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QuickBooks Reminders Prevent Problems November 2015

QuickBooks Reminders Prevent Problems

Preserve your relationships with customers, vendors, and others by setting up QuickBooks Reminders Prevent Problems.

How many calendars do you maintain? Many businesspeople have more than one. Maybe you use a web-based or desktop application like Google Calendar or Outlook for meetings, task deadlines, travel dates, etc. Your Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) might have another. Perhaps you still have a paper calendar as backup.

But where do you keep track of bills that need to be paid, invoices that have to be sent, inventory items that must be ordered, etc.? Do you include that information in your general business calendar(s) and hope they don’t get lost in the shuffle?

QuickBooks has a better solution. The software contains a dedicated set of tools that automates the process of setting up and displaying reminders. Once you’ve created them, they can be the first thing you see when you open QuickBooks in the morning.

Warning: If you do not launch QuickBooks frequently, consider tracking your critical accounting tasks using a different method.

 

Getting a Head Start

QuickBooks lets you specify exactly when you want to receive reminders of upcoming activities. To set this up, open the Edit menu, then click Preferences, and then Reminders | Company Preferences.

Note: If you want QuickBooks Reminders Prevent Problems to display your reminders every time you launch the software, click on the My Preferences tab and make sure that the box in front of Show Reminders List when opening a Company file is checked. If it isn’t, click in the box.

Figure 2: Reminders in the left column are current, and those on the right are upcoming tasks

The Reminders list displays items in two columns. Tasks that need to be done on the current day appear on the left (overdue tasks appear in red). The list in the right column consists of upcoming transactions that will need to be processed soon. Each type of activity has a number in parentheses after it; this tells you how many individual tasks are pending. Click on the arrow to see the list, and double-click on any entry to open the actual transaction form.

You can add generic to-do items to either column by clicking on the plus sign in the upper right. These will appear along with your other reminders. If you want to modify anything related to your reminders, click on the gear icon in the upper right. This opens the Preferences window again.

Recurring QuickBooks Reminders Prevent Problems

Transactions that repeat on a regular basis (bills, invoices, etc.) can be memorized. If the amount is always the same, create the transaction and enter the amount; if not, just leave that field blank. Click Memorize to open the Memorize Transaction window and click on the button in front of Add to my Reminders List. Open the drop-down list to the right of How Often and select the desired frequency. Make sure that the Next Date is correct. Click OK.

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 3: QuickBooks can add memorized transactions to your reminders list.

QuickBooks Reminders Prevent Problems can help prevent serious accounting problems such as cash flow irregularities. Let us know if you’re experiencing these. We can help you determine whether poor task management is contributing to your shortfall, or if there are deeper issues that we can work with you to resolve.

Gita Faust

About the Author

Gita Faust has over 30 years of accounting experience in the real estate and property management industry, Gita Faust is more than just a real estate investor; she is also popular for her work as an accountant, consultant, mentor, speaker, QuickBooks Top ProAdvisor, QuickBooks Solution Provider, member of Intuit’s Trainer/Writer Network, and, of course, author. Gita is well-known for her exemplary leadership and advisory skills. In fact, she even helped pioneer the adaptation of QuickBooks to suit the needs of professionals in real estate and property management. To share her knowledge she has written a series of courses titled Simplified Accounting Solution, which provides step-by-step guidance for those working with QuickBooks.

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