My last few blogs about accounting cleanups have dealt with the more obvious of cleanup tasks, like the reorganizing of the Chart of Accounts, uncluttering of AR/AP, and the reconciliation of critical accounts. With these actions complete you will have a better base from which to work. And, to work more effectively you should consider using certain accounting program add-ons, integrations, and feeds.
(I will limit my comments to QuickBooks (QB) which, with over 5 million subscribers, is the most popular of the small business accounting programs. While Sage, Xero, Wave, and others offer attractive, competitive products, there are fewer integrations from which to choose.)
Post initial clean-up, I suggest installing or, at least, considering the following QB integrations. Once set-up, these will streamline your work and expand the capabilities of the base program:
- Bank and Credit Card Feeds: Bank feeds replace manual entry in QB, making reporting and reconciling transactions more efficient. Simply use the Banking (bank feeds) menu options to connect your bank and credit card accounts to online banking. Some care must be taken regarding ACH vendors, default expense accounts, and other potential clutter, but the net result will be a true time saver.
- Bill Paying: There are numerous bill payment add-ons for QB. Among the ones I have used are Bill.com and Melio. Many of my clients who are “accounting disinclined” prefer to use these programs to review bills and approve payments. For international payments Transferwise works well.
- Ecommerce: Ecommerce decisions are often driven by factors other than just ease of accounting. Webmasters, fulfillment houses, and other influencers play roles. That said, among the more popular add-ons that integrate with QB that are used by my clients are: Square, WooCommerce, and Stripe.
- Inventory Programs: I have not had luck using Quickbooks Enterprise Advanced Inventory, so I recommend investigating inventory add-ons if your business maintains large stocks, assembles products, uses subcomponents, or has multiple SKUs. Fishbowl, Cin7, and Finale Inventory are three of the more popular options available.
- Reporting and Analysis: QB’s reporting capabilities have improved greatly over the years but still fall short of the ideal. For more in-depth and/or graphic analysis of how your business is performing, consider using Fathom. Fathom integrates smoothly with QB and tracks a range of KPIs, both custom and generic. If you prefer to work in Excel, the choice is Liveflow. I also have some clients who enjoy working with Jirav.
Worldwide Local Connect can help you set up these and other QB integrations. We recommend doing so as part of an overall accounting cleanup. Contact us to learn more.
