Top Accountant Tools in QuickBooks Online for Efficient Financial Management

Looking for a reason (or several) for using QuickBooks Online? As an accountant, you need an accounting software packed with professional tools and features. Such a software will ensure you offer your clients a thorough, dependable service.

QuickBooks though, is just one option for which accounting software is best for accountants and bookkeepers. So how do you decide whether to go ahead and subscribe? Or, sign up to a competitor or even QuickBooks Desktop instead?

‍

Today, I'm going through the top tools for accountants and bookkeepers that QuickBooks Online has to offer. By the end of this guide, you should be able to decipher whether it's the right solution for you and your accounting practice.

Benefits of Being a QuickBooks Online Accountant

‍

‍

These are the top benefits of being a QuickBooks Online accountant:

• Cost-Effective: QuickBooks Online is a cost-effective solution that offers accountants and bookkeepers free features. This saves you money, enabling you to allocate your budget elsewhere.
• Accurate Forecasting: QuickBooks has some high-tech reporting features that depict accurate forecasting. This means you can offer your clients an invaluable service with actionable insights.
• Automation Capabilities: Automation saves accountants and bookkeepers time. And, QuickBooks has plenty of ways to automate accounting throughout the software.
• Integrations: QuickBooks Online has an app store that contains hundreds of third party applications you can connect your software with.
• Scalability: QuickBooks is incredibly scalable. This means that as your firm takes on more clients, you can easily upgrade your plan and the software will be able to handle it without a hitch.

Essential Tools for Accounting Professionals

• Reporting
• Tax Management
• Bank Reconciliation
• Payroll
• Practice Manager
• Cash Flow Insights
• Workpapers
• Time Tracking
• Training and Certification

Reporting

‍

‍

You're an accountant. You already know how important financial reporting tools are for business development. To that end, QuickBooks Online has in-depth reporting tools which keep you updated with a clear view of real-time information. You can customise your dashboard with different graphs and charts that show the data that matters to you and your clients.

QuickBooks' financial reporting tools include a cash flow planner. This gives you, as a QuickBooks Online accountant, access to a forecasting feature that shows potential cash flow up to 90 days in advance. You can also view your clients' finances over a set period of time so you can understand trends and patterns in them. This gives you a good indication of their business's financial health.

Tax Management

‍

‍

If you're based in the UK, you'll be glad to know that QuickBooks Online is HMRC-recognised. It'll help ensure your clients remain tax-compliant, whether they're a limited company, small business, or large business that's liable to pay corporation tax.

You'll already know that businesses all around the UK are having to transition to digital accounting, and that HMRC don't accept paper returns anymore. To digitalise taxes, a bridging software is necessary, which is exactly what QuickBooks Online is.

Once your client is set up with HMRC, you can submit their VAT returns directly through your QuickBooks Online software. You can even submit returns from spreadsheets. And if you're not sure how to use QuickBooks Online for managing VAT, there's a useful training program especially for accountants that teaches you how to do just that.

Bank Reconciliation

‍

‍

You can connect QuickBooks accounting software with your clients' bank and credit card accounts. This makes their bank feeds sync up with your online records. Transactions are automatically reflected in real time within the software, making reconciliation effortless.

QuickBooks connects with most bank accounts and the team are always adding more to the list. The clever software reconnects with each bank account every 90 days, which makes the connection more secure and reliable.

Payroll

‍

‍

QuickBooks Payroll is a software that allows you to manage your practice's payroll. And, that of your clients. For those accounting firms not already offering payroll as a service, this software is a way o doing so without needing to add too much to your workload. It enables you to efficiently manage payroll across multiple clients, while maintaining a professional service.

QuickBooks' payroll software allows you to collaborate with members of your team and your clients. You can grant permission for applicable people to access the data. And because it's all in the cloud, the QuickBooks Online users with the right permissions can access it from anywhere. Additionally, employees can access their own portal where they can view their payslips and other data.

This payroll solution saves you time by submitting pensions and automatically enrolling employees into pension schemes. Keep compliant by consistently paying the correct amount of income tax, sick pay, maternity pay, and any other applicable pay types.

Practice Manager

‍

‍

If running a tight ship is important to you and your firm, QuickBooks Practice Manager might be a good solution for your business. Automate tasks within your practice to save time, and improve efficiency and productivity throughout. QuickBooks Practice Manager allows you to streamline your various workflows so you can get as much done as possible within the shortest amount of time.

This practice management software connects seamlessly with your QuickBooks accounting software. This means that client data is synced. Therefore, there's no need to manually transfer client details and business information, or maintain two separate records.

Another perk of QuickBooks Practice Manager is the ability to communicate with your team and your clients. You can send and track emails, collect signatures, and request accounting information. You can also assign accounting tasks to specific team members and track their progress. Additionally, generate reports on certain tasks to keep on top of your workload.

Cash Flow Insights

‍

‍

This Cash Flow Insights feature is a little different to the reporting tool we talked about earlier. This is specifically about cash flow, and managing the ins and outs of your clients' businesses. Data is tracked in real time and the cash flow reports you generate are accurate within the minute.

QuickBooks Cash Flow Insights works with historical data from as far back as two years ago. It uses this, along with current data and recurring transactions, to create cash flow projections two years in advance too. This allows you to not only provide a valuable, expert service.

But, it also allows you to mitigate any potential disasters before they strike. And, use the data you have to improve those forecasts.

Workpapers

‍

‍

Workpapers is another tool for managing taxes. It's a solution that allows you to view, manage, and track client records from a single dashboard. Designed and created just for accountants, it aims to simplify the process of managing year-end taxes. It'll save you time with its range of features and capabilities.

QuickBooks Workpapers lets you create task lists which you can share with your clients. Check tasks off the lists as you work through them, and comment on tasks and items for others to see. Within Workpapers, you can also see what activities are impacting your clients' balances. And, do side-by-side comparisons of different tax years.

Time Tracking

‍

‍

Time tracking is a critical aspect of managing an accounting practice. With QuickBooks, not only can you track employee time, but you can also track the time you spend on different projects. With this information, you can ensure you consistently send accurate invoices to clients.

Through QuickBooks' Time-Tracking feature, you can create schedules for your employees. It has a simple drag and drop structure which allows you to take previous jobs and place them into your current schedule easily. Get a clear view of each project's status. And, allow your team to manage their timesheets through the mobile app. You can also send push notifications to employees to remind them to clock in and out.

Time Tracking allows you to create reports on different time-related aspects of your practice. Using QuickBooks Online, you can report on jobs, tasks, and employees.

Training and Certification

‍

‍

Become a QuickBooks Pro Advisor through QuickBooks' courses. Complete the Core course and the Advanced course to set yourself up as an expert in all-things QuickBooks. This adds to your credibility and credentials as a professional accountant. And, helps you work more efficiently and expertly within the QuickBooks accounting software.

Successful completion of these courses puts you into the directory of QuickBooks Certified Proadvisor accountants. This will help you reach more potential clients and grow your accounting business.

In addition to these comprehensive courses, QuickBooks has a load of on-demand webinars that cover a huge range of accounting topics. Work your way through them and see how much new information you can manage to absorb. Learn how to grow your practice with social media, for example. Or, learn how to file clients' VAT to ensure compliance.

QuickBooks Online vs Desktop

‍

‍

There are some key differences between QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop. QuickBooks Online operates in the cloud, making it accessible from anywhere with an internet connection. On the other hand, QuickBooks Desktop works from a dedicated machine. Typically, your laptop of desktop.

Here are some ways to differentiate between the two options:

• Flexibility: QuickBooks Online is considerably more flexible than its desktop counterpart because it's in the cloud. Being able to access the solution from anywhere means you don't need to be working from the one specific machine to benefit from the solution. You can work from anywhere you choose, making it ideal for remote teams. There's even a mobile app which you, your team, and your clients can access.
• Collaboration: Being on one machine makes QuickBooks Desktop an inconvenient choice for accountants and their clients sharing information. Additionally, working through the cloud makes collaboration easier because you can communicate through the software and ensure you have everything you need to work on client accounts.
• Security: QuickBooks Online is ultra secure. With the cloud-based option, QuickBooks is responsible for keeping on top of security concerns. They'll back up your data automatically, ensure the software is kept up to date, and protect yours and your clients' data. Conversely, Desktop is a self-managed solution when it comes to security.
• 3rd part apps: If you opt for QuickBooks Online, you get access to more than 750 3rd party integrations. These can all add functionality to your software, enabling you to create a unified system that's optimised for accounting efficiency. On the other hand, Desktop only allows you access to around 200 apps. This can pose significant limitations with your setup.

QuickBooks Online is needed to ensure you work from the most up to date, user-friendly system. Choosing Desktop over Online limits your system's security, collaboration, automation, and flexibility.

Your ideal setup should be linking all your applications together to create a smooth experience with plenty of automation throughout. This can be a complicated thing to achieve when accounting businesses run on Desktop.

Why Accountants Need Link My Books for eCommerce Accounting

‍

‍

Link My Books is a bookkeeping automation solution that connects seamlessly with QuickBooks Online and your clients' eCommerce stores. Once connected, the software syncs with each platform and automatically transfers financial data across to QuickBooks. Link My Books is easy to use and set up, for both you and your clients.

Using a software like Link My Books to transfer and categorise data in large volumes, you can minimise errors in your records and reduce the need for tedious manual data entry. This will save you an impressive six hours per month on every one of your eCommerce clients; leaving you much more time to work on growing your practice.

Top Link My Books Features

Here are the top features that Link My Books has:

Profit and Loss Statements

‍

‍

Link My Books' Profit & Loss Statements are clear summaries of income and expenses associated with your clients' eCommerce businesses. They're a breakdown of transactions, including sales, fees, shipping, and refunds. This is the financial data that's automatically transferred to your clients' financial records within your QuickBooks account.

You can transfer these manually too, view the information within your Link My Books dashboard, and send specific parts of the statements to QuickBooks instead of the whole thing. Setting up automatic transfers will save you lots of time, and ensure that every item that's sent and categorised is correct.

Guided Tax Wizard

‍

‍

When you set up your Link My Books account, it takes just 15 minutes of your time. You'll go through the Guided Tax Wizard which asks a few questions about your clients' VAT registration status in different jurisdictions. And, whether they sell any reduced or zero rated products.

Once you've set this up, the intelligent software applies the correct tax rules to every item each of your clients sell. Thus, accurately calculating taxes every time.

These accurate tax calculations are included in the Profit & Loss Statements and sent to QuickBooks too. This makes it much easier to ensure your clients pay the correct amount of tax every time. And, keep compliant with the Making Tax Digital scheme.

Accountant Directory

‍

‍

Link My Books has an accountant directory where eCommerce businesses can find an accountant that specialises in eCommerce. If you partner with us, businesses can find you according to which platforms you provide services for, narrowing down on accounting platform, country, and services.

Additionally, Link My Books may be able to recommend your services to clients. If they want some help finding an accountant or bookkeeper, businesses can make use of the 'Get Matched' button. This takes them to a form where they answer some questions. And, our team pairs them up with an accountant or bookkeeper that matches their needs.

Link My Books Benchmarking

‍

‍

Link My Books Benchmarking is a first-of-its-kind feature. It's an analytical tool that allows you to compare your clients' business performance against industry averages. Get clear graphs on metrics like sales growth percentage, refund ratio, and advertising fee ratio. See precisely where your clients' business lands in relation to similar sized ones on the same platform and within the same industry.

Benchmarking applies a cohort analysis so everyone who uses it gets the same anonymised data. This means that no one business has an advantage over the others that use it. You can use the feature to better understand the industries your clients serve. And, give them advice on improving their ranking.

Profit & Loss by Channel

‍

‍

Link My Books is a multi-channel business facilitator. You can integrate multiple sales channels for each client, whether that's Amazon, Etsy, TikTok Shop, or Shopify, amongst others. Not only that but our Profit & Loss by Channel feature makes it straightforward to compare the performance of different sales channels that each client operates on.

Have a clear, side-by-side view of metrics like sales, refunds, storage fees, and advertising costs. See whether clients' sales corelate with their advertising, for example. And, whether one channel has significantly more refunds than others, and potentially wasting money they don't need to waste. As well as offering clients these essential insights, you can also filter this data by date and specific sales channels.  

COGS Tracking

‍

‍

Link My Books has a neat COGS (cost of goods sold) tracking feature. This can be turned on easily and for automatic tracking. Once turned on, these COGS are included in your Profit & Loss statements too for an even bigger picture of relevant activities.

Rather than including COGS as an expense when your clients buy inventory, Link My Books does it the correct way; tracking it as an expense AFTER it's been sold. This ensures records accurately reflect the business's true figures, and the value of the its assets is also correct.

Be an Expert QuickBooks Online Accountant With The Tools in This Guide

‍

‍

A QuickBooks Online accountant will do well to make use of most, if not all, of the tools discussed in this guide. QuickBooks is a comprehensive software designed for accountants, small businesses, sole traders, and large corporations. It has a wide range of useful tools that'll help you provide a complete, thorough service with optimum efficiency.

Ensure you onboard some of the automation features discussed in this guide too. Automation will save you time and money on accounting tasks, and help you create a system that runs like clockwork. Payroll, for example, will automatically pay into pension pots. The reporting tools, on the other hand, automatically generate the reports you need in real time.

And if the feature you want isn't included in the software itself, simply look in the QuickBooks App Store to find a 3rd party app. Link My Books, for example, is a top-rated integration in the app store. You can also sign up for your free trial (our free gift to you) directly through our website and put that bookkeeping on autopilot.  

‍