QuickBooks Point of Sale

Q&A with Will English:  We received the following question from a CPA and Certified QuickBooks Pro Advisor. Will provides support to other consultants across the nation, and EMS has received national recognition within the Intuit Community for our role in teaching others at a national level.

Question: I have a client that operates four franchise restaurants that currently use QuickBooks for accounting and payroll.  We are considering implementing QB Point of Sale for each individual store. I have read that this particular system might not be a good choice for fast food restaurants. I am not highly experienced with this product and would appreciate any additional information or reference material you can provide, and would be willing to compensate you for your time should you desire. Thank you.

Will’s answer: I would be more than happy to discuss some of the drawbacks at no charge. We have implemented POS in a coffee bar setting as well as consulted with several others who have installed it. If you and the client understand the drawbacks, it can work. Let me know what your schedule is over the next few days and we can make a time.

Does moving ever go as expected? You think you’ve got so much time to prepare for the actual move day and next thing you know you’re two days away. In the midst of coordinating and preparing for our office relocation, we have been blessed with a continued growth in business and have been able to assist many business owners and their staff whether or not they are currently using the QuickBooks Point of Sale system.

Will has been on the road for almost two full weeks meeting with existing and potential clients throughout a portion of Southern California. Road warrior! This week alone he installed the QuickBooks Point of Sale (QBPOS) system at the LA Dodgers baseball stadium office in Los Angeles, CA and trained the guys to use the system for their particular business needs. Inventory control is a huge point for them since they are constantly managing the player’s equipment.

That same day Will met with a potential client who is going to purchase QBPOS but hopes to use it on their existing computers. In this case, it was important for Will to do a site survey of their equipment to verify whether or not it is compatible for the QBPOS V2013. *See the list of minimum requirements below.

Will provided QBPOS training to the manager of a shoe boutique and one of their employee’s on inventory management within QBPOS and how to create and print bar code labels using the Zebra LP2824 Thermal Desktop Tag Printer.

We have met and spoken with business owners who are interested in implementing the QBPOS system at their business. Several of them have an online store. It has been a variety of businesses such as smoke shops, a tire and wheel company, a medical and surgical supply company, an online company that sells health and nutritional items, and a high quality herbs and spices company that has two store locations and an online store. This is just to name a few. The downtown San Diego Library recently moved into and opened their newly constructed building. Will set-up and installed their QBPOS system and now they want an additional POS workstation to accommodate their needs.

Contact Us today so we can learn more about your business needs and we’ll cheerfully answer your questions!

POS Recommended Configurations:
At least 2 GB of RAM for a single workstation installation
1 GB of disk space (additional space required for data files)
Optimized for 1024x768 screen resolution
Operating Systems (North American versions of Windows only):
Windows 8
Windows 7
Windows Server 2008 (SP1 or later strongly recommended)
Windows Vista, all editions (SP2 or later strongly recommended)
Windows Server 2003
Microsoft Windows XP (SP3 or later strongly recommended*), all editions.
Data import/export and Microsoft Office Integration requires full versions of the following:
Microsoft Excel 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007 or 2010
Microsoft Word 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007 or 2010
*Must be SP3 to process credit cards, all workstations must be SP3 only (cannot connect to other SP2 workstations), data file integrity issues make occur if you attempt to restore a backup made on SP2 on a SP3 system.

Multi-user recommendations:
Multi-core processor and 4 GB of RAM are recommended for better performance on the Point of Sale server workstation.
In a multi-user configuration, each workstation concurrently running Point of Sale must have a separately purchased user license, and every copy of Point of Sale must be the same version and level.1

Q & A with Will English: today’s topic is regarding transferring the entire inventory to headquarters location. Is there an easy way to do this?

Question from a colleague: We have a QuickBooks Point of Sale V2013 multi store client closing one of their stores and wanting to transfer the entire inventory (1,500+ items) to their headquarters (HQ) location. Is there an easy way to do that?

Answer: Assuming the inventory is accurate between the two locations, I would export the inventory into Excel. Then, create a column to add the inventory in the two locations, making sure that you set the results as a fixed value.  The next step would be to map the combined column to the QTY1 field and import back in.  It is not as good as doing a transfer slip as the history will just show the change in quantity via an import, but it will be faster.

Q & A with Will English

Question from our client:  Currently our POS system creates duplicate vendors and item numbers (different products with the same item numbers). Will this be fixed with the upgrade to QuickBooks Point of Sale (QBPOS) V2013?  Also, what are the provisions for loyalty programs and mobile sales in the new system?

Answer: It shouldn’t duplicate item number or vendors.  I would have to understand what you are doing to cause this now as there is no fix in the new software.  For mobile sales, you can synch up a list of items that you wish to sell mobile.  We don’t recommend doing your entire list.  Then, POS synchs it to an application on your phone called Go Payments.  You then sell items on the phone taking credit card or cash, and it will send the sales transactions back to QBPOS.  As for loyalty programs, there is a buy X dollars to get Y dollars or Y percentage off.  For example, if you spend $500, you get $25 off.  It is not tiered, meaning that you don’t get more discount the more you spend, and you can only use one reward per sales ticket.  If you have any more questions, let’s set up a call and I’ll be happy to discuss.

Intuit has releasedthe Point of Sale R7 patch.They have released a software update to schedule payments batching at 12:00 midnight (local time) to better coincide with the end of your business day - which means 3:00 p.m. batches are a thing of the past!

What you need to do:

1. From within your Point of Sale software, click the Help link in the upper right-hand corner of your screen.
2. Choose Software Updates. 
3. Choose Check for Updates. 
4. Choose Install this Update. (If no updates appear, your software update has already been installed automatically.)

Once the update is complete, it may take up to four days before Intuit’s system begins batching all of your credit and debit card transactions at 12:00 midnight.

Want automatic updates in the future?

1. From within your Point of Sale software, click the Help link in the upper right-hand corner of your screen.
2. Choose Software Updates. 
3. Click on Updater Preferences. A dialog box will open.
4. Click on the radio button for "Automatically download updates. Let me choose when to install them. (Recommended)" This will automatically download updates and will notify you so you have the option to continue or postpone the installation.

The PinPad with Signature Capture is no longer listed on the Intuit Website. This is because the signature capture is no longer supported nor sold.  If you have one, it will keep working but you will not be able replace it as Intuit needs to program their security codes into it and they no longer will program them. Intuit no longer supports this product and there is not currently an alternative signature capture device to use with QuickBooks Point of Sale.

Q & A with Will English: Client questions are in black font & Will’s replies are in blue.

I have just a few quick questions as we continue to use the QBPOS V2013 system:
1) In using this in and out receiving Items instead of Assembly, it would sure be nice to use the Comment field that exists in the customizable columns (on the main list view sheet, it does not exist in show details). I can get the Comment column in there but can't see to edit it. Am I missing something? Because the transactions amount to zero, it also won't let me add Enter Billing Info which I could use as a comment label. It would be nice to be able to know what each is for reordering purposes, without having to reopen each one to find it. You should be able to enter billing info whether it zero’s or not. See note.

2) I need to put cash into the remote store drawer (ones, nickels, etc.). I see on sync the cash that is already there. Normally I would just transfer the cash via a journal entry but how do I move this cash out of QB Financial and into the Remote Store correctly so the remote store sees it too? Is there a cash-in-drawer account for each store? Not normally. I will often set up a cash drop bank account and then use this account to transfer money, but you can only select one cash drawer account, therefore, you can use a paid out receipt to move money into the cash drop account. Then from there, you can move it to the Cash in drawer or the bank.

3) I got a check at the remote store and I see in QB Financial that the check is in Undeposited Funds. Normally, I would just go to banking, make deposits and any amount in Undeposited funds would show up. I would click what I want to deposit and it would record in the bank account and be removed from Undeposited funds. Well, I can see it is in Undeposited funds when I open the account but not when I open the banking, make deposits window. So I need help with how to actually get these funds in the bank. It means that the deposit window was previously open.  Click on payments and it should bring up the payments window.

4) I seem to have a bunch of duplicate accounts coming in despite copying and mapping them to my numbered ones. I guess I can merge them but I can't figure out why they won't come in when synced with QB Financial correctly. QBPOS doesn’t know about account #’s.  If you merge, they should stay pointed to the correct account.  My guess is that your names were different.
I would like fully to address all of these questions with you during a remote/virtual meeting.

IMPORTANT PRODUCT UPDATE FOR USERS OF THE INTUIT MERCHANT SERVICE

Intuit has released a patch to fix the issue where Point of Sale could potentially time out while processing credit cards. This issue may have caused duplicate transactions. Intuit provided the following information to fix the issue along with their sincerest apologies as they realize that this is far from an ideal experience. They will be issuing refunds for fees related to any impacted transactions once they have been reversed in the Merchant Service Center.

To fix this issue:

1. You must install their recently-released patch.

To install this software update:
1. From within your POS software, click the Help link in the upper right-hand corner of your screen.
2. Choose Software Updates from the dropdown listbox.
3. Choose Check for Updates from the popup message box.
4. Choose Install this Update if an update is available.

2. Please review the Recent Activity section in the Merchant Service Center to confirm whether you were affected. If you find duplicate transactions, you can reverse the affected transaction(s).This will ensure your customers are charged for the appropriate amount.

Detailed instructions
1. Sign in to the Merchant Service Center.
2. Click the Reverse a transaction link in the Processing Tools dropdown.
3. Complete the fields and then click Find.
4. Select the checkbox for transactions you want to refund and then click Submit.

Once you have reversed the duplicate transactions, Intuit will refund any processing fees incurred.

Today’s topic is regarding the implementation of QuickBooks Point of Sale (QBPOS) V.2013 and the questions are from a new QBPOS user.

Client questions are in black font & Will’s replies are in blue.

I found a way to use Item Description vs Item Name on receipts (40 column) in company preferences.
a) Do I have to set this up again on the Remote store or if I set this on HQ does it set it for all stores? You need to set the receipt for each store.  If you have created a custom receipt, it can be exported and imported into the remote company.

b) What is the character width max of the Item Description field before it will truncate what it prints on a 40 column receipt (I found out the hard way when with importing that ALU is 30 characters max). It depends on the font size you are using, but usually about 30.

2) I want to change what the sales receipt says in the default lines…I know we did this for the remote store from HQ but now I cannot figure out now how to change it (I can only get the HQ store and the tag line saying that goes at the end of the receipt to edit). Do I have to do this at the store POS…and what keystrokes do I use? If you go to the company preferences at the remote and receipt message, you can edit it there.

3) How does one delete old import mappings - thru my trial and error I created a bunch but can't see to figure out how to delete the junk ones now? If you open the mapping, there is a button that says delete.

Q & A with Will English
Today’s Topic:  A colleague needs advice to solve an A/P problem

Colleague: I have a client who has a large A/P balance but not a lot of bills to pay in Pay Bills in QuickBooks Financial (QBF) Pro. After investigating, it appears that there are a large number of Item Receipts that transferred from QuickBooks Point of Sale (POS) that were not converted to Bills. I believe the merchant entered the purchases of the Items in QBF Pro as checks coded to COGS. How would you resolve this discrepancy, it's looks like there may be several hundred. :(

Will: Push the bills over into QuickBooks. I would still change the checks to A/P to match them up. Then create a GJE to put COGS back where it was and then reverse out this year.

Colleague: Thank you for the info, I was afraid of that - however, some of this extends across tax years with the COGS being overstated. Their CPA wants me to adjust in the current year and document in case of an audit. I believe this rule’s out being able to go back and change the bank credits to A/P on some of these... any more ideas?

Will: While that is often the case, I have also found that unless the customer is strongly trained to match the receiving voucher to the vendors invoice, you will get a mismatch. This will create all sorts of problems in the costing of items, inventory values, etc. A good check is to see if the inventory balance in POS matches the inventory balance in QBF. If it doesn't, you most likely have receiving problems.
Change the checks from COGS to Accounts Payable since POS would have already posted COGS entries when the item was sold. Then convert the item receipts to bills and match up the payments to the bills. Most likely you will not be able to match them all, in which case, you need to adjust the balances.