Comments on: Small Business Accounting And Bookkeeping Can Be Fun – The Ultimate Small Business Startup Guide Part 6

By: Twitted by kikolani

Twitted by kikolani — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:38:43 +0000

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By: Small Business Resources And Where To Find Help- The Ultimate Small Business Startup Guide Part 7 | Wizpress.com

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:12:42 +0000

[...] Part 6: Small Business Bookkeeping [...]

By: Phil

Phil — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:45:36 +0000

@Jen,

Thanks for your reply, I am currently managing my business finances using Quickbooks for A/R and A/P, it is great for balancing the checking account, keeping track of bills, etc. The biggest problem I have is that I have several websites that generate income for me so each of these sites have their own shopping cart or payment system. I have to manually enter all of these sales into QB so everything balances out there. It is very tedious and time consuming to do this but I don’t know of any other way to do it so I can see a complete picture of my business. If I only had one website generating income it might be easier but now-a-days you need more than one source of income unless your only source is doing really well like your business appears to be.

Once again, thanks for your reply and this whole blog in general!

By: Jen

Jen — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:17:27 +0000

As Steve mentioned, I used to work at Intuit so I strongly believe in their products. We in fact own both QuickBooks and Quicken Home and Business, though I still tend to do most of our reporting out of Excel. Reasoning behind this is partly because of my comfort level. I’m an expert in Excel and have worked many years as a planning and reporting analyst for several large Fortune500 companies. At these companies you would be surprised to know that Excel is still widely used as a reporting tool; though the data is coming from different sources. Plus I didn’t want to over complicate the process if I didn’t have to. Our financials are really straight forward; we work with a very limited number of vendors so tracking our expenses is very easy. Plus our shopping cart handles our inventory, tracks payments, handles our customer data and creates our invoices. I then port this over to Excel which I have then automated to create several reports.
QuickBooks is excellent if you need something to create invoices for you, track payments, and also manage your expenses. It’s also a must if you don’t have a good handle on your inventory levels. I strongly encourage folks to use that if they are not familiar with Excel or are not “finance savvy.” It’s very user friend and there is a version of QuickBooks that you can download for free (assuming you have very simple financials and not many customers).

By: Small Business Trademark Issues – The Ultimate Small Business Startup Guide Part 2 | MyWifeQuitHerJob.com

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:14:11 +0000

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By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:02:54 +0000

Hi Phil,
We do all of our finances with excel because that is what my wife is comfortable with. She used to work at Intuit too! Eventually, we will transition to Quickbooks so that everything is a bit more portable. For most people, I don’t recommend Excel but my wife happens to be an expert. In fact, understanding our spreadsheet is way beyond the scope of my abilities. Perhaps I can have my wife comment on this later. I’ll see if she has time later today.

By: Paul Smalley

Paul Smalley — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:50:12 +0000

Great article.

One point that comes out here is using the accouting data for management reporting purposes – this helps with identifying trends etc.

For good reporting there are lots of accounting packages, some of which are free in their most basic form.

Phil – there are some excel templates out there on the web, but if you want reporting for management purposes, Excel is not the best way forwards I am afraid.

By: Phil

Phil — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 06:19:36 +0000

Hello,

I would love to see some type of income/expense template that you use in excel. This is what I find the hardest, trying to get a good template working is key. Also do you use Quickbooks at all? or is everything done in excel?

Love your blog by the way…

By: Premium Finance

Premium Finance — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 02:40:06 +0000

Nice Guide.. It helps a lot ^_^

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