Click here to view the embedded video.

We all use scrap paper. We take notes when we’re on the phone, while we’re sitting in a lecture and for me often times while I am working on something and I just have some thoughts I want to scribble out so I can remember them later. Other times I want to run some calculations and I just open up an MS Excel sheet and lay them all out. I have found in some cases that after closing that “scrap” file in Excel without saving the changes I wished I hadn’t! I wanted to get those #’s back because I had another thought and wanted to play around some more. After experiencing this enough times with both forms of scrap (written and calculations) I got smart, created a note in Evernote called “Scrap” and dropped my excel file in there. Now any time I need to “jot” something down I access that note so it’s all saved and even easily referenced from anywhere because it’s in evernote so I can get to the info from my phone.

Hey the bottom line is it doesn’t cost me anything extra to do this and it can only help! Maybe it can help you too!

Here are some other helpful posts on how I use Evernote to get and stay organized:

Using Evernote for Bookmarks

Time Is Money – Evernote 4.0 Saves Time

2 Methods For Managing and Tracking Your Receipts

QuickBooks Inventory With Some Assembly Required

Download my 3 hour inventory webinar here

Managing and Tracking Your Inventory With QuickBooks

Please post your comments and questions below! And Please Share. And Plus 1. And Retweet! And have an absolutely fantastic day if you aren’t doing so already!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There are many different ways we can pay for things. Accordingly there are many ways to record these purchases in QuickBooks. Inventory is no exception. I like to tell people that QuickBooks should reflect what actually happened in the real world. If I put a purchase on a credit card then I need to record a credit card charge in QuickBooks. This assumes of course that this was a business card. Alternatively I might get a bill for my inventory that can be paid later or I can write a check, or I can pay with my debit card which is really just an electronic check so in QuickBooks that means a check.

Here are the 3 transaction types that can be used to record your inventory purchases in QuickBooks:

• Check (or debit card)
• Credit Card Charge
• Bill

What I cannot use to record an inventory purchase is a journal entry. Why? There is no place in a journal entry to indicate the Quantity and unit cost of what I am buying. All of the transactions types listed above have the identical bottom section within the dialogue which consists of two tabs; Expenses and Items.

Your Items tab is the key to getting inventory on the books. The type of transaction only reflects how the items will be paid for. Everything else is the same in the items tab regardless of the transaction type. When you enter the quantity and the unit cost in the items tab this is what drives the quantity on hand and the inventory that your item list reflects. The cost that you assign the item during setup is irrelevant – that is only to populate the form when you are recording the purchase. The unit cost sitting in the items tab of your QuickBooks form (Check, Credit Card Charge, or Bill) is what will update that item’s average cost. QuickBooks only average costs your items, there is no other choice.

Pre-paid inventory gets interesting. You do not want to add these items into your inventory counts because you will not have them in stock any time soon. So you have to post your purchase to an asset account called “pre-paid inventory” or as I like to title it, “Inventory – Pre-paid” so that it shows up right next to “Inventory” in QuickBooks. Then when you actually receive the items and get the bill you enter the entire order into inventory and then apply the pre-paid to the balance due on the bill.

This week’s video will show you what it looks like when you are purchasing inventory in QuickBooks as well as what to do about pre-paid inventory

Click here to view the embedded video.

Want the files used in this video?

Purchase the exercise files in my Knowledge Store

How to enter payroll in QuickBooks

The classic mistake that inexperienced bookkeepers make is that they book the net payroll as payroll expense and the taxes all go to the employer’s tax expense. This leaves a lot out of the picture.

1. What about Payroll Liabilities?
2. Where is the gross payroll amount?

There are 2 ways you can enter payroll into QuickBooks.

• Summary
• Detail

Summary

Under the summary method of entering payroll into QuickBooks you are entering lump sum totals. You still have to enter the gross payroll to the Payroll expense line, show the deductions into liabilities and then record the tax payment with the appropriate split between the employer’s share of the taxes and the remittance of the liabilities that were withheld from the employees paychecks.

Choose a method in the video to learn how to book your payroll based on the method you prefer.

Detail

In the detailed method of entering payroll into QuickBooks you are entering each individual paycheck. This presents a challenge in that the paychecks do not come out of your bank account individually. So we need a way of recording each paycheck individually while still being able to show the lump sum net payroll that actually comes out of our bank account. The answer is pretty simple once you see what it looks like in QuickBooks. You create a fictitious bank account called “Payroll Clearing” and enter each individual paycheck in there. Once you’ve entered all of the paychecks for the pay period the bank account will have a negative balance equal to the total net payroll that comes out of your actual checking account. All that is needed now is a transfer from your checking to the payroll clearing and the payroll clearing account will zero out.

When you are setting up your inventory in QuickBooks you have to have the right preference turned on so that Inventory and Purchase orders are active. This setting is not set by default so you have to go in and change it. The video below will demonstrate how this is done.

Once you have Inventory and purchase orders active in QuickBooks you can begin adding Items to your item list. Your items are your products. What you sell for a living. When we sell an item that we need to track as inventory this is called an inventory part in QuickBooks. Inventory parts need to have 3 accounts associated with them;

1. An Asset Account (usually called Inventory Asset)
2. A Cost Of Goods Sold Account (usually called Cost of Goods Sold)
3. An Income Account (this can be anything you want, often called merchandise sales, or product sales, or just plain.. Sales

Once you know how to set these items up you can begin receiving items into inventory and then you can sell them. That’s what the next few videos will be looking at.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Facebook Timeline for business is now here and if you haven’t already updated and published you don’t worry. You will be forced to on March 30, 2012!

There are a number of really nice changes besides the fact that your business page now has the same timeline format as your personal page does if you decided to make that change. So what is different?

• The dashboard at the top (for admins) gives you quick access to the most important things – to see who has commented and who has recently “Liked” you.
• You can now send messages to a “Page” and those show up on the top right in the dash board.
• You can now customize the “Tab” icons (some of them) that show up just below the cover and you can rearrange them.
• Now that you have the “Timeline” layout you can mark significant events in your company’s history the same way you can on your personal timeline.

Watch my video to learn exactly what is new and what to do? What do you think about this? Please post your comments below!

Read Time Brand’s blog post about this here:

http://timothybrand.com/facebook/facebook-fan-page-timeline-customization/

Click here to view the embedded video.

Pinterest is the hot new thing! The site is getting tons of traffic so it makes sense that you should be using this for your business.

But how do I use Pinterest for my business?

Simple. Pin your content and organize it by using different boards for different categories.

Watch my video on how I use Pinterest for my business and please post your comments, questions, and suggestions below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for an asset today!

When you sell an asset and finance it we call it an “owner financed sale of an asset”. Rocket Science this is not! Broken down in slightly simpler terms.. We sell an asset and let the buyer pay us off in the form of a loan. Once you have it described in these terms then it should be pretty clear how to record an owner financed sale of an asset in QuickBooks. We need an entry that does the following:

• Write the asset off the books.
• Recapture the accumulated depreciation.
• Record the loan receivable (this would be the cash received in an ordinary sale).
• Record the gain/loss on sale

Once you record the initial entry you will want to create a payment scheduled based on the loan amount, interest rate and the term over which you’ve agreed to be paid. This is pretty easy to create if you know your Excel, if not you can use my effective interest table which is available in my knowledge store.

Watch my video on Owner Financed Sales of Assets and please post your comments and questions below!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Get involved online

Post a weekly or even daily (if you’re unemployed you have the time) tip about your professional experiences.

You have more knowledge in your head than you realize.

A classic interview question is when the interviewer asks you to describe a specific challenge you’ve had and describe how you over came it.

Your first post should answer one important question.. “Why?”

Why do you want to work?

Why do you want to work in your chosen profession.

Why do you want to revolutionize your field?

Actually each of those questions can be a different post.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you want the QuickBooks File from this screen cast so you can see exactly how this was done you can download it in my Knowledge Store for $4.97.

This is a Portable Company File which can be opened in QuickBooks Pro or Premier 2012 for PC. This is also a great way to help me out for all of the time I put into these free screen casts! Thanks!!

Let’s say that you sell inventory and that as part of that process you might accept old inventory as a Trade-In. How to account for this in QuickBooks? The real question is, how to I do the following:

• Give the customer credit for having paid value in the form of a Trade-In
• Get that traded in item into inventory with a quantity and cost when I haven’t and never will receive a bill for it?

This week’s screen cast will answer these questions and probably a few others so please watch and then post your comments and questions below.

Click here to view the embedded video.