Category: QuickBooks

QuickBooks training in South West London

Our QuickBooks training uses your live data to ensure your transactions are being accounted for in a simple and useful way and we help you build the reports you need to understand and improve business performance.

If you’re looking for QuickBooks training in South West London – Hammersmith, Putney, Richmond, Fulham, Chelsea – then you’ve come to the right place.

We’re QuickBooks ProAdvisors and accountants who specialise in the financial management of small and medium businesses. This practical mix has helped many businesses, similar to yours, over the years and I’m sure we can help you.

Data in and Information out

QuickBooks is all about the information you can get out of it –  information that helps you make better decisions and improve profitability and cashflow.

Which means you need to get on top of two things:

  1. Data entry – must be complete, efficient and accurate
  2. Financial reports – must be accessible, understood and acted upon

Our QuickBooks training uses your live data to ensure your transactions are being accounted for in a simple and useful way and we help you build the reports you need to understand and improve business performance.

➡️ Why don’t businesses make better use of their accounting software?

How does our QuickBooks training work?

The starting point is a half-day training session in which we:

  • review how you’re currently using QB
  • iron out any frustrations and misunderstandings you may have
  • show you better ways to enter your accounting data
  • build up useful, customised reports

This session, which can take place at your business or our office, costs £350 plus VAT. If further sessions are required then we can agree them as we go.

We also work with you if you need some ad hoc support – we’re happy to run short sessions on Teams / Zoom to help you get the best from QuickBooks.

What do people say about our training?

Blue Dot Consulting went above and beyond in helping us navigate not only the transition to cloud-based accounting but also in leading our accounts team through a broader period of transformation.  

Their tailored solutions, commitment to excellence, and depth of knowledge make them an indispensable asset.  

Finance manager

So, if you’re looking for QuickBooks training in South West London……..

We offer a free 30-minute QuickBooks Healthcheck** on Teams or Zoom . If this sounds interesting then please contact us:

📞 Call Michael Austin on 020 7125 0270 or

📧 info@bluedotconsulting.co.uk

Michael

** 30-minute QuickBooks Healthcheck – terms & conditions apply

Related links:

QuickBooks training

Create a customer timeline report

Create your own Aged Creditors report

We’re proud to support QuickBooks users throughout West and South West London — from Hammersmith & Fulham to Richmond, Putney, Wandsworth, Kensington and Chelsea. If your company is based nearby and you’re looking for clear financial insight and practical advice, get in touch with the Blue Dot Consulting team.

© Blue Dot Consulting Limited, Chartered Accountants, Bedford House, Fulham Green, London, SW6 3JW

How to use QuickBooks to get paid quicker

We can take you through all the steps from invoicing to reporting and help you automate as much as possible so QuickBooks does the heavy lifting.

Late payment is a problem for too many businesses. But if you’re a QuickBooks user there are tools in the product that can help you get paid quicker.

But before we look at QB, here are two things you could do immediately to speed up payments in the future:

  • Use a direct debit service such as GoCardless and be wary of any customers who won’t sign up to pay by direct debit. The interface between GoCardless and QuickBooks is excellent, by the way
  • Take extra care to identify potential bad payers and don’t sell to them in the first place

Why credit control matters for your business

“A sale is a gift until it’s paid for” is a great maxim to spur you on to get paid on time.

Businesses run much more smoothly if cashflow is positive and they fail if they run out of money. Getting paid on time is a big part of having a strong cashflow and the benefits include:

  • less stress about paying suppliers and staff on time
  • low or no costs of borrowing which improves profit
  • having funds available to invest in new products, services and markets
  • you can pay yourself more!

It makes sense to get paid quicker so, if you’re a QuickBooks user what tools are available?

Invoicing in QuickBooks

Raise all your invoices promptly, accurately and send them as emails with the PDF document as an attachment to make them easier for your customer to process.

There are various settings you can use (from the company cog in the top-right corner) to enhance your invoices:

  • preferred payment terms (e.g. 30 days)
  • include your bank details on the face of your invoice
  • default delivery method
  • customise the email message when your invoices are sent

Pro tip: You can set up invoicing to be recurring if you send the same value invoice to the same customer every month. Recurring invoices can be emailed automatically on the same date each month.

Automated payment reminders

Switch on automatic payment reminders (from the company cog in the top-right corner).

You can create up to three automatic reminders to be sent to debtors, choosing the timing and the content of the emails to suit your business.

For example, you could time yours to go out ten days BEFORE the due date and five and ten days AFTER the due date with an email message that becomes progressively tougher.

Pro tip: Make sure you include your bank details in the email text and make sure your customer details are set up to include, where you can, a first name as this can be pulled in to the automated emails.

See who owes you money with credit management reports

QuickBooks has twelve standard reports to help you get paid quicker.

Take a look at them to see which ones will be helpful then customise the useful ones and save them as Custom Reports. Customisation lets you:

  • Change ALL reports so they start with the largest invoice / debtor balance at the top and the smallest (which could be negative) at the bottom
  • Display all negative values in (red and in brackets) so they jump off the screen at you
  • Edit the report title so it’s immediately clear what it’s about (“Debtors list” instead of “A/R Ageing Summary Report”)

In the Related Links at the bottom of the blog are two great examples of how to customise QuickBooks reports to help you get paid quicker.

Pro tip: You can schedule reports to be emailed to different people in your business so send the credit management reports to the management team and to everyone who can help chase customers for payment.

How Blue Dot Consulting helps clients with QuickBooks and getting paid quicker

We’ve been using QuickBooks for over twenty years and have helped scores of businesses make the best use of it for their bookkeeping, financial management and, yes, credit control.

We can take you through all the steps mentioned here from invoicing to reporting and help you automate as much as possible so QuickBooks does the heavy lifting.

On our half-day QuickBooks training sessions we work with QB users on their live QB file and show them how to use the functionality that best suits their business. We also focus on reports, how to customise them and share them across your organisation.

Let’s book you in! Call Michael Austin on 020 7125 0270 or email info@bluedotconsulting.co.uk

Michael

People also ask:

Should I use credit control apps and add-ons such as Chaser?

Every business is different and will have a unique profile of customers to collect money from. Establish the credit control tools and workflows that are right for your business first and use the tools already available to you in your chosen accounting software.

Then, if an app or add-on would make everything more efficient, you can look at adopting one. And you know what it needs to do.

What about a good old-fashioned phone call?

Always chase your biggest debtors with phone calls. No ifs, no buts – get on the phone!

Do we need a cashflow model?

There are two types of business. Those that do NOT need a cashflow model and all the others! If you’re one of the others then get cracking as soon as you can. This blog might be a good place to start:

A gory cashflow model is a useful cashflow model – the bloodier the better

Related links:

Customer timeline report – a window into the soul of your customers

Create a bespoke Aged Creditors report in QuickBooks

Why two bank accounts are better than one

© Blue Dot Consulting Limited

Chartered Accountants – Bedford House, Fulham Green, London, SW6 3JW

Use the QuickBooks customer balance detail report to create your own bespoke Customer Timeline

The Customer Timeline is a window into the soul of your customers – use it to get paid quicker and keep your customer accounts in good shape.

Use the QuickBooks customer balance detail report to create your own bespoke Customer Timeline report which shows all of the transactions with each customer in the customer ledger.

You can use it to:

  • Speed up credit control on larger, more complicated clients and projects
  • Identify patterns in your invoicing and the client’s payments over time
  • Identify where payments have been allocated against the wrong invoices or credits
  • Create a spreadsheet you can share with colleagues and clients to clarify how much is owed and get debtor balances paid
  • Clear up old, unmatched positive and negative debtor balances 

This is how you create your Customer Timeline:

Do more with QuickBooks

We work with businesses of all shapes and sizes that are using QuickBooks and want to get much more out of it so their finances become a well-oiled machine.

We run bespoke in-house training sessions or we can broaden the remit and help you transform your finance team to match what your business needs now and in the future.

Can we help you?

Call Michael Austin on 020 7125 0270 or email info@bluedotconsulting.co.uk and let’s have a free-of-charge chat about your business and how it might look with QuickBooks running well in the background.

Michael – @bluedotmichael

Related links:

QuickBooks training for your business

How to account for fixed assets and depreciation in QuickBooks using recurring journals

How to customise the left-hand menu in QuickBooks (YouTube)

© Blue Dot Consulting Limited

Chartered Accountants – Bedford House, Fulham Green, London, SW6 3JW

How to account for fixed assets and depreciation in QuickBooks using recurring journals

There are all sorts of apps and fixed asset modules out there but the simplest way to deal with fixed assets and depreciation is just to get the booking right and then let QuickBooks take care of the rest.

Learn how to account for fixed assets and depreciation and use recurring journals so you never have to think about the accounting again!

QuickBooks will do monthly depreciation journals for you so you never have to think about them again!

There are all sorts of apps and fixed asset modules out there but the simplest way to deal with fixed assets and depreciation is just to get the booking right and then let QuickBooks take care of the rest.

We do lots of work with businesses and QuickBooks including:

If you think we can help you make better use of QuickBooks in your business then call Michael Austin on 020 7125 0270 or email info@bluedotconsulting.co.uk and let’s have a free-of-charge chat about your business.

Michael

Related links:

QuickBooks training for your business

Customer timeline report – a window into the soul of your customers

Why don’t businesses make better use of their accounting software?

Blue Dot Consulting provides accounting, QuickBooks support and business advisory services to clients across Central London, West London and South West London, with particular focus on Fulham, Hammersmith, Richmond, Putney, Wandsworth, Kensington and Chelsea. We help local business owners make better financial decisions and plan confidently for the future.

© Blue Dot Consulting Limited, Chartered Accountants, Bedford House, Fulham Green, London, SW6 3JW

QuickBooks training for business owners

It doesn’t matter if you’re in the cloud with apps coming out of your ears or if you’re a 15th century cleric keeping the parish accounts – bookkeeping is all about processes and workflow.

Businesses buy QuickBooks but don’t always invest in training.

It’s great software and it should make a big difference to the financial management and performance of your business. So, how do you get the best out of your QuickBooks?

Let’s look at three key issues.

QuickBooks training for business owners and staff

Like any software, people need to be trained how to use it. If a user has some bookkeeping knowledge then learning how to do the routine and recognisable data entry tasks is fairly simple.

Someone with no bookkeeping experience can also learn how to enter accounting data into QuickBooks but it’s more relevant and easier to identify and correct mistakes if they can learn something of the wider accounting context in which the software is being used.

Cloud accounting software is hyped as being easy for ANYONE to use. But not without training and, often overlooked, not everyone gets on with numbers and finance.

Bookkeeping processes

Bookkeeping is all about processes and workflow. Always has been, always will be.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in the cloud with apps coming out of your ears or if you’re a 15th century cleric keeping the parish accounts – bookkeeping is all about processes and workflow.

Organise your business so that:

  • sales invoices are raised and sent out as soon as they can be
  • all invoices from suppliers and other receipts and expenses are captured and accounted for
  • all bank accounts are linked to QuickBooks and statements are regularly downloaded for cross-reference
  • your QuickBooks users have access to all of the data they need
  • bookkeeping is done regularly and kept up to date

You know the expression “garbage in-garbage out” – it certainly applies to QuickBooks. So organise your workflows so your bookkeeping work flows.

Using financial reports

Getting the right financial reports from QuickBooks is pivotal to running, growing and improving your business.

QuickBooks has recently improved its financial reporting but business owners don’t always know what to look for, how to access useful reports or how to understand them.

The information you need will cover:

  • profit and loss
  • who owes you money
  • who do you owe money to
  • cashflow

You know this stuff is important – is it coming your way?

How does our QuickBooks training for business owners work?

QuickBooks is good and it should be good for your business.

But sometimes you need an extra bit of help to make it really work for you and our bespoke QuickBooks Training could be just what you need.

And if that’s you then please give me a call on 020 7125 0270 or email info@bluedotconsulting.co.uk

Let’s see if we can help you make the most out of QuickBooks.

Michael

Related links:

Training for QuickBooks

Management information

Cloud accounting apps – are they all useful?

Create a bespoke Aged Creditors report in QuickBooks

This short video will show you how to create a bespoke Aged Creditors report in QuickBooks.

You and your clients and colleagues can use your Aged Creditors report to:​

  • Manage supplier payments and maintain a good payment record with them​
  • Identify suppliers’ invoices you are disputing​
  • Keep on top of cashflow​
  • Identify odd balances that need to be resolved and cleared​
  • Identify supplier accounts where payments have been made but invoices have not been received or accounted for

Here’s how you create your report:

QuickBooks reports are second to none and the techniques we use in these videos, where we start with a standard report and the customise it to be the report that you can actually use and share, can be applied to almost every report.

Build your own library of what works for you!

Michael
@bluedotmichael

Related blogs:

QuickBooks training – for you

How to create a customer timeline report and open a window into the soul of your customers

Improve your management information

Customer timeline report – a window into the soul of your customers

The customer timeline report – it’s a window into the soul of your customers’ behaviour!

Customer timeline report

A window into the soul of your customers

Based on the Customer Balance Detail report in QuickBooks, the timeline report is a brilliant tool for you to manage your debtors and speed up collection.

You can use it to:​

  • Speed up credit control on larger, more complicated clients and projects​
  • Identify patterns in your invoicing and the client’s payments over time​
  • Identify where payments have been allocated against the wrong invoices or credits​
  • Create a spreadsheet you can share with colleagues and clients to clarify how much is owed and get debtor balances paid​
  • Clear up old, unmatched positive and negative debtor balances

 

Here’s how you build your own version of report for your business:

 

Downloading the report and customising it so it tells the story of how a debtor balance has built up is a great way to share information with your clients to help resolve long-standing payment disputes.

Start using the customer timeline report to speed up debt collection in your business today!

 

Michael
@bluedotmichael 

 

PS – we do lots of bespoke QuickBooks training for business, can we help you?