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Until recently, if you were running your sales force using Salesforce.com and keeping your books in QuickBooks – then there was no EASY and SIMPLE way to link the two systems.  Of course there are some 3rd Party SaaSware that passed some information between the two worlds, but many do not view these as a particularly smooth process.

Earlier this year Intuit released Salesforce for QuickBooks in the Intuit App Center which lets the #1 online Sales/CRM app communicate directly with the #1 small business accounting software.  This is available for users of QuickBooks Pro, Premiere, and Enterprise Solutions 2011 or later as well as QuickBooks Online.  Sorry Simple Start and QuickBooks for Mac users – Salesforce for QuickBooks is not yet compatible with those products.

Once properly set up, Salesforce for QuickBooks will automatically sync data between your Salesforce account and your QuickBooks Company file.  You and your sales reps will only need to enter data once and it will be updated in both systems – a big time saver – eliminating the need to manually record the same information in both systems.  Even more exciting for Salesforce users it that they will see current QuickBooks item availability and prices (in the professional edition), with sales histories, open balances and credit limits as well as Salesforce sales and customer account details.

According to Intuit, Salesforce for QuickBooks provides the following features:

• Easily track and cultivate leads from all types of marketing initiatives
• Manage and track every communication, activity and opportunity by contact
• See a complete sales and service history for each prospect or customer
• Enter data once and it’s automatically updated in both Salesforce and QuickBooks
• Stay on top of everything with real-time dashboards and reports
• When an Opportunity is changed to Closed Won in Salesforce, it triggers a transaction to be created in QuickBooks. (Professional Edition only)

 QuickBooks for Salesforce comes in two versions: GROUP and PROFESSIONAL editions.

• Group – Ideal for smaller companies for basic sales and marketing.
• Professional – Scales with your business grows and has more advanced features.

For more information visit the Intuit App Center.

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Intuit has released the R3 update for QuickBooks 2012 which has fixed a number of bugs and made certain changes and improvements.

You can get a complete list of changes and instruction on how to update your software from the intuit support site under Product Updates.

It’s always a good idea before installing updates to make sure you have a current backup of your QuickBooks data files and to follow Intuit’s instructions for your version of the QuickBooks software.

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Intuit usually introduces their QuickBooks product upgrades each October, and the 2012 products are now available.  All the QuickBooks products have a lot of improvements in 2012, but Mac and Enterprise users should take particular note as these versions have significant improvements.

The What’s New information can be found on the following Intuit pages:

• QuickBooks Pro 2012
• QuickBooks Premier 2012
• QuickBooks Accountant 2012
• QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 2012
• QuickBooks for Mac 2012

Of particular note are the following:

• QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 2012 adds an Advanced Inventory option which, among other features, will allow Serial Number or Lot Tracking and and a FIFO Costing option.
• QuickBooks Accountant 2012 now is it’s own product with a separate list of features not available in QuickBooks Premiere.
• QuickBooks for Mac 2012 provides additional features for Mac users.

There are way too many improvements in all the QuickBooks 2012 upgrades to list here.  Use the above links to get all the details.

NOTE – Intuit has just released the R3 release as a manual update for QuickBooks that should be available soon as an automatic update.  This release includes a large number of bug fixes, so be on the lookout for this update.  Find out more about at Update to the Latest Release R3.

QuickBooks for Mac 2012 is in it’s R2 release.  Find out more at QuickBooks for Mac 2012 R2.

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Update concerning R8:

Some users are experiencing problems with QuickBooks 2011 after updating to R8.  Many are advising to hold off on installing R8 until Intuit fixes the problems.

If you have already updated to 2011 QB R8, then you can review the following article from Intuit:
http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/Support/Articles/SLN53363 for more information.

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I can’t tell you how often I have heard the phrase: “My business is just too small to hire a CFO.”  Or to translate the underlying thought, these business owners are more likely saying: “My business is too small to AFFORD a CFO.”

But when you think of what a CFO really provides - that bookkeepers, accountants and even most CPAs can’t – then you will realize that your business cannot afford NOT to hire a CFO.

Most business owners probably believe that their business is in some level of “growth mode” – or that at least their business has the potential to grow into a larger enterprise.  Unfortunately, these entrepreneurs most likely have no idea how to quantify that growth potential.  And that’s what a CFO does.  He or she helps manage growth.

Here’s how I pigeonhole the players:

• Bookkeepers organize what’s on the table… They pay the bills, record invoices, make journal entries, etc.
• Accountants, by necessity, have a “rear-view” mentality.  They report on the company’s historical activities – what has happened last week, or last month, or last year.
• CPAs – a higher level Accountant – appear more focused on Tax issues as well as certifying that the historical financial reports are true and accurate.
• CFOs, on the other hand, focus on assembling the knowledge provided by the bookkeepers, the accountants, and the CPAs, and then combining that information with doses of economic reality in order to create actionable views into the future: such as budgets, forecasts, and business plans.  Focusing on the future view is how your business manages growth.

We will share more on how a CFO helps the entrepreneur manage growth in our coming posts… but first I am sure you want to know how your small business can possibly afford the services of a CFO.

Rather than think about hiring a full-time CFO (which can easily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year), think instead about hiring part-time management consultants.  There are a great many former CFOs who have gone into consulting businesses of their own and provide CFO services by the hour or for a flat fee.  Find the right management consultant and you can have CFO expertise at a fraction of the cost of full-time executives that will likely pay for itself with managed growth.

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In addition to setting QuickBooks to automatically backup after so many openings of the file, you can also set up an automatic schedule based on time.

First open QuickBooks in the company file you want to set up a scheduled backup and in the FILE menu and click on Create Backup.

In the Create Backup window, select the Local Backup radio button and click the Next button.

In the next window you will be prompted for: “When do you want to save your backup copy?”  Click on the radio button next to “Save it now and schedule future backups” or “Only Schedule future backups”.  Click Next.

In the following window, in the “Back up on a schedule” section, click the NEW button.

In the Schedule Backup window, enter a description for this backup… something like “Daily Backup” or anything else you prefer.  Also, enter the location on your computer that you want to save the backup as well as the number of backup copies to keep.

Next select the time of day you want the backup to run.  One suggestion is to run it just before activities begin for the day or just after close of business for the day.  Be sure to set it for a time when the computer is turned on, but not being used.

If you have a user password on the company file, you will also need to enter the file password.

I like to schedule backups to run after close of business daily, weekly and monthly.

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For you QuickBooks for Mac 2011 users, if you have not already been notified, Intuit has released the R9 update.

You can find out more about what is included in this release at Intuit’s Release Notes.

The update can be downloaded from Intuit from their Product Update page.

This is a free product update from Intuit that may help resolve some of the problems you are having with QuickBooks.

If you want to confirm whether you already have this update release, open your copy of QuickBooks for Mac and press Function+F2 and check the release version you are running.

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Oftentimes you will hear advice to backup your QuickBooks file on a regular basis.  Unfortunately, the term “backup” is often used to mean different things.  A QuickBooks Backup is not to be confused with any of the many options available to backup your data files, or entire data drives or system drives.  These backups are NOT the same as a QuickBooks backup.  Simply making a copy of the QBW data file does not insure that you can recover all elements of your QuickBooks installation.

Moreover, when the QuickBooks backup routine is activated, QuickBooks initiates a series of procedures that begin with a test the integrity of the data file and then collects all the information QuickBooks needs to restore the installation.  Not all the active data is stored in the QBW file.

If, as Intuit recommends, the option is selected in the Backup Options menu to do a complete verification of the data file , QuickBooks will perform a test to insure that the data file’s integrity is ok.  This file verification analysis can become crucial to maintaining the integrity of the database.

After the file verification is complete QuickBooks will flush out the “tlg” file - a temporary file created by QuickBooks that provides the information that Intuit’s Tech Support will need to help you restore a corrupt data file.  This file contains all the transactions posted since the last full internal backup.  If the tlg file is not flushed on a regular basis, however, it will continue to grow in size - often surpassing the size of the core QBW file and possibly slowing system performance.  This tlg file is flushed automatically whenever a full internal QuickBooks backup is performed.  It is NOT flushed when an external data or system backup is executed by some other program or process.

The final QBB backup file will contain all the information from the various QuickBooks data files that is needed to restore your QuickBooks installation.  This includes the “lmr” file that contains the Loan Manager data, the various letter templates and other data which are not stored in the main QBW file.  When using its Restore Utility, in addition to restoring the main QBW file, QuickBooks provides a separate “restore” directory that contains the files and instructions necessary for completing the restoration process.

There are some exceptions, of course, like the FAM module.  If you use the Fixed Asset Manager to track assets and calculate depreciation, then you will need to perform the FAM backup from within the FAM module itself as well as any third-party add-on applications that manage separate data files.

When QuickBooks completes its internal backup process it produces a QBB backup file in the directory you selected earlier in the process.  It is usually recommended that you store a second copy of this QBB backup file in an off-site location.  This can serve as part of your disaster recovery plan should the main backup drives somehow become inaccessible or destroyed or simply fail mechanically – and as you know, all hard drives will eventually fail.  Having two copies of the QBB backup file (with one in a separate location, off premises) helps protect your ability to easily recreate your QuickBooks records.

Intuit even offers a “cloud-based” online backup service (at an additional fee, of course) which may provide you with the additional data security you need.  Or simply copy the QBB backup file to an external portable hard drive or “memory stick” and store it in an secure 0ff-site location.

You can even use the QuickBooks scheduled backup feature to automatically perform a backup on a regular basis from within your desktop QuickBooks.

More on setting up a backup schedule in my next post…

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Intuit has released Update #6 for QuickBooks 2011.  It is available at Intuit’s download site at http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/Support/ProductUpdates.aspx and will be released as an automatic update on Tuesday March 22, 2011.  (Be sure to make a backup of your data file before installing any update.)

There are some interesting enhancements included in this update in addition to any bug fixes.  Some of the improvements include:

1)  The Transaction Pane that was added to the 2011 transactions will now be able to display who created and edited a transaction, when it was mailed, and what other transactions are related to it.  This eliminates the need to run separate reports to determine this information.   There is also the new ability to add notes on supported transactions.  (Premiere ProAdvisor and Plus Subscription)

2)  When opening QuickBooks, the Memorized Transaction prompt has been improved to report which memorized transactions are due to be entered.  In addition, the language used to set up the memorized transactions has been improved to avoid some confusion.  (Premiere ProAdvisor and Plus Subscription)

3)  Batch Invoices have been improved to include the ability to invoice multiple customers for time and expenses.  You will now be able to view billable time, expenses, mileage and purchased items and generate batch invoices for multiple customers.  (Premiere ProAdvisor and Plus Subscription)

4)  The Intuit Data Protect System Tray icon will no longer be initiated for users that have not subscribed to the service.

5)  QuickBooks Shipping Manager will support both the US Postal Service and stamps.com

There are a number of other improvements listed for Collecctions Center, Form Templates, Help, Intuit Payment Network, Inventory, Payroll, PDF, QuickBooks Connected Services, QuickBooks File Manager, Reminders, Reports, SDK and the User Interface.

NOTE – Not all improvements are available on all versions of QuickBooks 2011 as Intuit refines the distinctions it makes between the Pro, Premiere and Enterprise versions of the software.  In addition, Premiere Accountant Edition has different features than regular Premiere Edition and this differes from Premiere Accountant Edition for ProAdvisors.  And “Plus” subscribers also have a different set of features.  Bottom line - some of the above enhancements may or may not be included in your version of QuickBooks.

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For QuickBooks Mac users, Intuit has released upgrade R8 to QuickBooks Mac 2011.

There is a issue if you have an outstanding accountant’s copy you need to wait to upgrade to R8 until AFTER you have restored your file with your accountant’s changes.  Be sure to backup your data file before performing any upgrade.

Inuit announced the following fixes in this release: