What is QuickBooks?

Beginning and running a company is a thrilling adventure, but there are just too many details involved. From keeping track of sales to keeping an eye on costs and making sure that your staff gets paid, your company finances can get overwhelming quickly. That's why QuickBooks is here.

It's actually a suite of business accounting and financial management software and services which will simplify and automate your finances. Think of it as your one stop finance centre which will provide clear, up-to-the-minute information on the health of your company.

For years, we have helped millions of businesses—big and small, new and old—with our assistance for managing their finances. In this guide, we will give you a tour of QuickBooks and how its features will assist your company with solving its most common issues.

Automated Bookkeeping

Accounting by hand—with spreadsheets and stacks of receipts—is a huge time waster. It’s tedious and frequently error-prone, so it can’t provide you with any clear idea of your firm’s financial health. QuickBooks works as an accounting software that helps take the days of manual entry behind you.

QuickBooks safely connects with your bank and credit card accounts and downloads and classifies your transactions for you. Not only will this save your company hundreds of hours, it will also lower the chances of man error and provide more accurate books. For instance, if your company is a small bakery and you use your company credit card for sugar and flour, QuickBooks will download those transactions for you and automatically classify them as your "Cost of Goods Sold" so that it will be easy for you to see how much you have spent and your profit margin.

How it helps:

• Time Savings: Save yourself hours of keying data manually so that you have more time baking new recipes or hunting for new customers.
• Accuracy: Make fewer errors and have more confidence in your accounting data with automated reconciliations and categorisations.
• Real-time Insights: See exactly where your funds are going and revenue drivers at a glance.

Invoicing and payments

One of the biggest problems any firm has is getting paid on time. As a service professional or freelance designer, working capital is the lifeblood of your company. You are losing essential working capital if you have to wait weeks for the check to come in the mail from your client.

QuickBooks has an end-to-end payment and invoice system. You can create and send professional, customised invoices from anywhere, on any device, within minutes. You can also get your payment button embedded on your invoice so your customers can settle on the spot via credit card, debit card, or bank transfer. Payment gets reflected automatically on your books without any manual reconciliations.

Run your accounts receivable smoothly

Through our payment function, you can also set up recurring invoices for regular customers so that you never forget billing them. You can also set automated payment reminders for customers with outstanding dues. 

For example, if you are an IT expert who charges your client the same fee every month, instead of creating and sending an invoice every month on your end, you can set up a recurring invoice in QuickBooks which will automatically get mailed every first of the month so that there are frequent and timely remittances.

How it helps:

• Accelerate Cash Flow: get paid earlier with electronic payment and automated reminders.
• Professionalism: create your clients professional, branded invoices.
• Efficiency: make the billing cycle fully automated from invoice creation until payment and settlement.

Managing expenses and receipts

Most companies maintain very detailed records of their expenditure so they can plan and obtain the highest allowable tax deductions. The problem is that receipts are very easy to lose, and tracking every purchase made on company behalf is very laborious. This translates into lost deductions and quite a bit of distress at tax time.

QuickBooks lets you capture and track your expenses without much effort. Through our mobile app, you can just capture a picture of your receipt, and QuickBooks will instantly recognise and record the necessary information—like the details of the supplier, date, and the amount—along with attaching it to a transaction from your bank feed. That ensures your expenses are always accounted for, regardless of if the original receipt has been lost years ago.

How it helps:

• Maximise Your Deductions: never lose another potential tax deduction with write-offs for every expense.
• Systematised Records: keep all your expenses stored safely, electronically, in one place.
• Tax-Ready Books: breathe easy at tax time with everything sorted and at your fingertips.

Inventory control

For product-based businesses, not knowing how much of your stock you have on hand can have serious problems. You might end up out of stock of a best-seller and missing sales, or stuck with stock that won't move and tied up with needed cash.

You can manage inventory with QuickBooks. You can see your best sellers, your slow ones, and receive alerts when it’s time for re-ordering stock. For instance, if your company creates handmade candles and one of your fragrances has suddenly become very popular, QuickBooks will prompt you when your quantity has fallen to your personally set low point. This way, your supplies are re-ordered before your stock runs low and your customers are disappointed.

Financial reporting

Making informed business decisions requires a clear understanding of your financial performance. But if you can't easily access key reports like your Profit & Loss statement or Balance Sheet, you're essentially flying blind.

Turn your accounting data into useful information with QuickBooks rich array of customisable reports. You can rapidly and efficiently generate reports that help you understand your company's profitability, cash flow analysis, and historical performance monitoring of your company. These enable you to make informed decisions, ranging from planning your next investment to determining areas of reducing costs.

QuickBooks Integrations: All-in-One Business Hub

As if its core features are not enough, QuickBooks is also an open system which integrates with numerous other business apps that you are probably already using, from e-commerce platforms like Shopify to payment processors like Square. 

That helps you build an overall hub from which all of your business data travels seamlessly without manual entry and with the knowledge that your records are always up to date and consistent. 

For example, if your company has an online store, sales from your e-commerce store can seamlessly integrate with QuickBooks so that your sales and stock levels are all recorded and viewable from one system.

How it helps:

• Unified Data: bring all your corporate data together in one location.
• Improved Efficiency: automate data transfers between apps and save yourself from time-consuming manual labour.
• Scalability: adapt your solution to your own business needs as your company grows.

Power your business with QuickBooks

In the rapid-fire environment of business today, digital financial solutions are not an option—they're essential. QuickBooks isn't software; it's your trusted companion on your business journey. By automating onerous financial chores, providing up-to-the-moment data, and growing with your needs, QuickBooks works at freeing you from the details of daily bookkeeping and on to the really big thing: your passion and your customers.

Whichever your issue is with managing costs effectively, searching for unpaid wages, or getting your company's performance sorted, QuickBooks has the capabilities to simplify these processes and get you in control. Bid good riddance to worrying about your books and get ahead.

Ready to get your business finances in order? Check out QuickBooks plans and pricing.