Q&A with Will English

Will is a member of a QuickBooks forum where member’s posts issues and questions. Colleagues provide information and solutions to help the consultant properly support their client. They explore and share ideas and advice.

Question from a colleague to the group: One of my client’s has many departments and now has items that are no longer active. They don't want to mark them as ‘Unorderable’ as that is not the case. The items are inactive simply because they no longer carry them, but could order again if needed. Is there a way to simply make items inactive or would it be a good idea to set up a new department for inactive items and move them there?

Will’s reply: You could do that, but they would still show up in the dropdown lists, etc. Assume that you don't want to delete them because they may be reordered. In the olden QuickBooks days when you couldn't make things inactive, we would add a Z to the name. Maybe something like that would work so that they wouldn't see them as they search for things, but they would still be there. By the way, if you do switch departments or change the name, it will not change prior transactions unlike QuickBooks so be careful.

Colleague: Correct me if I'm wrong but if we were to delete them, we would lose all history of them as well.

Will: In Point of Sale (POS) you can delete items without losing history. They will still show up on all of your reports and unlike QuickBooks Financial, you can delete items even if they are used in transactions.

Another group member: To tag onto what Will said, if you think about who POS is built for, it makes sense that you can delete items without losing the history. If you think of a ladies boutique, for example, they will never carry the same fall line of items again. So every item they had in for fall will never be sold again, so they certainly don't want them in the dropdowns or search functions but do still want them in reporting.

Will: You should also keep in mind that if you delete an item and then do something with a document that uses it, like copy a Purchase Order or a Receiving Voucher, it will add the item back in.

Another group member: Funny but true story. Had a client change department names and didn't exactly get the result you would expect. Changes you make to the Department list do not impact the items that are connected to that department. So while the reports will pull the same data as before, I will tell you that I don't delete or change department names for fear of making a mess happen. My point is that unless you are the one doing it, I would just discourage changes to the Department list altogether since as I mentioned and learned the hard way, changing names in the list does not give you the result you expect in reporting since it does not change the departments at the item level. So if you change the Cat department into the Dog department, the change does not occur at the item level so the items are still in the Cat department. Fun huh?

Will: So we have revamped a number of companies’ department lists. As you might imagine, we have seen almost every bad thing done in POS. You can export the item list, edit the department field and then reimport the list. Keep in mind, though, that there is the Before Change reports and the After Change reports, so doing the change at a natural break point, month end, etc., year end, etc. makes the most sense. Then delete any departments that are not needed.

Got a question? Drop us a line: info@englishmanagement.com or Contact Us.

Intuit is preparing for some exciting changes for the QuickBooks Payment (merchant services) customers that will provide improved billing, simplified pricing and give them more ways to accept payments.

In order to make this change, Intuit will be updating the PIN pads used with QuickBooks Point of Sale software at their expense.

What Intuit Payment Solutions customers can expect: 

Beginning in the end of August, Intuit will let their Payment Solutions customers know that they will be exchanging their PIN pads.  Shortly after the customers are notified, Intuit will ship a PIN pad with installation instructions and a request that they return their old PIN pad. This is to ensure that the PIN pad will be compatible with the changes they make to their systems.

What you need to do: 

Customers will need to connect the PIN pad to their Point of Sale hardware and return their old PIN pad.  Intuit will provide instructions to make this simple for the customer. We, at EMS, will be happy to assist you with this if you need some help with the process. It is not a lengthy, difficult process. You should swap out the PIN pad as soon as possible upon receipt of the new one to reduce delays which could cause an interruption in service.  

This notice is provided as a convenience for our customers and is not intended to supplement, modify, or extend the Intuit software license agreement between Intuit and the customer for any Intuit product or service. 

In our more than 10 years of experience with QuickBooks Point of Sale (POS), one of the most problematic issues is the inability of QuickBooks Point of Sale to synch to a QuickBooks File (QBF) that is not on the local network. What that means practically is that the owner/bookkeeper has to do their accounting work on a machine at the store.

There are several approaches to work through this limitation. Will English has been testing the various configurations and thinks he has determined the best one for the Point of Sale User. In this article, he provides a thorough explanation with step-by-step instructions and screen shots.

Due to the length of this article, we have provided a it as a PDF. Click on Attachment below.

There is still time to join us for our upcoming QuickBooks POS webinar "Physical Inventory with Tips & Tricks" on Tue. July 22nd from 9-11:30am PST.

Doing a few things in advance of your Physical Inventory will really help with the accuracy of the count. Learn the three methods available to take an inventory count, how often a count should be done, security considerations, and much more to ensure a successful inventory count.

Learn how to properly plan and prepare, use the scanners- avoiding manual entry, and tips and tricks.

Agenda:
Overview
Terminology and Concepts
Planning, Preparing and Training
Manually Adding Counts
Saving and Applying Changes
Installing and Testing Physical Inventory Scanners
Navigating the Physical Inventory Scanner
Counting with the Physical Inventory Scanner
Updated QBPOS with the Physical Inventory Scanner Counts
Multi-store Considerations

Your paid registration enters your name in our raffle! You do not need to be present to win.

Using the Join.me remote meeting application, you will be able to view all of the step-by-step processes in real time and can listen in on the audio using your computer speakers or dial in by phone.

You will be provided with a printable PDF of the PowerPoint presentation covering the key points to follow along with and make notes.

REGISTER TODAY!

Introduction

While assemblies will do a great job of kitting multiple items into a new product when the contents of the kits remain the same or rarely change, there are certain times when you will you want to have an item in your data file that is made up of one or more items where the contents may vary.  The variation may have to do with weight or size or some other component(s).  In many cases, creating new assemblies for these items may be more work that it is worth.  Therefore, in some cases it may be better to perform what we refer to as a Product Conversion.

A Product Conversion will allow you to create a new product from one more other products, while maintaining the proper inventory values and quantities on hand.

Example

Our fictional company, Landscape Makers Demonstration Company (LSMDC), sells potted flowers, the pots they might go in, and the planting mix their customers would need to create their own flower pot arrangements as individual items.  Recently, they have decided to create their own flower pot arrangements and sell those direct to the public. 

They have decided to use two different flower pots with varying mixtures of flowers in each.  One will be sold for 39.99, while the other will be sold for $44.99.  Because the pots, flowers and soil used will vary for each arrangement, assemblies will not work well for them. After all, they really don’t want individual products for each group of kitted items.  What they want is for the product to be sold to be more generic in nature and something they can easily use over and over again.  As such, they have decided to use our product conversion process.

Create the New Products as Inventory Items

To begin, you will want to create the new items in the database that represent the products you want to sell.  Here you can see we have created our two new inventory items setting the sales prices referenced above.

Convert the Items

The general concept here is that we will use a single Receiving Voucher in QBPOS to list the products that will be included in one of the arrangements and then add the quantity of the newly created items. 

To do so:

·        Create a vendor to track these entries – we will use the name Product Conversion as our vendor

·        From the main menu, choose Purchasing>Receive Items

·        Using the drop down for the item selection, choose the List Select button

·        Customize the list to display the Cost column (you need to know the average unit cost of each item that you will include in the build.

·        Select the items you want to include in the arrangement by highlighting them and hitting the + icon (we will adjust the qty used later)

·        Click on Put Items to Voucher

·        Change the Qty for each line item to the total number of items you will use in the build – not for each new flower arrangement, but the total that will be used in making several – be sure to make the quantity negative as you are going to be removing these items from inventory

·        Most importantly, make absolutely sure that the Voucher Cost  for each product is set to the average unit cost – by default it will pull the order cost and if they are different the result will be wrong

·        Before going forward, make note of the Total negative value.  This will be the value of the new items you are creating – in our example it is <$156.40>

·        On the next available line, add the item you created for the completed arrangement

·        Set the Quantity to match the positive number of finished units you are creating and update the extended cost to match to the negative value being relieved from inventory

·        Check the Receiving Voucher - the Total should now be zero – if it is not, you have definitely done something wrong

·        Click on the Save option that meets your needs

In reviewing our item list, we can see that the products that went into our build have decreased by negative values in our Receiving Voucher.  We can also see that our new product has the correct quantity on-hand to sell and that the value of our inventory is still intact.

Is there a way in QuickBooks Point of Sale (QBPOS) to manage rental equipment? If so, what is the process? Let’s take a look.

1. Identify the equipment you will rent out.
2. In QBPOS, create a rental department and create inventory items for the equipment assigning them to the rental department. (You can tag the rental items if you want to speed the checkout process, but consider the abuse these tags will receive. We do sell a tag printer and tags that can stand up to the abuse, so contact our office for more details). If you are using QuickBooks Financial software connected to your POS, consider changing the accounts that POS is using for sales and Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) to something like “Rental Inventory Sales” and “Rental Inventory COGS”  In this way, if you see these accounts, you know that a mistake was made or you have sold off your rental inventory.
3. Set the selling price to zero and receive in the inventory using your normal receiving process, if this is existing inventory that you had previously received in, you can create a zero dollar voucher to transfer the inventory out of your existing for sale inventory. See our blog article on *zero dollar vouchers for more details.
4. Create a non-inventory item named Deposit on Equipment make the price zero.  If you have a standard deposit amount, you can use that as the selling price. Set all of the accounts in the QuickBooks section to point to customer deposits.
5. Copy the item above and change the name of the item to Rental Fee.
6. When a customer rents the item, create a receipt with the rental inventory item on the first line of the sales receipt.
7. On the same receipt, Deposit on Equipment item will be the next item you add. The inventory item (the rental) will be 0 dollars, while the Deposit on Equipment item will have the amount you are charging for the deposit.
8. Record the receipt, take the payment for the deposit using standard payment methods.

   

9. You can look at the item’s history to determine whether an item is rented or not.  While this works, some of our clients create a separate Excel worksheet to track what is on hand or not.
10. When the item is returned, locate the receipt, copy it and turn it into a return receipt to refund the deposit and put the rented item back into inventory.
11. Create a new receipt for the rental fee.  Alternatively, you could add the rental fee to the return receipt, and refund the net amount if the deposit is greater than the rental fee or collect the difference if the rental fee exceeds the deposit.
    
    
    
    *Our next blog post will be on Zero Dollar Vouchers.

Q&A with Will English:
One of our National Park clients uses QuickBooks Point of Sale V2013 and QuickBooks Financial Pro V2014. They recently received an item in QB but it didn’t actually arrive at their store, only a back ordered item. She needed to know the best approach without a lot of clean-up work.

Will’s reply: If you copy the voucher and then change it to a Return Voucher, including changing the date to match the original, then copy it again and make the correction, you should be fine. There will be a Credit Memo that will be created to offset the wrong bill, but other than that, no harm no foul.

Will is a member of a QuickBooks LinkedIn group where ProAdvisors ask questions and share valuable information to help one another better serve their clients.  A colleague ran across an issue that she needed some advice on.

Colleague: Point of Sale (POS) Tax codes question. I believe the sales tax locations have been set up properly and are properly integrated with QuickBooks Financial Software (QBFS) but all these tax codes are creating some of the problems.
It's a new POS V2013 client. He has about 10 tax codes that he set up himself. In addition to “Tax” and “Non-tax” he has set up other tax codes including “out of state,” “resale,” “gov’t,” etc. His Bookkeeper, an Advanced Certified ProAdvisor, has asked for my help because they are having problems with sales tax. Any thoughts?

Will: So, unless you have specific requirements to map the Point of Sale (POS) tax codes to the QuickBooks Financial Software (QBFS) code, I never do. I run the sales tax report out of POS and pay the sales tax that it creates in QuickBooks. I have never found it to be off and all of the inactive items that POS creates are related to how POS creates sales receipts in QBF. By the way, if you think about locations as who you are selling to and codes as what you are selling that will help. I always set up tax locations for Out of State and Resale and instruct my clients never to use the exempt tax location. If they have government sales, we set up a government location, etc.

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We were contacted by one of our retail boutique customers who uses the QuickBooks Point of Sale (QBPOS) and the QuickBooks Financial Pro software.

Issue: This morning they made a sale and ran the customer’s credit card for that particular amount. Right when they swiped the card, their internet went out. As you can imagine, the customer quickly started verifying whether or not the charge went through. 

The client first called American Express since that’s who the client has their account with. The representative confirmed that the credit card transaction went through. Then, she checked their QBPOS but the transaction wasn’t showing in their Sales History. She also ran an End of Day report and the charge wasn’t captured. That's when she contacted us.

Solution: In QBPOS, she can first try to look up the transaction by customer name or by the sale amount. If it’s not there, she should call the Intuit Merchant Services department to verify whether or not the charge went through. In this customer’s case, she called AMEX and they confirmed the charge but it’s always a best practice to contact Intuit since that is their Merchant Service Provider.
As long as the charge went through, she should manually enter that particular sale in QBPOS. Since Intuit is their Merchant Service Provider, they first need to log out from the merchant account. Then, make the manual sale in QBPOS. After the sale is made, log back into the Intuit merchant account. The reason she needs to log out of the Intuit merchant account is so she doesn’t charge the customer’s credit card again. If the charge never went through in the first place, then she can process the transaction as usual.