any custom message under the Thank you for your business.

"Voted best Telephone Communications business in Greater Lewiston/Auburn area."

Who voted? You & Crystal? :rofl:

All kidding aside, it now looks more professional.

"The phone inlay I did from a TranTel phone pic. I changed the contrast and brightness to fade it into the background." OK, how?

Quickbooks changed my adminstrative life 2000% for the better. I cut over in 2001 and I would be lost without it - so I do triple backups of my company files. Eliminated a lot of errors in calculating bids and invoices. My "items" have grown tremendously over the years. Best of all are the "A/R summary" where you see who owes you and how long etc., and "Income and Expense" - invaluable information. I am still using QB Pro 2005 which works just peachy for me.

Yes Dave we voted but I don't know if Crystal voted for me. They run the competition in the local newspaper and I've won 3 times.


To do the phone inlay I insert the picture in word and play with the brightness and contrast to lighten the picture. I then use Full Shot to capture the new image. Its pretty easy and I would be glad to do it for you if you want.

Try using Commit CRM for scheduling, dispatch, parts etc. Easy to learn and is solid..

Just use QB for the accounting side of your business.

Do all your work orders in Commit and it will automatically link to QB as an invoice, look it over, print or email it and your done.
.
It all syncs between each other.

Priced right and works very well.

I am very impressed with the new QB its a lot better then the last time I tried it many years ago. I looked at Commit but being a one man show I don't have a lot of time to keep track of. I found a way to do work orders and can generate an invoice from them. I also found the doc center where i can attach my Excel cheatcheats. This gives me all the business information, line info, programming, speed dial, desi, serial numbers and service history of each piece of equipment the customer has. I also have user cheatsheets and guides I can attach. Now I have every bit of info on a customer in one spot. :db: :db:

Neat. I wonder if the Doc center is built into QB Pro 2009. I'll have to look for that.

I started out my business a few years back with QB Basic 2006. I didn't get any training and wish I had. For several years, I was entering invoices and receiving payments wrong. This left an ugly company file. I switched accountants last year and my new bookkeeper sat me down for a few hours and walked me through it. Man I feel stupid for the simple mistakes that I was doing. I take care of invoicing customers and receiving payments. My bookkeeper does the rest. It saves me time, and is worth the minor expense. My bookkeeper also looks over what work I've done and can catch the mistakes earlier before the end of the year.

Now I kind of like QB. It is very easy to write up an invoice and click send. Poof, e-mail sent with attached PDF invoice to my customer. Most of my customers prefer PDF invoices. I do turn on "request read receipt" in Outlook when I send the e-mail. Most of my customers send the notifier back that they have received it. If they don't, I make sure to follow up to see if they got the invoice.

A couple of my customers who use QB extensively have come up with their own coding system that works for them. Give a customer a number when you add them in the customer center. Then you can use that number more quickly if you have a lot of customers to keep track of. Same with inventory. Labor or other services are what QB calls items. Make a new item for each labor fee, travel fee, etc that you charge.

One note, on the invoice template, I added a field called Service Date, which I note what day I performed the labor and installed the equipment on that date. I break down the labor per visit to make it easier for the customer to understand what they are getting billed for.

Me as well for Pro 2008

I simply start the profile with their main line. For example residence clients just use the number 562-xxxx Boheny, Helen, Businesses have a "B" in front B569-xxx The Record, Maintenance clients have a "M" in front M876-xxx Campbell & Bellam.

Once a business client signs for the maintenance I simply change the "B" to a "M". File stays intact.

Yeah that's a good idea on the account naming. I don't have enough customers that getting that detailed with a naming convention is needed.

One nice thing about QB: you can change a customer's name easily without messing up reports. You can also merge customers too by renaming customer A to customer B name, in a case where customer A buys customer B business. Then you have all of the previous invoices under one customer for referencing in the future.

A nice thing about the Doc Center besides allowing me to see all the customer info from one spot I can also access the files from the Internet. This is going to be nice because that will allow me access to customer info from anywhere. They give you 100MB space for free and I figure that will hold about 200 of my spreadsheets. Sample Spreadsheet I can add and delete the tabs as I need them.


Now I'm just waiting for the accountant to pick his brain to setup all the accounts.

I use Qbooks Pro 2009 and had not heard about the "Doc Center" and was curious. A google search led me to this thorough explanation:

https://qbblog.ccrsoftware.info/2009/09/quickbooks-2010-document-management/

Thanks for reference to Doc Center"

I've been playing around with the forms and have the 3 most important done.

Proposal


Work Order



Invoice

Any QB experts here ?

One thing I would like to do is import my old estimates from an excel spreadsheet.

I found a copy of the Estimate .iif but it has lots of fields that I don't know what they are.

I have an Excel spreadsheet with the following info I would like to import into my estimates but do not know how to get the right info in to iif file..

Date, Customer name, address, city, description and estimate #. Anyone know how to do this?

Good topic. Looks like we are gaining a lot of information and knowledge on something a lot of us use or will use. Keep it going!

-Hal

I think its doable - I have a couple of SW engineers on staff.

I will ask them as they seem to pull a few rabbits out of there hat from time to time.

I will answer back after Thanks giving.

There is a Quickbooks user forum located here
I've gone through three generations of QB and the less time I spend on it the happier I am!

Anyone thinking of going to QB 2010 then Staples has a deal