Category: quickbooks

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QuickBooks 2022 Boasts Modernized Foundation

Every year, businesses around the world anxiously await the release of the new versions of QuickBooks desktop software. While that may sound a bit silly, the truth is that QuickBooks is widely used in numerous countries around the world and when Intuit makes big changes to QuickBooks it impacts a lot of businesses.

While the focus for Intuit, like most software companies, is online subscription service, the fact remains that the desktop products and the ecosystem around them continues to grow.

Over the past few years, the company has invested in artificial intelligence and platform solutions that extend and add value to the desktop and online products. Some of these investments are becoming clearer with the launch of QuickBooks desktop 2022 editions.

64-bit QuickBooks [1]

The “guts” of QuickBooks was elderly and wasn’t up to current processing standards. Now, QuickBooks has a 64-bit foundation and the full capability of 64-bit processors can be used. This typically means faster application and data load times, faster report generation and an ability to handle larger data sets more efficiently. Beware of QB 2022 until you verify that your computers are all 64-bit machines, because QB 2022 can’t be installed on 32-bit systems. If you’re working with a hosting platform, you’ll need to make sure your host has modern infrastructure and up-to-date operating systems.

E-commerce for QuickBooks with Webgility [2]

Need to track your revenue from different selling platforms like Amazon, eBay, and Shopify, and sync the data directly with QuickBooks? There are a lot of e-commerce integrations for QuickBooks desktop, but Webgility wins when it comes to working with QuickBooks. There’s now a bundle that makes it easier to get the Webgility e-commerce integration for QuickBooks. Customers still must sign up with Webgility to get the service but purchasing the bundle package makes that quite a bit easier. Webgility uses a database to keep track of orders, so you’ll want to make sure your system is able to handle the extra load. If you’re on a hosting platform (other than NOOBEH), be ready to pay additional fees to support running Webgility.

Bill payment approval process

Improve your accounts payable process by creating a structured approval process so that only the right bills get paid. AP workflows can help businesses manage cash flow and improve transparency. Working in conjunction with the user’s Intuit.com account, the company can set up rules for QuickBooks to check which bills need approval for entry and payment. Users are then prompted to send bills for approval

Pay and schedule bills faster with Melio payments

Some subscription holders of QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus, Premier Plus, or Enterprise are working with the new feature (from Melio Payments) that allows businesses to use QuickBooks to schedule and pay bills using a bank transfer, credit card or debit card. The vendor doesn’t have to have a Melio account; they can receive their payments either as ACH or paper check.

Bill entry automation and customized bill payment stubs

Save time and have QuickBooks automate bill entries from the QuickBooks Desktop mobile app (iOS or Android versions) or from bills sent via email. Review the bill data once it’s uploaded and match it to existing transactions in QB. Bill payment stubs are now on the list of customizable forms, so you can set up and email formal payment confirmations to vendors.

Upload documents [3]

Instead of scanning files on your PC to attach to QuickBooks transactions, you can now use the QuickBooks Desktop mobile app to attach documents to transactions. The attached documents feature of QuickBooks is awesome because it lets you use QB as kind of a document management solution where you can store original copies of bills, receipts, contracts, or other documents that associate with financial transactions or entities in your QB files. This new feature that allows documents to be uploaded via the QuickBooks Desktop mobile app is a great solution for businesses operating on some hosted platforms that can’t or won’t support scanning. One “gotcha” with attached documents is that many businesses forget that they have them, and when they go to migrate their QB data to another platform or computer, the file attachments either get forgotten or are so voluminous that it makes the migration difficult.

Choose from multiple customer contacts

Only available with Plus and Enterprise subscriptions is the ability to add multiple customer contacts to batch email runs. The program now lets you send emails more quickly by choosing batch mail recipients from a list of customer or vendor contacts, reducing the chances of email troubles caused by manual entry of addresses.

Instant deposit

When you use QuickBooks Payments (or any other payment service), it generally takes a few days for the money to wind up in your bank account. With a QuickBooks Payments account and for an additional fee, Intuit is now letting you get your money faster when customers pay. Instant Deposit is a service that works with a VISA or debit card to deposit the money into your checking account – any processing or other fees will continue to be debited from your regular payments bank account.

Payment links

Now you can do in QuickBooks what you can do with PayPal, Zelle and other money transfer apps. Businesses can use simple Payment links to collect payments before work is performed and even before an invoice is created. As with all other payments features, you need a QuickBooks Payments account to use this one.

Changes to software purchasing options

QuickBooks Desktop 2022 is only available as a subscription purchase. There is no outright purchase option for QuickBooks desktop any longer. For businesses that need only the most basic features of QB, Intuit is hoping the QBO platform will work, and changing the software from purchase to subscription is just one more step in moving users to adopt the web application. QuickBooks Pro and Premier are still widely used so they will be available for some time to come, but Intuit is clearly making moves to try to push smaller edition desktop users to the web.

[1] NOOBEH deploys only modern architecture, 64-bit systems for QB on Azure and other hosted solutions

[2] NOOBEH doesn’t charge extra to have Webgility or any other applications installed in your QB on Azure service

[3] NOOBEH QB on Azure  and other cloud hosting solutions support scanning directly from your local PC to QuickBooks, using specialty 3rd party tools. Whether you use QuickBooks mobile or scan directly to QB using the Attached Documents feature, NOOBEH supports it.

jm bunny feetMake Sense?

J

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Considering Cybersecurity as Cloud Work Expands

When the pandemic forced many business users to move to remote work, it also forced the network security “boundary” to expand greatly and with great speed. Companies quickly adapted their tools and work so that it could be done somewhat effectively even as the employee working environment changed.  But new security models to match with new working models have not as quickly been adopted.

Business cloud workloads grew, by some estimates, as much as 20% just in the first 6 months of 2020. Yet many of those businesses electing to bring cloud working models to their business also made of the mistake of not expanding their security as they expanded the cloud network. This leaves systems and information vulnerable. Phishing, ransomware, credential theft and web app attacks have increased, catching businesses in their vulnerable states.

“In April to June of 2020 alone, security incidents increased by 188%.”

Even more than on-premises systems, it was the external cloud-based data and applications that were under attack because so many companies expanded their use of cloud services without enhanced security as part of the plan. Any expansion to include the cloud as network also significantly increases security risks. One report found that 35% of businesses made their cloud storage openly accessible to the public, allowing anyone to access it via the internet.

Don’t let your critical information be exposed or put at risk. When you begin using a cloud service, make sure to also address security for the new working mode or it could lead to lost or leaked information or a system breach.

Mendelson Consulting and NOOBEH cloud services take security very seriously. We help our clients keep their applications and data working properly and have a focus on methods to keep information safe regardless of what cloud you work on.

jm bunny feetMake Sense?

J

1 ( https://duo.com/blog/growing-security-safely-in-canada )

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Into the Sunset with QuickBooks 2018

Every year when the new editions of QuickBooks desktop editions are released, Intuit discontinues services for certain older versions. This is referred to as the sunset of the version. In general, a QuickBooks desktop edition can live for up to 3 years. After that time, all bets are off. The software might continue to work, but connected services won’t, and there will certainly be no security or compatibility updates beyond that point. For businesses using QB 2018 and planning to continue using their QuickBooks software and data – you need to upgrade your QuickBooks software now.

Intuit generally notifies customers in various ways about the discontinuation of QB editions. Granted, there is a lot of other advertising about QuickBooks that users receive, so it isn’t unusual for these notices to be missed. But the software will also tell you, and those notifications shouldn’t be ignored.

May 31, 2021 marks the end of access to add-on services for QuickBooks Desktop 2018 (Windows).

This means that all Windows versions of QuickBooks Desktop, including Pro, Premier and Enterprise 18 will no longer be able to connect to add-on services like payroll or merchant services. For Pro and Premier users, the software will continue to run, but there won’t be any availability of add-on or connected services or live technical support.

From Intuit: “Your access to QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Services, Live Support, Online Backup, Online Banking, and other services through QuickBooks Desktop 2018 software will be discontinued after May 31, 2021. “

The discontinuation (sunset) also means that you’ll no longer get critical security updates for the QuickBooks 2018 software. With this being the case, and especially if you expect to continue using your QB 2018 software without connected services, make sure to install all security and other updates your software receives prior to June 1, 2021.

Here’s the list of products impacted by the discontinuation of services after May 31, 2021.

If your business uses any of these services and you want to continue using them, your option is to upgrade to the latest version of QuickBooks Desktop

  • QuickBooks Desktop Pro 2018
  • QuickBooks Desktop Premier 2018 (General Business, Contractor, Manufacturing & Wholesale, Nonprofit, Professional Services, and Retail)
  • QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 18
  • QuickBooks Premier Accountant Edition 2018

Products for which services will be discontinued after April 27, 2021

QuickBooks Desktop Point of Sales 18.0 and 19.0 will lose access to QuickBooks Desktop Point of Sale 12 payments services

Products for which services will be discontinued after August 10, 2021

QuickBooks Desktop Point of Sales 18.0 will lose access to QuickBooks Desktop Point of Sale 18 payments services

Mendelson Consulting was the first and remains the best source for QuickBooks Enterprise and other QuickBooks software solutions and services.

If you know what you need and just want to get your updated QuickBooks software now, visit The QB Store now to buy online. It’s fast and easy and you’ll get your new software right away.

When you need a consultation regarding which editions of QuickBooks might be right for you, the team at Mendelson Consulting will help you select the right product. For data conversion, implementation, training, file repairs and any other services around the use of QuickBooks, Mendelson Consulting is the place to go.

The NOOBEH Cloud team, specializing in deploying QuickBooks on Azure, provides fully-managed hosting and cloud IT consulting to help your business implement a platform that delivers the resiliency and performance you need to keep things running smoothly.

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Intuit Reduces Migration and Support Options For Moving From QuickBooks Online to QuickBooks Desktop

Mendelson Consulting Offers Cloud and Migration Options

Need to convert data in QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online? You can get help from Intuit with this. Need to go the other way and convert from QuickBooks Online to QuickBooks Desktop? Not so much… So please read on.

In a surprise (and very quiet) announcement to QuickBooks Solution Providers, Intuit recently announced that it no longer freely provides data export functionality that allows businesses to convert their data from QuickBooks Online to QuickBooks Desktop. As of 12/18/2020, if you want to move your data from QuickBooks Online to QuickBooks Desktop, you have different options for how to do it and will get less support from Intuit in the process.

It is no great surprise that Intuit made this move. Even prior to ending the service, exports from QuickBooks Online to 2021 versions of QuickBooks Desktop had become quite difficult anyway. Requiring users to login to their Intuit account to create a new company file interrupts the QuickBooks Online attempt to create a new file in QuickBooks Desktop during the conversion, so the entire process became broken. (Note: Our solution is to create the new QuickBooks Desktop file in an earlier version of QuickBooks that does not force the Intuit account login, for example 2019, and subsequently upgrade to the latest version 2021).

The QuickBooks Online web-based service locks you into a subscription, delivering recurring revenue to Intuit. Logic follows that now it has become more difficult to get the data back out of QuickBooks Online in a useful way.

Intuit is still allowing businesses to migrate list data out of QuickBooks Online (think Customers, Vendors, Items lists only), but this is not a very clean process for migrating an entire company data set. Particularly since it involves exporting lists to Excel, manipulating or massaging the data and then importing into QuickBooks Desktop. You can see how this introduces a variety of ways to mess it up. And still this does not get the historical transaction data.

Another consideration is that QBO allows businesses to alter the screens and data stored in the product, and to use that data in ways that QuickBooks Desktop doesn’t necessarily understand. For example, simply adding a field called “job” to invoices in QBO does not mean that QuickBooks desktop would see that data and recognize it as a Customer:Job. That field in QBO doesn’t actually mean anything other than to the user so it isn’t something that could be automatically understood in a conversion. For any conversion of data to be done properly, there needs to be a clear understanding of what data is stored in QB Online, how it is used, and how that data needs to be translated to QB desktop.

Mendelson Consulting has a team of experts available to help with converting your QuickBooks Online information into useful QuickBooks desktop data, offering a thorough review of QBO is being used and mapping that information to how QuickBooks desktop should be set up and the data migrated. Better than a blindly automated process, this option for converting your QBO data to QBD provides a much greater assurance that the financial and other business data is migrated correctly and properly.

What about cloud? There is actually a better option than QBO for businesses that want to benefit from managed infrastructure and anytime/anywhere cloud models, and it does not require that the business lock itself and its future in a web-based application like QuickBooks Online. The better option is to have QuickBooks Desktop and other applications in a private cloud, as with NOOBEH’s QuickBooks on Azure service.

Our options for QuickBooks Desktop in the cloud offer far more than just QuickBooks. NOOBEH does not lock you in to any specific software application, version or working model. Rather, we provide businesses with the ability to run all their applications and manage their data in a familiar Windows environment, but not be tied to any hardware or physical location.

Running applications and data on private Microsoft Azure cloud servers lets even the smallest of businesses benefit from enterprise-class technology and IT platforms and get them affordably. The best part is that there is no vendor lock-in and no limitations on moving to other applications or services. If business needs change, NOOBEH can help the environment adjust to what the business needs, and not the other way around.

When the business needs more functionality, more application support, more process support and more flexibility to meet changing needs and conditions, then the business needs Mendelson Consulting and Noobeh.

jm bunny feetMake Sense?

J

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Connecting Your Web Store to QuickBooks on Azure

If you sell products via the Internet using a web store or shopping cart application, then you are probably facing the problem of getting your order and sales activities into QuickBooks and then getting shipping and product information back into the web store. For some, the additional need is to mirror the products and pricing information between the inventory management or financial system and the web store. In many businesses, this is a big chore and requires literally hours of redundant data entry and updating.

As with any manual process, there are many opportunities for errors and mistakes which ultimately cost the business both time and money.

Online selling is a dynamic business, and the sale is made when the customer is ready and willing to buy and the seller has the item available at the right price. The web store (ecommerce system) exists to process this sale in order to meet the immediacy of customer demand. If the system is not up to date with current product or pricing information, then the customer may not find what they want, and the sale is lost.

This means that the connectivity between the online selling system and the inventory/accounting system is of paramount importance in the ability to do business.

Synchronizing inventory information between the web store and the inventory/accounting system ensures that product and quantity information is updated on the web as product is sold and shipped (or received in). At the same time, importing invoices and sales receipts into the accounting system helps to ensure proper and accurate recording of sales and payment information and improves tracking of accounts receivable, shipping charges, and sales taxes.

cloud-small-business

To make this connection between the Web store and the inventory/accounting software, an integration solution or connector is generally required. The connector gets installed on the same systems as the inventory/accounting solution (on the same systems as QuickBooks, in this case) and provides the mechanism to synchronize data between the web store and the accounting system.

Integrating an always-on web store with an on-site accounting solution can be a challenge, even for the most tech savvy business owner.

Creating seamless processes for exchanging data between these remote systems requires that both solutions be operating in a secure and accessible platform. While the web store is accessible via the Internet, getting to data in accounting and other systems residing on local PCs or networks is more problematic.

An option that many successful online businesses have adopted is NOOBEH‘s QuickBooks on Azure service, which provides centralized hosting and management for the QuickBooks desktop and any connected inventory or warehouse management applications as well as the integration to the web store.

Enabling the accounting and operational systems to be online and always on, like the web store, allows them to exchange data when and where it is required.

Connecting services in a secure and managed environment introduces new efficiencies and eliminates risk due to data entry errors or lost transactions. The QuickBooks on Azure cloud hosting service provides the system management, platform security and uptime required to ensure that the inventory and accounting systems supporting the always-on web store are also always on.

jm bunny feetMake Sense?

J

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Where in The World is Your Data?

Where in the World is Your Data? Even better.. where would you like it to be? In a datacenter near you? In a datacenter far away from you? Maybe you’d like your production system nearby, but backups stored on the other side of the country. Or perhaps you want redundant systems on each coast as well as something somewhere in the middle.
With Microsoft Azure as your platform, you have all the choices in the world, literally.

Microsoft Azure is the platform of choice for businesses of all sizes, offering virtualized infrastructure and services that can be tailored and tuned to meet the unique needs of any organization. No longer tied to on-premises infrastructure, companies find that they can implement better and more comprehensive solutions because they have the agility to adapt systems to immediate needs while retaining the ability to adjust as conditions change.

With Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 Services, NOOBEH enables businesses to focus on transformation and improving efficiency, not the IT that supports it.

NOOBEH cloud services, part of the Mendelson Consulting team, sets up Azure infrastructure and manages it for their clients. Business users focus on getting their work done, not on the IT supporting it. NOOBEH QuickBooks on Azure services give small and medium size businesses the most flexible and resilient infrastructure available to run all their desktop and network applications.

Because QuickBooks is rarely a standalone solution, NOOBEH QuickBooks on Azure services have no limitations on what add-ons, extensions, integrations or other applications the business may need to use. All the software a business needs can be deployed on the platform, allowing the company to keep its information systems and assets secure, fully-managed and available when and where they are needed.

While NOOBEH uses Azure platform and Microsoft 365 services to continue to deliver new capability for private sector users, Microsoft is advancing innovation in the delivery of connected services and computing power for private and government sector users wherever it is needed. Azure Modular Datacenters represent a partnership that delivers computing and communications capacity anywhere in the world… and beyond.

Microsoft Azure Modular Datacenters and SpaceX

The Azure modular datacenter is basically a “data center in a box”. It comes with everything needed to deliver computing capacity anywhere in the world.

“We designed the Azure Modular Datacenter (MDC) for customers who need cloud computing capabilities in hybrid or challenging environments, including remote areas. This announcement is complemented by our Azure Space offerings and partnerships that can extend satellite connectivity anywhere in the world. Scenarios range from mobile command centers, humanitarian assistance, military mission needs, mineral exploration, and other use cases requiring high intensity, secure computing on Azure.”

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-the-microsoft-azure-modular-datacenter/

It has power and everything else it needs, and now it also has the connectivity needed, even when there is no (zip, zero) infrastructure. Microsoft has partnered with SpaceX, using SES satellites to bring Internet connectivity to remote areas.

“We can connect via satellite links any element on the Earth to another point on the Earth..”

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/10/microsofts-new-data-center-in-a-box-will-use-spacex-starlink-broadband/

They’re calling it part of “a multi-orbit, multi-band, multi-vendor” approach to connectivity. That’s pretty cool, if you ask me.

It takes the whole bookkeeping in bunny slippers philosophy of “work when and where it works for you” to an entirely new level.

Make Sense?

jm bunny feet

J