cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Announcements
Dirkdaddy
Level 4

Advice - Managing a remote client w/ paper bills, approvals to pay

Hello
I searched on this topic didn't see anything.

 

I have a new client who's business just sold off a big part of it, so I'm taking over the remaining bit, and they are leaving a brick & mortar location for a virtual world. 

 

Question - is there a recommended way to handling A/P for this remote company with an approval loop built in? 

 

Currently they have a A/P email account, but still get paper bills as well. The owners will be handling paper billing at this early juncture. I don't see them using scanner for all those bills. Obviously the ones we can convert to internet payment can go to the email.  The owner wants to handle manning that account and then forward payments to my email as approved. 

 

One stone age solution would be to give them USPS envelopes and they send paper bills to me on a weekly basis or something. While it would cost few bucks I'm OK with that. 

 

Recommended process for dealing with a clients A/P who is remote to your office? 

8 Comments 8
lynda
Community Champion

Advice - Managing a remote client w/ paper bills, approvals to pay

Hello @Dirkdaddy:  There are a few options.   Bill dot com is one (yes, I spelled it out).  It has a robust accounts payable system and works with both qbo and qb dt.  I have been hearing a buzz around billbeez, but I don't know anything about that one.  There is also Mineral tree.

 

Lynda

Anonymous
Not applicable

Advice - Managing a remote client w/ paper bills, approvals to pay

@Dirkdaddy

 

As they say, sometimes, the old ways are the best ways. The question you seem to be asking is, how do I get my client to follow a specific, repeatable procedure to make sure we don't double count bills and A/P.

 

Would you prefer the client handle the data entry, or do you prefer handling everything at a single source (i.e. you)? Would you eventually want to train them to handle the process themselves? Sounds like a technological solution might be out, as per your scanner comment. What's the current and anticipated volume? And most important, what method do you think your client can actually handle that introduces the least amount of risk? The solution you presented seems to solve for most of these...  

Dirkdaddy
Level 4

Advice - Managing a remote client w/ paper bills, approvals to pay

Thanks folks. 

 

I'm not worried about double entry on vendor invoices, between invoice numbers, cloud attached invoices for QBO and just being careful it should be OK. I am hiring an assistant to do a lot of the AP and that is a new area for me so the possibility exists but she's trained in QB so its probably not a problem.

 

This is a new client and the main business was sold off including the building and the owners are going to attempt they say to handle  some of the AP and AR tasks for the remaining business with my leadership with all of us in different locations. I have supported a business remotely, but the invoices were all emailed to me or loaded on a cloud by a tech savvy and motivated owner & his large company team. These owners I've not worked with and they are used to an accounting staff doing everything. I'm wondering if they are really going to scan papers reliably and review A/P email invoices in a timely manner. I have input from the exiting accounting staff that they are nice and business savvy but tend to not be great on staying on top of tasks and deadlines. That part obviously is not a technical question mark but more of a operational potential issue. 

 

I was curious if there was some best practice process anyone had success with who has done this sort of thing for years.  I have come up with two options and presented them with the caveat that we will tweak going forward.

 

I will have to look at the QB apps mentioned and see if they might work for approvals and streamlining that operation. Unfortunately a couple things I have tried that claimed to integrate into QB were a bit of disaster IMHO and caused huge issues that took hours to repair, so I'm not jumping in without a lot of due diligence. 

 

This forum seems quite sleepy. I appreciate your time making a response, but is there another forum that is more active anyone recommends? 

 

Dirkdaddy
Level 4

Advice - Managing a remote client w/ paper bills, approvals to pay

I found an old forum, but it seems to be mostly people hawking various related products with zero discussions.

 

[broken link removed by moderator]

Anonymous
Not applicable

Advice - Managing a remote client w/ paper bills, approvals to pay

Hey @Dirkdaddy,

 

Yes, that forum isn't as discussion oriented as this one. I'd say we have a fairly healthy following of folks here, and tons of readers-but-not-posters, but it may not be to the pace you need. What experience, in particular, are you looking for? 

 

Off record, I like to also use Quora for professional inquiries, but that is just me and the results are often mixed. 

Dirkdaddy
Level 4

Advice - Managing a remote client w/ paper bills, approvals to pay

Thanks. I just found it a bit surprising that for many many other activities there are very robust discussion groups. I've found great info on cooking, mountain biking, welding, any sort of car repair or discussion about cars, computers, crafts, woodworking, etc etc but not so much about QB and bookkeeping issues.  However I am new to this forum and haven't looked everywhere yet. Thanks for advice! There are some great resources in general and I found videos here and on Youtube helpful when needed. 

 

Regarding original post I'm working with the owners to come up with a good solution that works for us.  

Anonymous
Not applicable

Advice - Managing a remote client w/ paper bills, approvals to pay

@Dirkdaddy, it's a fair point. In my experience, most forums I've participated in and enjoyed/found use focus around hobbies. These tend to be a bit more casual. Since this is QuickBooks and accounting, people tend to assume we're here only to talk about broken software, which is certainly not the case. 

 

Any thoughts on improving said experience?

lynda
Community Champion

Advice - Managing a remote client w/ paper bills, approvals to pay

@Dirkdaddy:  I think the problem with your initial question is the category it is under. The 
Do more with QuickBooks category gets more interest than talk about your business category.

 

I don't use that bill dot com app for a couple of reasons:  

  • price of the app
  • It is what I call a 'dead' app.  The developers just leave it out there.

I use hubdoc for my companies that I have full service bookkeeping for.  I have the client use it's app and any bills that cannot come in via email (mailed in) I have the client upload via the app.  It is super-easy.  For the vendors that have email billing, I have them sent to the unique hubdoc address directly.   Then I code the bills once.  As they stream into hubdoc, they feed (by my coding) to QBO.  The beauty of this is no data entry.  

 

and the corresponding blog post.  Hope that will help you.  The app is inexpensive $20/mo.  And one of my all time favs!

 

Lynda

Need to get in touch?

Contact us