atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Computers & Programming Computers, Software, Accessories Quickbooks Pro 2010

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