ProOnGo Blog

You probably already know that you can export most lists, registers, and reports from QuickBooks to Excel. It’s come to my attention, however, that sometimes the option to export to excel is greyed out and un-clickable. The only option available is to export to a CSV, in this case.

According to Intuit’s help page about this error, it can occur for three reasons:

1. A supported version of Microsoft Excel is not installed,
2. Your installation of Microsoft Excel is damaged.
3. Your installation of QuickBooks is damaged.

The fix for #1 is easy – just install excel! The rest of the problems have quick fixes which aren’t too tough to figure out.

Excel is damaged.

To repair Excel, you can either un-install the program and re-install it, or you can simply repair it. To repair it, go to Control Panel, then Programs, then Programs and Features (Control Panel > Programs > Programs & Features). Find Microsoft Office, then click the Change button.

Once you repair the file, re-start your computer and try it again! This is the most common fix. However, you the problem might be that:

QuickBooks is damaged.

Un-installing and re-installing QuickBooks is an option in this case as well, but so is simply repairing your file. NOTE: Before you go uninstalling things all willy nilly, BACK UP YOUR QUICKBOOKS DATA.

To repair your QuickBooks file, follow the same steps above for repairing excel. Go to Control Panel > Programs > Programs & Features, find QuickBooks, click ‘Change,’ and elect to Repair the file.

Then you should be able to export reports to Excel. Check out our post about all the things you can export to Excel, as well as our work-around for exporting invoices to excel!

Are you over filling out expense reports? Let ProOnGo do it for you. We even can adopt your company’s custom format! Email support@ProOnGo.com for more info!

What’s a group item in QuickBooks? You’re about to find out…

Group Items in QuickBooks are a nifty tool for those companies which have inventories, and therefore use many an item in QuickBooks. However, if you always sell a certain set of items, it can get tedious to list every single item on invoices. Also, it’s easy with so many items and details to leave something out. Using group items solves these problems; group items simplify your process. Instead of adding each item individually, just add one group item – it contains the individual items. You can even decide if, on invoices, you want each individual part to be shown or not.

For example, if your company installs doors for people, you’ll always use a door handle, hinges, and the door itself during the job, so those items will always appear on your invoices. Instead of listing each item separately on an invoice, just create a group item entitled “Door Parts.”

How to set up a group item:

1. Go to the Items and Services list
2. Click Item, then click ‘New.’
3. Under “Type,” select ‘Group.’
4. Name the group item in the “Group Name/Number” field.
5. Add a description if you like.
6. If you select ‘Print Items in This Group,’ each individual item within the group will show on invoices and other printed materials.
7. Add each item to the group – they can be items which are made already, or you can add them on the fly.

Your set up will look something like this:

When you create an invoice, just look for the name of your group item in the ‘Item Code’ drop down list. QuickBooks will show each individual item within the group, its price, and the total price of the group.

Group items are a great way to stay organized and simplify QuickBooks.

Did you know? ProOnGo supports items! Check out a list of QuickBooks fields ProOnGo supports.

Do your independent contractors use Time Sheets in QuickBooks? Now they can use ProOnGo!

Dear Journal,
            Today I really messed up my QuickBooks company file…

Journal entries in QuickBooks are something  which are oftentimes used incorrectly, messing up your reports and sending your ProAdvisor running. The ‘old school’ method of accounting dictates each transaction should be an entry in a literal journal, so it’s not uncommon for people to intuitively use journal entries in QuickBooks to record various transactions. QuickBooks is a form-based accounting program, though, meaning that it has specific forms to enter each type of transaction. For example, if you use a credit card to make a purchase, you should use the ‘Enter Credit Card Charges’ form in QuickBooks. If you write a check, you should use the ‘Write Checks’ form. Get it?

I read in a QuickBooks forum (you know you’re a bookkeeping nerd when you start a sentence like that) about a businessman who liked to collaborate on his books; he’d do some of the accounting work, and as would a couple of his team members. I was shocked to learn just how they shared the company file! He would make changes in Quickbooks, then create a backup company file. He’d then send that file to his accountant, who would make changes and then create yet another backup. That backup would be sent to the accountant’s assistant, who would make changes and then make – you guessed it – yet another backup, and send it back to the boss.

The flaws in that plan are numerous, but the most important one is the ease with which inaccuracies could occur. If there are company files flying around in every direction, it’s easy to miss a detail which could eventually make it quite difficult to reconcile your books. Plus, it would be very easy to get your company files confused. In short, it’s a mess.

There are two solutions to the problem of figuring out how to share your QuickBooks company file.

QuickBooks Multi-User Mode & Hosted Server

Another method of sharing QuickBooks which is slightly more complicated is hosting your QuickBooks on a server. Put simply, your company file will stay on one server, and using QuickBooks multi-user mode, different users can login to that server at the same time from their own computers, which are all running different QuickBooks programs. It looks something like this:

One user would login to the QuickBooks company file using multi-user mode in their QuickBooks program, and make changes and because everyone is using the same program, updates aren’t required to be sent around the office.

For a complete guide on how to set up QuickBooks multi-user mode, see this guide.

The upside of hosting QuickBooks on a server is that you can share, collaborate, and delegate tasks in QuickBooks to other people. The downside is that it requires some technical knowledge, and is not so friendly to apps and add-ons.

Use QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online is QuickBooks, but online. It has the same functionality, usage, and possibilities as your desktop version of QuickBooks, but it’s hosted by Intuit on the internet. To access it, all you need to do is go to qbo.intuit.com and login with your username and password. Any coworkers who have those credentials can login and make changes to your company file. Easy!

QuickBooks Online makes it easy to collaborate, but there are very many other benefits: your data is safe on the cloud, you have easier access to QuickBooks apps, and QuickBook online has a simpler, more user-friendly interface.

If you’re interested in QuickBooks Online, check out our calculator to determine whether QuickBooks Online is at the right price point for your company. Also check out how to transfer your data from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online.

What reports are available for job costing in QuickBooks?

You probably caught our recent post on job costing in QuickBooks – this post is to follow up with that, and explain your reporting options for job costing! There are a ton of reports already pre-made in QuickBooks, which can be filtered and manipulated to give you only the information you need. Start in the Reports Center.

The best place to start with job costing in QuickBooks is the Profit and Loss By Job report. It shows you how much money you’ve spent on a job, and how much you’ve gotten paid for it. This report, by default, shows this information for all of your jobs. If you want to only see the information for one job, you need to edit and customize the report. To do that, click the ‘Customize Report’ button at the top of the screen – then, under the ‘Filters’ list, go to ‘Name.’

Then, select the name of the job you’d like to run the report for, and click ‘OK.’ The report will change to reflect your selection. That wasn’t too bad.

Now, what if you want to run a report which shows the billable time for each job? Easy! QuickBooks has created these reports for you; in the report center, select ‘Jobs, Time & Mileage’ from the side-bar, then scroll down until you see Time reports. Let’s look at the Time By Job Summary. You’ll see the amount of hours per job and what the hours were spent doing. What if you want to see who worked those hours? You can run the Time By Job Detail report to see the hours for all jobs, or –from the Summary report – just hover the mouse over the amount of hours, and double click!

If you want to see a report of one specific employee’s hours, run the Time by Name report. This report by default shows all employees – to see the time by one employee only, start by clicking the ‘Customize Report’ button. Select ‘Name’ from the ‘Choose Filter’ list, and find the name of the employee for whom you want to see time. To see that employees’ time for a specific date range, filter by ‘Activity Date.’ If you want to see only hours which have been billed, filter by ‘Billing Status.’

Job Costing in QuickBooks - filter your results.

These are just two reports available for job costing in QuickBooks. Check out the Reports Center in QuickBooks for more!

Did you know: ProOnGo syncs with accounts, customer:jobs, items, and more so that your expenses can be used for job costing. Check out our QuickBooks sync.

Job costing is an important part of your business; but what is it!? Job costing in QuickBooks, simply put, is the process of tracking expenses and income on a job by job basis. It answers the following questions: How much have I spent on X Job? How much am I getting paid for X Job? How much of my employees time is going towards X Job? Is this job “worth it?” Is it making a lot of money?

Let’s take this in relation to QuickBooks: what are the elements of job costing? That is, what do you need to set up in order to job cost?

You’ll need to create Customer:Jobs, Items, and turn on time tracking. To turn on time tracking, go to Edit > Preferences > Time and Expenses. Under “Do You Track Time?” select ‘Yes.’

Next, create some Customer:Jobs. To do so, open the Customer Center. That’s where you’ll see an overview of all of your customers and the jobs you’re completing for them. To add a new customer:job, right-click the list and select ‘New Customer.’ When you right click the screen, you’ll see a lot of options, all of which will be useful to you.

Next, you’ll set up your items. Items are a more finite way to track costs associated with jobs. Items can range from service fees, fees incurred by you from other contractors, time costs, payroll costs, and physical things you must buy in order to complete the job. If you’re confused by items, check out our blog post, What is an item?

Now you’re ready to go!

Let’s enter in some time, but with job costing! Click ‘Enter Time,’ and enter in hours, but make sure you assign a Customer:Job and an Item. Don’t forget to check ‘Billable’ if you’re passing on the cost to the customer later.

Now, say you buy something for the job. No sweat! Just enter the expense via Write Check (or Enter Credit Card Charges) as you normally would. Just like the time, you’re going to assign the correct Customer:Job to the expense, and the correct Item (if applicable).

Then, create an invoice for your customer!  Under the “Customer:Job” field, type in the customer:job  for which you’d like to create the invoice. QuickBooks will immediately prompt you to enter all of the unbilled time and expenses which you’ve assigned to that job.

Go ahead and do that. Select from the time tab…

.. and the Items tab!

Your invoice will then reflect all of the charges and time you’ve made in order to complete the job. Plus any other items you add, such as delivery fees.

If you find that you have a lot of expenses related to jobs, why not equip yourself and your employees with an expense tracking app? With ProOnGo, your employees can track their own customer:jobs, items, and more – plus, you don’t have to spend time keying in their expense information in QuickBooks. Shoot us an email at support@ProOnGo.com for more info.

People handle credit cards in QuickBooks in a multitude of ways, most of which are incorrect. We even wrote a whole blog post about all the wonky ways people handle credit card transactions! If you’re using a company card, you should have it set up with its own Credit Card Register. In addition to greater organization and accuracy (if you’re using Online Banking especially), using a Credit Card Register allows you to pay bills with a credit card!

First, here’s how to set up your credit card register:

QBO: Go to the Company tab, then your Chart of Accounts. Click ‘New’ and select ‘Credit Card’ from the list of Account Types. Click ‘Next’ and follow the prompts – QuickBooks will ask if you want to set up Online Banking, and we recommend you do. Click ‘Finish,’ and you’re done!

QBD: Open your Chart of Accounts, and click Accounts, then New. Select ‘Credit Card’ as the account type, and then click ‘Next’ to follow the prompts.

Once you’re set up, you can pay bills with that credit card!

To do so, open the Bill. In QuickBooks Desk top, find the ‘Method’ field at the bottom of the screen.

Then, change the Method to ‘Credit Card.’ Save, and you’re done! From QuickBooks Online, open the bill and find the ‘Payment Account’ field.

Select your credit card account, and save. In both cases, the transaction will automatically be added to your credit card register.

To pay bills with a credit card is easy, but you can’t do so unless you’ve set up a credit card register. Check out more information on credit cards in QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online Banking!

Did you know: When you have online banking set up, you can use ProOnGo to sync with your credit card register, allowing you and your employees to categorize, edit, and add receipt images to your credit card transactions from any smart phone, any where, and at any time. Check out our Credit Card Sync.

I just read the news that Intuit has released QuickBooks Enterprise in the UK. Finally, QuickBooks is able to provide this great program to those businesses across the pond which are already large, and getting even larger. Enterprise allows for up to a million names and items, so it’s ideal for businesses with large inventories, client lists, and supplier lists. Plus, you can use as many company files as you like, for no extra charge!

The scale of what’s possible with Enterprise is pretty impressive, but size isn’t the only thing that matters. With Enterprise, up to thirty users can work on their company files at the same time, so more people can get more done. Having thirty people working on a company file may sound like a good way to mess up your company file, but never fear: Enterprise offers higher levels of user permissions. The company file’s admin can decide who gets access to what information. For example, say  your company has one person running payroll, which is also included in QuickBooks Enterprise. This person knows how to do payroll, but isn’t familiar with the rest of your QuickBooks company file. With Enterprise, you can set that user’s permissions to only allow them access to the Payroll feature set.

Enterprise also offers a set up customizable reports to give users a more clear picture of the health of their company. There are 135 reports already available from QuickBooks, so you’ll have access to every information point you could possible need. Plus, in Enterprise you can run reports across company files. The content of reports vary from financial data to banking information to employee and payroll information to budgets and forecasts. That’s a whole lotta data!

By now you’re probably drooling over Enterprise! It’s a pretty powerful piece of software. Check out Intuit’s site for QuickBooks Enterprise.

Are you importing your time expenses into QuickBooks and find it extremely tedious and time consuming?

Well, we just completed a new feature that enables users to easily import the time expenses they have record with ProOnGo Expense into QuickBooks underneath the Timesheet section. This is a huge benefit for the companies that record the time expenses of their employees because the time expenses import underneath the employee name along with the Customer:Job and appear under the Weekly Time Sheet.

This will save admins hours of time each week, as well as spare them the pain of manually keying in times and dates for each employee. Admins now will just hit a sync button and their time and regular expenses are instantly entered into their QuickBooks account.

The feature isn’t available for the public just yet, but will be available for the ProOnGo Expense application on Intuit App Center in the next coming weeks. If you’d like to get an advanced peek at this feature, we’ll be happy to give you beta access. Just send an email to Max@ProOnGo.com.

As always, keep the questions and suggestions coming to Support@ProOnGo.com or tweet us @ProOnGo.