Been doing this on the side but looking at growing and branching out. My question is about invoice/accounting workflow. I am wondering how everyone is doing their accounting work flow. Currently, I use BusyBench for my ticketing/invoicing. I have Wave accounting signed up but don't use it mainly becaue of my volume of business. Do I continue to use Busybench for invoices or Wave and then also include all my other expenses? If anyone has a good "class" on accounting workflow, that would be great.
Workflow
- Thread starter mmerry
- Start date
Markverhyden
Well-Known Member
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- 11,009
- Location
- Raleigh, NC
To be honest I'd be more worried about work flow than accounting flow. Personally I've been using Squareup for years. They now have an online system with ticketing and inventory. You can offer online payments through them as well. They offer a wide variety of integration with other apps. Don't know if any will fit the work flow requirement.
Mike McCall
Well-Known Member
- Reaction score
- 1,072
- Location
- Silverton, Oregon
It sounds like you're in need of some basics, not only on basic bookkeeping but on the basics of business. One of the best places you can go is to SCORE:
https://www.score.org/
They exist to help small businesses with every aspect of a business. Best of all, there's no charge.
Another resource that might be helpful is GCFGlobal.
https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/topics/
Again, free learning resource on a wide variety of topics.
I also found this which seems to explain the basics of accounting in an approachable manner.
https://www.wikihow.com/Learn-Accounting-on-Your-Own
While none of them will directly answer the question you have of what software should I use, once you begin to understand (with some confidence) the nuts & bolts of what you're trying to accomplish you will be better able to answer that question for yourself. Many of us use the same product to manage our books, but many of us use something else entirely too. The size & types of our businesses are different. How each of us manages our businesses is different. And since we're all different people what is easy and makes sense to one may be unworkable for another. I think that once you become more comfortable with the basics of business you will find the answers to your question much easier to find.
https://www.score.org/
They exist to help small businesses with every aspect of a business. Best of all, there's no charge.
Another resource that might be helpful is GCFGlobal.
https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/topics/
Again, free learning resource on a wide variety of topics.
I also found this which seems to explain the basics of accounting in an approachable manner.
https://www.wikihow.com/Learn-Accounting-on-Your-Own
While none of them will directly answer the question you have of what software should I use, once you begin to understand (with some confidence) the nuts & bolts of what you're trying to accomplish you will be better able to answer that question for yourself. Many of us use the same product to manage our books, but many of us use something else entirely too. The size & types of our businesses are different. How each of us manages our businesses is different. And since we're all different people what is easy and makes sense to one may be unworkable for another. I think that once you become more comfortable with the basics of business you will find the answers to your question much easier to find.
frase
Well-Known Member
- Reaction score
- 4,363
- Location
- Melbourne, Australia
I use Wave and find it very good. If you are using multiple apps, it is going to be hard to track in the end. Just select one and stick to it. Why do you not thing Wave is good? It manages my invoice's well and has reminders etc.
Tech Savvy
Active Member
- Reaction score
- 211
- Location
- New Jersey
I used to do accounting on my own and what a nightmare! With low volume it's so easy to put it on the back burner, doing batch expense tracking every month, quarter or worse.... YEAR!
I found a bookkeeper in NJ (my state) on Upwork, she is phenomenal, and only $125/mo.... MONEY WELL SPENT! Everything is done correctly, it forces me to send her my receipts as they come in (something I was often lazy about), and within a few days after the end of the month, I have a P&L and Balance Sheet in my Dropbox ready to go.
I do all the invoicing, accept and deposit payments. She will go into Syncro (my ticketing/invoicing system) occasionally throughout the month and import all my invoices into QuickBooks. She verifies payments recorded by matching them to deposits made, she imports the bank transactions and categorizes the expenses. Anything she doesnt have a receipt for she emails me and asks. She also imports the timecards into my payroll company and runs payroll. She was filing sales tax, but I started doing that because she didnt fill out the form correctly and I was getting double taxed, but she was doing that as a favor to me, so I just started doing it instead.
I actually have a checklist she does. Heres the list:
As for workflow everyone has their own method and you'll create yours and adjust it as needed, but here are the basics for me, keep in mind I serve primarily businesses and heck! Im still making adjustments:
Pay as you go customers or work not covered by contract, small tasks/general support tickets:
- Customer calls with an issue and a ticket is created. or recurring tickets are created (mostly for verification purposes like manual verification of backup restores, or update a master image..etc
- Work is completed and time/material is charged to ticket.
- Invoice is created from the ticket
- Invoice is sent to customer
- Customer makes payment
- Thank you/Paid invoice email is sent to customer
Pay as you go customer with consistent monthly support work > 5 tickets/mo:
- Recurring invoice is created every month that automatically adds charges from RESOLVED tickets for that specific customer. This is a one time setup to automatically bill the customer every month for unpaid work.
- Customer calls with an issue and ticket is created
- Work is performed and time/material added to the ticket
- Ticket is resolved.
- One INVOICE is automatically created every month containing all time/material from multiple tickets.
- Customer pays and payment is applied to account
Contracted Customers (fixed monthly cost):
- Recurring invoice is created every month with specific line items (# of assets, A/V charges, UTM subscription, VPN/Remote Access, M365/GWP...etc)
- Customer calls with issues, ticket is created,
- Work is completed time is applied to tickets, contract overrides ticket prices to $0.
- Tickets are resolved
- One invoice is automatically created every month containing the set price/specific line items.
- Customer pays, payment recorded on account.
Larger projects and projects that require estimates:
- Site survey is completed including a wish list of nice to haves and must haves.
- Estimate(s) is (are) created and emailed to the customer.
- Customer signs and approves
- Deposit invoice is created and emailed to customer
- Deposit payment is collected and applied to the account
- Work is completed and customer is invoiced at milestones.
- Payment is received and applied to the account.
** One ticket might be created for the entire project, or multiple tickets may be created by dividing into sub tasks depending on the project.
Once a month, STATEMENTS are sent out to all customers with an open balance. I actually was very annoyed to find out that Syncro does not show payments applied on the statements, instead they show only open invoices to date rather than all transactions (open invoices, closed invoices, payments, rollover balance) for a specific statement period... IMO thats the true definition of a statement. lol Like I said, everyone has their own process event the creators of the applications we use have their own idea for workflow. I hope this helps though!
I found a bookkeeper in NJ (my state) on Upwork, she is phenomenal, and only $125/mo.... MONEY WELL SPENT! Everything is done correctly, it forces me to send her my receipts as they come in (something I was often lazy about), and within a few days after the end of the month, I have a P&L and Balance Sheet in my Dropbox ready to go.
I do all the invoicing, accept and deposit payments. She will go into Syncro (my ticketing/invoicing system) occasionally throughout the month and import all my invoices into QuickBooks. She verifies payments recorded by matching them to deposits made, she imports the bank transactions and categorizes the expenses. Anything she doesnt have a receipt for she emails me and asks. She also imports the timecards into my payroll company and runs payroll. She was filing sales tax, but I started doing that because she didnt fill out the form correctly and I was getting double taxed, but she was doing that as a favor to me, so I just started doing it instead.
I actually have a checklist she does. Heres the list:
Bookkeeping Checklist
Biweekly
Tasks to be completed every other week- Run Payroll
- Import Timecard
- Complete Payroll
Monthly
Tasks to be completed once per month- Enter Invoices
- Enter Payments
- Expenses
- Pull/Enter transaction
- Categorize transaction
- If expense is purchased for a specific job mark it for the customer/job
- Match a receipt for all expenses - email me a list of missing receipts
- Reconcile Accounts
- Reports - Run and email as PDFs
- Profit and Loss
- Balance Sheet
- Aging Customers with Balances
- Double check reports for accuracy.
Quarterly
Tasks to be completed within 7 calendar days at the end of each quarter- Calculate Sales Tax - Based on when payment was received, not invoiced.
- Pay NJ State Sales Tax from Business Checking Account
Annually
Tasks to be completed within 7 calendar days of each year- Calculate and send 1099s to sub contractors.
As for workflow everyone has their own method and you'll create yours and adjust it as needed, but here are the basics for me, keep in mind I serve primarily businesses and heck! Im still making adjustments:
Pay as you go customers or work not covered by contract, small tasks/general support tickets:
- Customer calls with an issue and a ticket is created. or recurring tickets are created (mostly for verification purposes like manual verification of backup restores, or update a master image..etc
- Work is completed and time/material is charged to ticket.
- Invoice is created from the ticket
- Invoice is sent to customer
- Customer makes payment
- Thank you/Paid invoice email is sent to customer
Pay as you go customer with consistent monthly support work > 5 tickets/mo:
- Recurring invoice is created every month that automatically adds charges from RESOLVED tickets for that specific customer. This is a one time setup to automatically bill the customer every month for unpaid work.
- Customer calls with an issue and ticket is created
- Work is performed and time/material added to the ticket
- Ticket is resolved.
- One INVOICE is automatically created every month containing all time/material from multiple tickets.
- Customer pays and payment is applied to account
Contracted Customers (fixed monthly cost):
- Recurring invoice is created every month with specific line items (# of assets, A/V charges, UTM subscription, VPN/Remote Access, M365/GWP...etc)
- Customer calls with issues, ticket is created,
- Work is completed time is applied to tickets, contract overrides ticket prices to $0.
- Tickets are resolved
- One invoice is automatically created every month containing the set price/specific line items.
- Customer pays, payment recorded on account.
Larger projects and projects that require estimates:
- Site survey is completed including a wish list of nice to haves and must haves.
- Estimate(s) is (are) created and emailed to the customer.
- Customer signs and approves
- Deposit invoice is created and emailed to customer
- Deposit payment is collected and applied to the account
- Work is completed and customer is invoiced at milestones.
- Payment is received and applied to the account.
** One ticket might be created for the entire project, or multiple tickets may be created by dividing into sub tasks depending on the project.
Once a month, STATEMENTS are sent out to all customers with an open balance. I actually was very annoyed to find out that Syncro does not show payments applied on the statements, instead they show only open invoices to date rather than all transactions (open invoices, closed invoices, payments, rollover balance) for a specific statement period... IMO thats the true definition of a statement. lol Like I said, everyone has their own process event the creators of the applications we use have their own idea for workflow. I hope this helps though!
