Intuit’s QuickBooks is known in the industry as one of the leaders in accounting software. Designed with small to medium sized businesses in mind, QuickBooks helps business owners with all of their accounting needs. In fact, according to their website, 87% of customers says QuickBooks is essential for running their business.

While there are many different software available to you, QuickBooks offers some of the most extensive accounting capabilities on the market today. It’s easy to use interface makes it simple for business owners to quickly learn how the software works. In addition, since it has been popular since the ‘90s, their decades of experience and extensive online resources help business owners solve any problem they are experiencing with the software.

If you’re thinking of switching from a different accounting system to QuickBooks, it’s important that you convert all of your data for a seamless transition. Learn about the benefits of switching to QuickBooks below, as well as helpful resources on how to switch accounting systems without losing any important business information.

QuickBooks vs. Sage 50

While there are some similarities between QuickBooks and Sage, the two platforms have different specialties. QuickBooks focuses in bookkeeping, and offers a full suite of tools to help manage your business. Some of these tools include payroll management and financial management tools. Formerly known as Peachtree, Sage One offers a few basic bookkeeping features, but concentrates more on client invoicing and project management. Some business owners use Sage with QuickBooks, depending on their business’ needs.

Still, the applications overlap with one another, with both offering the ability to track income and expenses. QuickBooks has an advantage over Sage in that regard with its ability to automatically sync transaction information across bank accounts.

How to Convert from Sage 50 to QuickBooks

Whether you’re switching from Sage to QuickBooks or use both applications, you can convert your Sage files to use on QuickBooks both quickly and at no extra cost. QuickBooks offers a step-by-step guide in their Community Support section that clearly outlines how to use their QuickBooks Conversion tool. This tool can convert key lists, balances, and transactions, including:

• Account lists
• Employee lists
• Item lists
• Customer lists
• Vendor lists
• Account balances
• Customer transactions
• Vendor transactions
• Employee list (with contact information and social security number
• Payroll general ledger account balance information

However, the tool cannot convert the following information:

• Paychecks (will be converted to journal entries)
• Employee year to date information
• Payroll items
• Individual employee wage or deduction information
• Fixed asset items
• Work tickets
• Closed/Partially closed sales orders, purchase orders, and estimates

Users can also manually import a Sage 50/Simply Accounting data set to Inuit by following the steps highlighted here.

QuickBooks vs. Xero

Arguably the two biggest names in cloud accounting software are QuickBooks and Xero. These two softwares are comparable in many key components, but one clear advantage of QuickBooks over Xero is that QuickBooks offers a well-organized UI, making it easy for business owners to navigate the software. Xero, on the other hand, has quite a steep learning curve and the setup is extremely intensive.

How to Convert from Xero to QuickBooks

If you’re switching from Xero to QuickBooks, you want to make sure that the files you need are successfully transferred over to your new accounting software. There are many different ways to go about this. You can provide your Xero administrator user name and password as well as the version of QuickBooks to third party vendors, who will do the work for you.

Business owners also have the option of converting their Xero files themselves. To do this, follow the steps outlined by QBO Chat here. Before you begin, it is advised that you lock your Xero file for the dates before the conversion so that no one makes changes after you begin. In addition, you should save a copy of the balance sheet and income statement reports for all dates. Be sure to use both cash and accrual methods and also the detailed Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable reports.

You will also need to decide whether or not you want the historical transactions to be part of the new file. If so, you are going to need to decide how far back you should be including.

QuickBooks Desktop vs. QuickBooks Online

So you’ve decided on QuickBooks, but now you must ask yourself this question: QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Desktop? While both versions of QuickBooks are great, there are many benefits to switching to the online version. For starters, Inuit is pushing their online version of the software by reducing the number of desktop versions available to their customers.

There are many advantages to QuickBooks Online. For those unfamiliar with either version, online is significantly easier to learn and use than Intuit’s desktop offering. In addition, QuickBooks Online can be accessed anywhere as long as you have an internet connection. The desktop version of QuickBooks can only be accessed on the computer you installed the software on. In addition, choosing QuickBooks Online gives you the option of more than 250 different integrations to help customize your software to fit your business’ needs.

How to Convert from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online

If you’re looking to convert from Desktop to Online, use the following guides below to help make this process run smooth and efficiently:

• From QuickBooks Desktop for Mac to QuickBooks Online
• From QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online Pro/Premier

Although they are both Intuit products, there are limitations on what data can be converted and imported to QuickBooks online. Intuit has a clear list of their import limitations, so there are no surprises when you make the switch.

It’s important to note that you can only import your data to QuickBooks within 60 days of your subscription start date. If you’ve had QuickBooks online for more than 60 days, you will either have to find a QuickBooks ProAdvisor or setup a new QuickBooks Online subscription with a different email.

You will also want to prepare your data for export. To do this, make sure you complete the following:

1. Update your data: Now is the perfect time to update your customers and vendors contact information!
2. Complete outstanding tasks: To ensure nothing gets lost, it’s ideal to convert at the end of the month, quarter, or year. If you need to convert sooner, make sure that payroll has been processed, all bank accounts are reconciled, and any inventory adjustments have been made.
3. Backup your data: Having a backup of your data file is never a bad idea. To do this on QuickBooks Desktop, go to file à back up company à create local backup.

Advantages

An Accountant Knows What He or She is Doing

There’s many technical details that are entailed with managing the finances of your small business and even simple mistakes can cause a large problem. This is very true when you are filing your taxes, because accidental omissions or inaccuracies might make the IRS audit you. The job of an accountant is to ensure all the records are free of errors and that your numbers are adding up how they should so that you don’t get in trouble.

An Accountant Will Save You Money and Time

It’s important to your accountant that your business is a successful. A way that they can do that is through looking for savings. An example would be reviewing the expenses you have monthly so that they can see where fat can be trimmed or so that record keeping can be streamlined to take less time. When it comes time to do your taxes, the accountant will go through the finances to uncover all of your deductions and credits so that you can focus on other things when it comes to your business. This may be a huge advantage if you’re planning to give more hours to developing some new products, improving on your marketing or expanding your base of customers.

An Accountant Doesn’t Just Crunch Numbers

Along with balancing the books, an accountant can also offer expert advice on things from determining a pricing structure and getting financing. If you’ve made the decision sometime in the future that the business needs to be sold or closed, an accountant will give you some tips on how you should proceed. This great input is very invaluable, particularly when it’s your very first business.

Disadvantages

An Accountant Isn’t Free

You’ll have to pay an accountant for any work they’re doing and sometimes this added amount might really break the budget. The rate of an accountant will vary based on the work, but usually you can pay at least $60 an hour for an accountant and often more. You may pay less based on your business or your relationship that you have with the accountant, but you’ll be increasing your business’ overhead, even if you’re just having them come in part time.

An Accountant is Only Human

No matter what accountant you hire, they are going to be human. They still may make mistakes. If they make a small error and its able to be quickly corrected, this usually won’t be a huge deal. But it also could spell disaster. An example is if they are putting your business’ expenses into the software and they miss a key expense. If this isn’t caught, you may be paying more come tax time because you’ve lost a very valuable deduction.

You can Easily Lose Touch

When you delegate your accounting for your small business to another person, you will save time, but you want to make sure that you are still hands-on. Although the accountant you hire is doing the work, you should still check things regularly and make sure that things are running as smoothly as possible. You should have a partnership with the accountant and each of you should have a role that is active.

Look at where your small business is and what you need currently; this will be the best way that you can guide whether you want to hire an accountant or not. If you don’t want to stare at numbers yourself or you’d rather have someone else take a look at the direction that is important for you to go in next, it’s probably a good idea to bring in another pair of eyes. But if you have the know-how and time, you can always look into buying accounting software and doing it yourself. Only you know what’s right for you.

Have More Questions

If you have more questions about your bookkeeping needs, give EZ Ledger, Inc. a call today at 239-249-8086. We would be happy to answer any questions you might have regarding bookkeeping and how we can help. We offer many services, and we look forward to doing business with you in the future! We’re located in Naples, FL, but service business natiowide in cities like Tampa, Estero, Bonita Springs, Sarasota, and much more.

The actual discovery of accounting is from a monk in Italy named Luca Pacioli. A lot of people say he’s the ‘Father of Accounting’. Back in 1494 he founded what’s called double-entry accounting. The first accounts detailed early systems that were used by Venetian Merchants inventories and accounts receivables using ledgers and journals. He also uncovered methods and principles that are still being used today.

2. An Accountant is Good at Performing Math

This is a huge fallacy that people believe. Accountants aren’t mathematicians, computer programmers, or engineers. An accountant has to work in regulatory guidance and act as a lawyer more than doing math. An accountant is basically a lawyer who uses numbers. Even though they have to be good at subtraction, addition, and some algebra, there are accountants who aren’t good at performing math.

3. All Accountants can do Taxes

There isn’t an accountant alive who hasn’t been asked to do someone’s taxes, but an accountant and an auditor are two different people. Most accountants aren’t qualified to do taxes or to give you tax advice.

4. Technology’s Making Accountants Obsolete

Even though technology makes accountant’s life more complex, it’s going to be years before it actually takes over their jobs. It’s still a career that is very much in demand.

5. It’s Male Dominated

Of the auditors and accountants in the United States, 60% of them are female and the number in Canada is 50%. However, when you’re discussing accounting firm partners, the percentage of women who are partners is only 18% in the United States.

6. Auditors, Tax Accountants, Bookkeepers, and Corporate Accountants are the Same

We mentioned before that a lot of people think that an accountant can do taxes, but this isn’t true. Auditors have the jobs of regulatory guidance and statistical sampling. They don’t account at all. Tax accountants are the ones who will help with doing your returns at the end of the year and knowing what deductions you can take. They won’t file 10-Ks, though. A bookkeeper will usually track financial transactions for a small business and a corporate accountant will do that work on a much grander scale. But they’re all different.

7. An Accountant isn’t Necessary for Your Business

This is true if you want your business to fail. But if you want to be a success, you want to get a full-time external or internal accountant. They will help you with organizing the finances of your business in a way that’s timely so that you can take advantage of any opportunities that come up for growth and make financial decisions that are good for your business. They’re going to be really helpful when it comes to your taxes.

The next time you meet an accountant, make sure that you remember how hard they work and what’s expected of them. Then give them a bit of respect.

Even though accounting and bookkeeping have common goals, they are both different stages in a financial cycle. Let’s look at the processes that each of them includes.

Bookkeepers Functions

Bookkeepers record the daily transactions consistently and it’s a big component when you want to build a business foundation that is strong.

Bookkeeping includes:

• Recording the financial transactions
• Posting the credits and debits
• Production of invoices
• Maintaining as well as balancing general ledgers, historical accounts and subsidiaries
• Completing payroll

Maintaining the general ledger’s one of the biggest things in bookkeeping. This is a very basic document in which the bookkeeper will record all of the amounts from expense and sale receipts. This is spoken of as posting and when there are a lot of sales, there are more posting to the ledger. The ledger is able to be created using specialized software, a spreadsheet, or you can even use a piece of paper.

How complex a company’s bookkeeping system is will depend on the business’ size and how many transactions there are each day, each week and each month. All of the purchases and sales that are made by the business should be put into the ledger and some of the items will need a document to support them. There are documents that the IRS lays out clearly on the website that you need for supporting what you are saying.

Shifting Landscapes

It’s very interesting to know that since bookkeeping and accounting software has been created, some of the items in accounting were absorbed by bookkeeping. As an example, software used for bookkeeping usually can build financial statements and this blurs some of the lines in between the accounting and bookkeeping processes.

Accountants Function

Accounting’s a process that is high level that takes the information that was compiled previously and puts it into terms that are easy to understand. It then makes financial models with that information. Accounting’s process is much more subjective when compared with bookkeeping, since that’s more transactional.

The accounting process includes:

• Preparing the financial statements of the company
• Preparing the adjusting entries (this is recording the expenses which happened but the bookkeeping process hasn’t recorded them yet)
• Analyzing operation costs
• Completing tax returns
• Aiding the owner of the business in understanding how financial decisions impact them.

The accounting process provides the owner with reports which bring together key and important financial indicators. This results in a much better understanding when it comes to the profits and makes the owner aware of the way that cash is flowing in their business. An accountant will turn the information from the bookkeeper’s ledger into the statements which will reveal the business’ bigger picture and the company’s path they’re currently on. A business owner will often look to an accountant for help with strategizing tax planning, tax filing, and financial forecasting.

The Bookkeeper’s Role vs The Accountant’s Role

It’s empowering if you own a business to realize the difference in between accounting and bookkeeping. But you should also understand the types of credentials bookkeepers and accountants possess so that you can determine when or how each professional should be utilized. Below we will look at what the role of an accountant or bookkeeper entails.

The Accountant: So that someone can become an accountant, they have to have a bachelor’s in accounting. If you don’t have a specific accounting degree, finance degrees are often adequate substitutes. An accountant, unlike a bookkeeper, also are eligible to get other professional certificates. A good example is the accountant that has a lot of education and experience who becomes a CPA, which is the type of accountant that a lot of people are familiar with. To get this, they have to pass their UCPA exam and they also have to have experience in the professional accounting field.

The Bookkeeper: Usually a bookkeeper must have 2-4 years’ experience or their associate’s degree. So that they can be successful, they have to be very accurate and they have to know about the key topics when it comes to finances. Usually the bookkeeper will be overseen by the owner of a small business or an accountant.

In Conclusion

When you want to have a successful business, it’s a good idea to have both a accountant and bookkeeper who can work in harmony. Financial records that are organized and finances that are properly balanced produced by the accounting and bookkeeping process both are key factors to helping you succeed. Some of the business owners will manage their business’ finances personally and others hire professionals so that they are able to put their focus on other facets in their business. No matter what option you’ve decided on, investing money or time is going to help with your business growing.