QuickBooks® Online (QBO) is an integral part of our firm’s all-cloud workflow. Whether engaged as our clients’ entire accounting department, outsourced controller or cloud consultant, QBO is our tool-of-choice for the general ledger. Regardless of physical location or operating system, QBO provides easy collaboration for all users.
The latest QBO update brings us an intuitive new design and efficient layout. In fact, everything is easier to find with fewer clicks and centralized menus. The Customer and Vendor dashboards combine several features into one power screen, including the much-loved Income List and suggested next-action buttons. The Quick Create menu offers instant time savings with one access point to add any transaction. We’re also loving that the Recent Transactions menu is now combined for global access to recently added or modified transactions.
QBO has introduced several new concepts for transactions. The new transaction type “Expense” allows us to go to one screen to add expenses, instead of moving between check, cash and credit card screens, while the new full-page transaction screens slide down over the entire browser window maximizing screen space.
The new drawer pulls in associated estimates, charges, purchase orders and bills from the collapsible right panel to reduce errors previously caused by forgotten or duplicated work. Now, we can make changes to billable time and expense without modifying the source transaction. The new Online invoicing feature allows our clients’ customers to interact with their invoice with dynamically updated details, balance, payment status and messaging. And, when you turn on this feature in Company Settings and turn off the option to include a PDF with invoices, the system encourages the Customer to click the link instead of opening the PDF.
We require our clients use banks that connect to QBO to take advantage of downloaded transactions to support the zero data entry model. Our clients and accounting managers regularly process unassigned downloads to match or enter transactions efficiently. This improves the accuracy and decreases the time associated with bank reconciliations.
At the close of an accounting period, we notify clients that they may view reports in QBO. Memorized reports and easy report customization settings allow clients a dynamic view of the information they want, rather than emailing stagnant PDFs.
As a ProAdvisor, understanding the features and options available in QBO allows you to identify the businesses for which QBO is a fantastic solution. For example, Intuit’s® payroll and payments’ solutions greatly enhance the QBO experience for companies that pay employees or collect credit card or bank ACH payments from customers.
In addition, the offerings in the Intuit App Center by many QuickBooks partners enable you to customize your client’s business solution with a mix of third-party apps. Our favorites include MethodCRM, Intuit Online Payroll for Accountants, Bill.com, Expensify, and Transaction Pro Importer.
QBO allows us to offer a 100% SaaS solution to our clients, resulting in an organized, efficient, collaborative experience.
Modified for audience from original post on Intuit Accountant blog.
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