Business Discussions

I am interested in receiving bank statements automatically via email with my clients bank accounts. This is coming from a bookkeeper's workflow.  I am wondering if this is even possible with Wells Fargo, Chase, Paypal, and AmEX. I know the technology is there to have emails automatically scheduled and delivered on the 1st of each month to a specified email. But since I haven't seen this feature I wonder if the banks don't support this because of security reasons. Perhaps I'm wrong and someone is doing it. If you are a bookkeeper, what is your system or process of receiving bank statements from your clients? Steve Chase

It’s another beautiful spring day here in Idaho and what better month to celebrate Earth Day than April! The bees are buzzing, the plants are budding, and hopefully, your business is booming! Now, you’ve heard us over and over tell you the importance of social media for your small business. You’ve created your social pages, you’ve got your “likes” and followers….now what?     Well, any holiday or “National Day of” is a great way to engage with your customers and fans to get some traction on your page. People love seeing the person behind the business so Earth Day is an opportunity to show yourself and make the world a better place. It’s a win/win.   Here are some ideas on how to celebrate Earth Day in your business:   Clean up a local park (or like, anywhere)Grab your employees, kids, or whoever is free and pick up some trash! Here in Idaho, our numbers are soaring which unfortunately means more trash around our roads and parks. Taking a trash bag and cle

Happy Friday Community! Hope everyone had a productive week and can now look forward to the weekend.     Now that Instagram has perfected its algorithm to figure me out, I’m constantly getting ads that are perfectly geared towards my interests. With so many companies trying to convince me to go with their product, where’s the number one place I go to help me decide? To the people! Well, to the company’s social media page. :)  That’s where I can see who has bought what and their thoughts on their purchase. Was that necklace really “high quality”? Did that face lotion really “dimmish fine lines and wrinkles”? Am I really about to buy another beauty product? (The answer is yes).   The importance of our peer’s opinions doesn’t stop at personal relationships. It flows right into social media. Our favorite bloggers/influencers are always suggesting products or services to buy, and the proof is in the numbers. According to Trustpilot’s ‘The Psychology Behind Trust Si

Everybody feelin' good on this lovely Friday? I know I am, and I'm excited for the weekend! Welcome back to the Business Discussion board, where we do just that and talk about all things small business. Today I wanted to share something that I feel is always relevant but may be even more important currently. What is the topic, you ask? Well, we're taking it back to basics and covering the characteristics of great customer service, as presented on indeed.com. Here's what was mentioned...     What is it?A good place to start is always a definition. According to the article, "Customer service is the assistance and advice an employee provides to customers. Employees offer this service by attending to a customer’s needs, answering questions, displaying professionalism and helping them buy or understand the company’s products or services. Good customer service leads to happy clients and customers, which positively affects a company’s growth." Some benefits of good customer s

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I was talking with some friends the other day about what we had been splurging on recently and I realized that if you had asked me the same question in 2019, I would have given a completely different answer.   Splurging felt a bit different in the last year or so, but in many ways, giving ourselves that extra little care whatever form it may have taken, became something that helped get us through a rough year.  It seems obvious but it never hurts to repeat - doing something nice for  yourself shouldn't feel like an extravagance.  And I am a firm believer in splurging when you can do so as a treat.     Back then, most of my splurges were travel related, but as we talked I became curious to find out what other people have been splurging on in the past year, and  I put the question to my coworkers.  Here are our responses.    ++++++   @LisaNullar  In the fall of 2019 I was in Dallas with a friend to go to a hockey game.

I’m hoping for some advice about streamlining my bookkeeping for my small biz.  I have a small healthcare biz (sole prop) that also sells retail products.  We charge people after their appointment (so no receivables) and have 2 part-time employees.  We use Quickbooks Desktop for everything - invoices, payments and payroll, and it has basically been our hub of our business since 2003. It’s a stable and highly repetitive business.  Our revenue is almost all credit card payments using Quickbooks, plus a few checks/cash deposited 2x a month.  Except rent, virtually all our expenses are put on 2 credit cards from the same vendors, maybe 80-100 transactions per month.  We write only about 10 checks a year and have no debt or depreciating assets either.  Simple. For the last 10 years, we’ve used a CPA.  I send him the accountant's copy along with the bank & credit card statements.  He has a bookkeeper enter the bank and

It's Friday, and welcome back to the Talk About Your Business Page. Before we get into the discussion for today, I have two questions for you. What is your current lead magnet, and does it work? If you are unfamiliar with the term, Investopedia defines it as "a marketing term for a free item or service that is given away for the purpose of gathering contact details; for example, lead magnets can be trial subscriptions and samples." Entrepreneur shares three interesting reasons why you should stop using your current lead magnet for a quiz. However, if your current lead magnet is doing well, I will pose this as an additional benefit to enhance your business. Here's what they shared:     Interactive ContentTraditionally generating leads is always accompanied by a free gift or item to receive customers' email addresses. With customers frequently seeing offers, they tend to ignore it, or their attention is grabbed by something else. However, creating content such as quizzes capti

Welcome back to another segment of *cue drum rolls and jazz hands* Talk About Your Business! Where we give you all the tea of finding answers and inspiration for your small business. I hope you guys are doing well and are accomplishing everything you have set out to do! Today, I wanted to stop by and share ways to ask your customers, family, friends, basically everyone to support you without spending a dime! This can be especially beneficial to entrepreneurs who are new to the market and need support. Here we go!     Encourage them to Like and Comment on your posts.We have talked many times before about Social Media's importance and the power it holds. If you are creating daily content on your socials, you would like to see likes and people commenting, right? The higher the degree of engagement, the wider your audience gets and the more views you will welcome. For example, with Tik Tok, when one receives many likes and comments for their videos, the algorithm boosts your vid

  Are you self-employed? Do you have questions about filing your self-employed taxes? Ask us anything! The AMA with QuickBooks Self-Employed Product Development and Customer Support begins tomorrow, April 8th from 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. PT.Submit your questions as comments below and our team will answer them starting tomorrow morning. We look forward to helping you feel confident about your self-employed taxes!

Happy Friday, friends! We're already in the fourth month of 2021. That's a little hard for me to believe. Moving on to the important things - on this lovely Friday I wanted to talk with you all about creating a digital marketing strategy for up and coming new businesses. I found this article from marketwatch.com that offers some great info on getting started. Here's what they had to say:   Understand your audienceUnderstanding your customer is of upmost importance when it comes to creating your marketing strategy. If you don't know who you're aiming to reach, you may end up just going around in circles. Varying age groups definitely have different priorities and see the world through different lenses. "To better understand your audience, find out where your potential customers hang out online and go there."Take advantage of search engine optimizationSearch Engine Optimization, also known as SEO, is the practice of making your digital content easily found by search engin

Welcome back to the Business Discussion! Happy Wednesday and I hope you guys are having a productive day! Here's a thought. Besides using social media, emails, and maybe outbound calls to keep your customers engaged and informed about your business, have you ever consider using a company newsletter? A company newsletter can be an excellent avenue to build relationships and trust with your customer, increase leads and brand awareness. But what makes an effective company newsletter? Here are a few ways to do this:     Use a clear, simple, and attractive layoutTry not to overdo with images, but simply let them complement the information you are sharing. Use warm, calm colors, so it doesn't seem like you have a sale going on, basically nothing too aggressive.   Include relevant contentThis would be a perfect opportunity to add future updates, awards your company may have received, accomplishments made by your company, or even your employees. Sharing upcoming developments wi

  Are you self-employed? Do you have questions about filing your self-employed taxes? We have the answers you need!Join us on Thursday, April 8th from 9:30 - 11:30 a.m. PT. as members of the QuickBooks Self-Employed Product Development and Customer Support teams answer your tax time questions live right here in the QuickBooks Community.   You can subscribe to the Talk About Your Business section of the community to be notified when the post goes live! Just open the kabob menu at the top right of the page and select "Subscribe."   We look forward to seeing you there!

March is national women's month, and to end the month we wanted to recognize some of the role models that have made an impact on our lives.        ++++++ Morgan I'm pleased to report I've been influenced by many wonderful women worthy of being called role models. However, if I had to pick just one, I'd definitely pick my mother. I've been given a variety of titles in life, but the most important to me is "mother." With that being said, if I can accomplish being half the mother my mom has been to me, I'll consider it a huge success. My mom is the most selfless person I know and has continually put her own aspirations on hold in order for my dreams to become a reality. When thinking about this topic, I thought it might be considered cliché to say my mom is my role model. The more I thought about it, I realized choosing her was inevitable. She has taught me how to be strong and to always stand up for myself and what I believe in. On the other hand she has taught me ki

Hello again and welcome to the Business Discussion board. I don't say it often enough, but if this is your first visit to our page, we're so glad you're here! This section of the Community is all about - you guessed it - discussing your business! You'll also see Community hosts, like myself, sharing helpful content and small business related articles.     Today I wanted to talk about an important topic that's useful for a variety of businesses, and that's pitching your company to potential clients and customers. Sales pitching can be a difficult task, especially if you're put on the spot. Today I wanted to switch it up a little and share a fill-in-the-blank form for pitching made easy I borrowed from about.crunchbase.com.     As you can see, the form mentions five easy to remember points that will allow you to quickly and easily remember your sales pitch. From the most basic info, like your company name, to more in depth details, like your defined values and

Happy Friday, QuickBooks Community! Is it me, or does it feels like time is moving very fast? One time it's Monday, and in a blink of an eye, it's Friday already. Not that I'm complaining, lol. Anyway, as you are getting to the end of your workweek, I wanted to share with you this article by Entrepreneur about five ways to engage your clients. Here's what they had to say:     Although there are the traditional means of using email to communicate with your clients, how certain are you that they actually receive it and not it going to junk or spam? If you are trying to maintain communication with your customer they are different avenues you can pursue. An example could be Slack. Slack allows you to communicate with your important clients all at the same time and opens doors for them to have direct access to you. If you need the information to be shared among a particular group, Slack allows you the flexibility of list segmentation.   Another avenue would be Facebook Group

Hi  I have just registered and trying to evalute Qucckbooks. Currently i am using Tally for my accounting purpose.  My main concern will i be able to import my tally data to quickbooks. If yes how do i go about it? Let me know Snehal

Welcome back to the Business Discussion board!  For me, St. Patty's Day represents spring time which is quickly approaching. I don't know about you, but I'm so very ready for it. Anyways, while we're thinking about all things green, something that can help your business gain some green is the perfect client. Here are a few pointers about how your clients provide value to your company, as well as how the ideal client receives value from your company...   How the Client Provides Value to Your Business The customer pays for the value you provide The client may refer your company to others The customer will hopefully become an advocate for your business The customer could potentially provide insight for new business opportunities The ideal client is easy to deal with and doesn't require excessive support or resources Depending on your line of business, the client may allow you to use them as a reference Depending on the

    Your First Time with QuickBooks Online is geared towards first-time QuickBooks users who want to get started bookkeeping right now. These articles cover all of the setup and accounting workflows you need to know for a comprehensive setup, guiding you from your initial sign up through your next financial quarter and beyond. Your first hour with QuickBooks Online Your first day with QuickBooks Online   While we recommend specific time-frames for completing each task, always go at a comfortable pace - it's worth taking the time learning how to do things the right way. What's most important is following the steps and series in order. If you prefer a task-based or feature-specific approach, check out our series “Setting up for Success with QuickBooks Online."  Welcome to QuickBooks Online!   We're going to set your business up for accounting success from the start. Before you start sending inv

There have been endless stories about how people have coped with the past year by starting to bake their own bread or starting their own vegetable garden - both things that I have done and enjoyed greatly.  But we were curious about the new habits that haven’t been talked about, so here are some of the habits the Community team has picked up and how they are going.      ++++++   @Ami_D  I started a lot of habits during the last year, and I’m definitely not proud of all of them, like how much I spend on food delivery now. But, adjusting my daily exercise habit to match the circumstances of the pandemic was a huge game changer when it came to my mental health and wellbeing.    I belonged to a CrossFit gym pre-pandemic. When everything shut down they transitioned to Zoom classes and loaned out equipment, so it was pretty easy to keep going without missing too much of a beat. It wasn’t QUITE the same, but it was enough to keep me strong and moving.

Did somebody say Friday? Well, my Community friends, welcome to the best day of the week. I hope you are looking forward to having a great weekend. Before you check out for the day, I want to share this article by Fast Company about 5-weekend habits that will help you achieve your goals. Here's what they had to say:     Create a Plan and Schedule ItWhen I reviewed this point, my initial thought was, why would I want to plan out what I do on the weekends? I'm super spontaneous and usually go with the flow, but then I realized I never really get to achieve what was needed to be done. The author brings out a good point of scheduling time and planning for the weekend to prioritize what is important. For example, if you are trying to write a book, take 1-2 hours on the weekend to be creative and edit your work.   Revisit your goalsHow many of you have set goals and end up not on track after a while? I will admit I set a goal of losing some weight this year. I was on track,

Hello again, Community and happy Wednesday! By now, you all know I'm a big fan of businesses using their social media platforms to their full potential. As we coast through another work week, I thought I'd stop by and share some ideas to help you never run out of things to talk about when it comes to sharing with your followers.     Embrace SilenceFor me personally, silence is a rarity. I think it's safe to say that's a common notion for many people during this day and age. However, when you do get a moment of down time, take a few minutes to brainstorm for new ideas. Be sure to decompress for some time as well. Silence, meditation, and/or practiced breathing can expand your brain function which in turn will help develop new ideas in the future.   Find a Lesson in EverythingIf you're like me, maybe you work from a desk at home. This type of set up can make it difficult to see or experience anything unexpected. However, don't take advantage of the little things that can

Hi friends, and happy Friday! I've returned to the Business Discussion board to talk about a popular business topic - marketing. As we're all still living in the age of Covid, there are many businesses that have moved to working solely online. With that, marketing has turned digital which can make the desire to be more personal even more difficult. This article published on entrepreneur.com features a few helpful ways to be more personal when it comes to digital marketing.   Create Targeted MarketingJust reading this point title made me think of the QuickBooks Community itself. The vast majority of Community members are small business owners and accountants. That's why we focus on small business related topics to spark conversations. Reading further into the article, targeted content delivered to a specific audience at the correct time can make a big difference in customer conversion.   Personalize Based on Referral Source"A referral source is the method by which a

"We admire people to the extent that we cannot explain what they do, and the word admire then means marvel at" - B.F. Skinner   Good day, and welcome back to another segment of Talk About Your Business. If you are new here, we welcome you too. Today, I have a food for thought. Have you ever thought about who you admire? I most certainly have. At first, I reminisced about my family, friends, and celebrities such as Lebron James, Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry, and the list goes on. However, I never really stop to wonder why exactly I admire these people. Was it because of their skills in basketball, in hosting a show well, or acting? I notice that I had to change my perception not of what they have done but who they are. It begs the question, does the qualities they have if it is something that I would want to include in my self-development. Or do their belief or values are what I align with? One writer poses some questions to help realize the "Why's," and here they are: Is it becau

I bet you didn’t know that the second Tuesday in March is national “Organize your home office day” did you?  (I didn’t either!)  But here we are, and I know for myself at least, it’s a good day for me to do some spring cleaning in my office and think about how to organize it a bit more.     Back in September, we did a piece talking about our home workspaces so I thought it would be a great time to check in with everyone and see what organization tips they might have to share after living with their setups for a while.     ++++++ @LisaNullar  Once I moved my “desk” from the kitchen table to the spare room, I quickly realized that some things just weren’t going to work for me anymore - most notably my habit of being able to write sticky notes to myself and post them on the wall next to my chair wouldn’t be possible any longer since the wall next to my desk is brick instead of drywall.   Additionally, I haven’t entirely unpacked