Ndukwe Ukabi

What You Should Know About Sage 50 Software and Prices

Sage 50 is a world-recognized accounting software product designed to make bookkeeping and accounting processes simpler, easier and faster for small, medium and growing businesses. The software has evolved over the years with improved functionalities beyond the usual invoicing, payment, banking, expenses, inventories and financial report.

As a small business owner looking for the best version of Sage that will work for your line of business, here is a detailed comparative review of the 3 Sage 50 products:

See our Sage 50 Software Products – View Price Offers

Sage 50 Pro Accounting

This is the basic version of Sage 50 that comes as an easy to learn, easy to use financial software solution for the accounting needs of SMEs. Sage 50 Pro is only available as 1 user.

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How to Hire a Bookkeeper for Accounting, Payroll, and Tax in Nigeria

Professional bookkeeping, accounting and tax service can transform the way you run your small, and growing business in Nigeria. While you are focused on expanding or adding more streams to your revenue channel, it is important for someone with the industry experience to keep an eye on all the cash inflow and outflow to ensure that transactions posted into your books of account are properly reconciled.

You may feel it is a task that you can manage by yourself, but you know what? There is the risk of being distracted if you had to deal with new product development, market expansion, customer services, or even the vision of the business.

Why You Should Hire a Bookkeeper and Accounting Service Firm.

Top of the reasons you should consider the service of a professional bookkeeper is that they are not emotionally attached to you or your business. This allows them to offer a completely unbiased and objective opinion based on your cash flow position, hence ensuring that you see the true picture of your business.

Another point is that your business is immune from unexpected shock arising from the exit of a major staff in your account and finance department. An external accounting service firm has an army of staff on board to ensure the continuity of your accounting systems and processes. I have seen a situation where the accounting department of a media firm was shut down because of the sudden resignation of a key internal account officer; no proper hand over of the books of account to other subordinates. I am sure you would not want this to happen to you.

If this happens, it can cause a major shakeup in operations with the possibility of financial impropriety, loss of records, and wrong decision making. But a bookkeeping service with formal relationship and agreement will ensure that an exit of one of the staff is immediately replaced with a more competent staff.

Bookkeepers have up to date, diverse experience in dealing with accounting and tax issues across multiple industries. If you get one, then stand a chance of benefiting from their wealth of knowledge if you find your business in any challenge, which can vary from industry to industry. This is unlike your internal staff who are only limited to your line of business.

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Tally ERP 9 Software for SMEs in Nigeria; Features, Partner & Cost

If you are thinking of buying Tally ERP 9 accounting software from a registered partner with industry experience, this review will help understand the basic functionalities of the ERP software as it relates to managing a small, and medium enterprise efficiently.

Tally ERP 9 software is built to offer robust features that make accounting and inventory management reliable and stress-free.

See Tally ERP 9 Price Offers – Click Here

As per the deliverables of this ERP, here is everything you need to know:

Accounting management in Tally ERP 9 software

With Tally.ERP 9 software, you can post sales voucher and see real-time reports of your cash inflow on a daily, weekly, monthly or annual basis.
You can also monitor your business expenses via purchase vouchers, a document that contains a summary of your cash outflows.
Tally ERP software allows you to track and process pending orders.
You also gain seamless access to supports to do general journal adjustments, generate payment receipts and raise contra vouchers

Inventory management

For businesses that manage inventories, Tally.ERP 9 lets you see your inventory movements in the simplest and understandable format. You can group your inventories according to categories or any other common tag you deem necessary for reporting. If you manage your inventories in multiple locations, Tally ERP 9 for SMEs is here to make that task easier for you.
You can also set prices for different customer types. For instance, you can offer discounts to customers that buy regularly from you while maintaining the regular price for new or walk-in customers.

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How QuickBooks Works for Wholesale or FMCG Distributors

FMCG stands for fast-moving consumer goods. An FMCG distributor is any company that buys in bulk from FCMG companies, then resell to small retailers or sub-distributors. Well-known FMCG companies in Nigeria include Unilever, Nestlé, Nigeria Breweries, International Breweries, and The Coca-Cola Company.

As you already know, these types of business are inventory-based and as such, require a time-saving system to manage the movement of inventories in and out, while accounting for cash flow on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

Recently, we deployed a cloud-based accounting software solution for a client who is one of the major distributors in Nigeria Breweries and International Breweries, here in Lagos. So, if you’d like to know the scope of the project up to the financial reporting, these tips will give you first-hand information based on our experience and our excellent deliveries.

Deploying QuickBooks Accounting Software in a Wholesale or FMCG Distributor

The first step to deploying QuickBooks in this type of business is to gather the necessary financial data and inventory information at the beginning of the financial year or a chosen date.

Customers and Receivable Balances: This will help you track all the amount owed by your customers or sub-distributors for previous supplies made.
Suppliers and Payable Balances: Here, you can monitor all recent cash balances payable to the FMCGs, but sometimes, this may be recorded as credits depending on the situation during setups. We will discuss this later.
Bank Accounts: Every inflow and outstanding have your bank account at the centre of the transactions, so its best practice to add your bank accounts and their respective balances to the system for reconciliation purposes.
Inventories: This is the core of your distributorship business. Hence, it requires detailed and accurate input of your inventories – name, quantity on hand, the average cost of your inventories, and selling prices. Without this information, you are running a service-based account with your accounting solutions. Whenever we deploy QuickBooks solutions for inventory-based companies or FMCGs, we always advise them to adopt the one-off pain of a physical count because that is the only way to block loopholes in their inventory reporting. Going forward, the software will always deduct every sale recorded and add new purchases to display current balances.
VAT Charges: By law, every business is mandated to charge VAT on sales of their products so they can remit all tax to the relevant tax authorities after accounting for claims. This is the reason you need to input VAT payables on previous sales recorded as a starting balance in the accounting software for proper reporting. And if there are other tax charges aside VAT, you can as well let us know.
Fixed Assets: I am sure every FMCG distributor owns a truck or bus that conveys all inventories from the warehouse to point of supplies. In accounting, such useful property is tagged Fixed Assets and if there are assets like Land, Building, Office Furniture, etc., you are required to present these for proper recording – which could be at cost or fair value.

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Why Real Estate Developers & Property Managers Prefer QuickBooks Software

The business of real estate and property management can be very difficult to manage if you don’t define the niche you are; this is because, real estate isn’t all about developing properties and reselling to potential buyers, it also entails sourcing and managing tenants on behalf of property owners, or acting as a middleman between interested parties who would like to execute high-ticket transactions for a commission.

These categories of real estate businesses require a different accounting system and financial reporting. For instance, accounting for a real estate broker requires effective recognition of commission income after deducting direct expenses like advertisement on dailies, or any other relevant direct cost. This is totally different from a real estate manager who is interested in tracking rental payment from tenants, receivables on overdue rent, remittance to property owners, service charge collections and maintenance fees.

As of this write-up, our team had just concluded QuickBooks setup for a fast-growing real estate developer in Lagos, Nigeria – they acquire a large expanse of land from families, clear the land and re-package the virgin land into an estate land, process the necessary papers like excision, survey, C of O and resell to interested buyers.

The whole essence of engaging us was to help design an automated accounting system that will track all cash inflow and direct cost on their various real estate projects so that they can ascertain the profitability of all real estate transactions.

Here Are Quick Tips On How We Deployed Quickbooks Starting With The Project Requirements:

List of banks and their respective balances: every cash inflow from buyers on property purchases and payment to sub-contractors or service providers goes/come from the bank and such, we requested for a complete list of operating banks in local and/or foreign currencies so we upload to the Chart of Account and generate real-time bank statement.
List of clients/customers and their receivable balance (including the properties on which these balances were owed): This is important for us as we weren’t only interested in the client’s receivable balances, but a simpler to segment their receivables by properties. In addition to the outstanding balances on property purchase, we also requested for pending payments on the survey, developmental fee and deed of assignments.
List of real estate on offers: This is the key revenue driver of the real estate developer, so it makes sense to upload all the properties on sale and set them up in such a way that users can categorize all invoices and direct cost to properties.
Sub-contractors/service providers and their payable balances: every land acquisitions come with clearance, dredging and construction of walls around it. These, in addition to other related expenses, are examples of direct cost incurred on these properties and when full payments aren’t made to the sub-contractors, it leads to a payable balance which should be properly tracked until they are settled.
Equity share capital: For real estate developers with an audited record of their previous financial year’s transactions, it is easier to find the equity share capital of the owners, but for a growing business with unorganized record, QuickBooks compute a share capital that is equal to the net of assets over liabilities.
Standard chart of accounts: Although, QuickBooks accounting software has default charts of account for different industries – a simple design that categories all your transactions to income, expenses, assets and liabilities. We always like to know whether the client already has existing charts with account codes.

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Why Every Nightclub Owners Need QuickBooks

Operating a nightclub business isn’t an easy task, you have to constantly find the best strategy to control and organize crowd, at the same time, you have to ensure a smooth and a stunning party.

Another interesting side is your peak period which is completely different from the regular working hours. While other business managers are rounding up for the day, you are planning and waiting for an influx of customers who want to wine and dine as night falls.

During such hours, liquor and wine are the most consumed, they are on high demands, and therefore require greater attention.

In order to provide better service to your customers, meet up with the high volume orders as well as controlling theft, you need to upgrade your current accounting system to the QuickBooks system. This is highly effective in tracking cash flow, profit or loss positions.

Track Your Liquor and Wine Inventory

No doubt, sales control is the most difficult and important task of a nightclub entrepreneur. If not properly handled, it will be hard to ascertain the accurate financial position of the business. This solution can be effectively provided by QuickBooks.

One of the recommended front end software for your nightclub business is QuickBooks POS; a fully integrated inventory and sales application that allows you to quickly take customers’ order, record sales and receive payment via cash, debit card and bank transfers.

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How We Resolved Firewall Security Issues During QuickBooks User Networking

We do encounter challenges during networking and configuration of QuickBooks data file for multi-user access, but the problem of wireless networking not strong enough or the firewall on the workstation preventing the user from accessing central data are more often and prominent.

Today, we were faced with an unusual firewall security challenge at a client’s office (a fast-growing private school with multiple locations). They use the Pro version of QuickBooks, which had already been cut off from automatic updates, and they requested an upgrade to Premier – a better version that accommodates a higher volume of transactions with up to five (5) allowable users.

After configuration of a two (2) user system and a setup of the company file on a host server for shared access, one of the systems blocked the file from accessing QuickBooks with the below summarized messages:

“The computer (host) server is configured to allow shared access but your system can’t open the file. This may be due to firewall configuration on your network.”

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How QuickBooks Helps Micro Lenders to Track Expected Cash Flows

A microlending or credit finance company is a business that provides quick personal or business loan to its customers, and in return earns interest on the loan. This type of business requires proper documentation of the names of customers, loan disbursed (on a daily, weekly and monthly basis), payback period and the expected interest return.

While Excel seems to be popular among microcredit finance Company, especially in the area of calculating the interest receivable on loans, QuickBooks financial software lets you keep a proper record of your reports by showing customers and loan receivable balance, interest income, profit or loss, balance and cash flow statement.

As of this update, we are currently deploying QuickBooks accounting in a fast growing consumer loan and credit finance company, so it is usual for us to share brief details about the projects and how we have successfully set opening balances for onward transaction entries.

Customers and Loan Balances

Before the commencement of the project, we sent a mail requesting for the list of all customers and their loan balances. The balances were posted to the loan receivable balances so you can easily track the expected cash flow from your customers and follow up on overdue balances.

For clients with over 100 customer base, the import section of QuickBooks makes it easier to quickly migrate the customers with the value that is expected from them as at a selected closing balance date.

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How to Treat Treasury Bill/Fixed Deposit Investment in QuickBooks

Growing a business is not all about increasing the sales from the various business activities. A lot of people believe that increasing the sales from various business activities is the best strategy to sustain the business, but investing some of the available cash in your bank in a safe and a secure investment opportunity that generates passive income is also one of the best ways to generate income and sustain a business. After all, your cash is subject to inflationary risk if it is kept in a savings account where interest rates at times could be as low as (2-3%) per annum.

Profits gained from sales did not come in as a donation or gift from customers; it is a return on your dissipated efforts and hard work, so a high-risk investment like the stock is not one you should even consider, rather it is safer to keep your funds in risk-free assets like FGN bonds or CBN Treasury Bills – an investment that is fully backed by the federal government.

As a business owner, you are strongly advised to keep track of all these investments in your books so you can easily track the cash flow which is also known as interest income from various risk-free investments. One of the best software for managing “fixed income investments and interest earned” is QuickBooks.

We had just helped a corporate society, who invested members’ savings/thrift primarily in CBN Treasury Bills and Fixed Deposit with interest paid upfront into the account. We migrated their 12-months transactions from excel into QuickBooks Online.

Here are the four scenarios, we treated during the data migration:

Investment in Treasury Bills with Interest paid upfront.
Rollover of maturing investments with interest.
Additional investment in Fixed Deposit/Treasury bills
Liquidation of existing holdings on maturity

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Which of the QuickBooks Desktop Is Right for my Business?

As a profound accounting software consultant in Nigeria, we do not only deploy or train clients on the desktop versions of QuickBooks, but also help small and growing businesses discover the best package for their unique accounting needs. This is because we understand the varying requirements for QuickBooks in different industries and we are well experienced to tell business owners the package that works best for them.

Although, we have shared a guide on “Understanding QuickBooks and the right version for your business“, we still believe a detailed breakdown of these versions by industry adaptability is what you really need to avoid buying the wrong version.

QuickBooks Pro

The Pro version is the basics of QuickBooks. The software works for outfits that do not sell inventories to make money, outfits whose services span across consulting, training, travels, real estate management, procurements, legal, loan or cash advances, bureau de change, event management, investment advisory or industries that receive donations/grants.

This does not mean that a retail store cannot deploy QuickBooks Pro for inventory management, they can but there would be setbacks in the “unit of measures”. For instance, if you are selling “varying packets or bags of a product“, there is no room to indicate the specific unit of measures for the product; whether it is sold in Kg or gram.

Some of the reasons Pro may not be the right software for your business even if your line of business falls within the aforementioned sector:

You track inventories and unit of measures.
If you manufacture or assemble inventories.
If the number of users exceeds three (3) for the US edition and five (5) for UK editions.

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How We Do Inventory Transfer for Multiple Locations in QuickBooks Online Plus

QuickBooks Online Plus is a cloud version of QuickBooks that enables you to manage your business at any time and from any location.

Inventory Transfer – The missing feature of Online Plus:

While you can record sales – monitor expenses and check your financials on a real-time from any internet enabled device including your mobile devices – with other versions of QuickBooks, Inventory transfer between locations is a task you can only perform if you subscribe to the platinum version of QuickBooks Enterprise. This means that, if you own multiple stores and you are using other versions of QuickBooks like Pro, Premier or you are currently subscribed to QuickBooks Online Plus, you cannot record inventories transfers from between/among different locations.

But what if we show you an alternative way to achieve this inventory transfer? It is suitable for multiple locations, your financials will not be doctored and your inventory report will be intact.

But what if we show you an alternative way to achieve this inventory transfer process for multiple locations without getting your financials doctored and still have your inventory report intact?

We have implemented this process for a lot of inventory-based organisations that:

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How to Track Members’ Savings, Loan & Investment for your Co-operatives

Effective management of a co-operative society’s account, in a face change environment where no one is ready to spend countless hours sorting paper transactions, requires an automated financial management system that does not only save time but also generates an accurate record of members’ savings, loan disbursements, and investment owned by the association on demand.

In this review of our current QuickBooks Online Plus deployment for a co-operative society of a top company in Nigeria, we will be discussing how bank statement upload helped resolved their financial challenges on key areas like member’s monthly savings, loan disbursement and repayments, investment in equities and CBN Treasury bills and financial reports.

Although we have already shared a detailed guide on how QuickBooks works for a co-operative society, this is for co-operative societies that are looking for a cloud version of QuickBooks with bank statement upload.

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Which QuickBooks Cloud Solution Is Best For Your Business?

We are about working on data migration for one of our retail clients in Lagos. They have been running their financials on the Pro version of QuickBooks for the last 5 years and want to upgrade/migrate QuickBooks financials to the cloud, but management is contemplating whether to subscribe to the online version or the Enterprise Cloud Solution.
The current version of QuickBooks Pro on their systems is a desktop application that does not require license renewal; the data is stored on the host laptops and does not require an internet connection before users can launch and update records.
However, as a business expands to different locations with management requesting for centralization and real-time monitoring of transactions from the head office, the desktop version except there is a wide area network for remote access, may not be scalable. This calls for a cloud solution which will as well preserves all the previous records.
QuickBooks currently offers two cloud solutions: the Online Version and the Enterprise Cloud Solution.

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Why Your Business May Not Need QuickBooks Enterprise & How To Downgrade

We have interacted with more clients in this software industry than anyone, an edge that made it easier for us to learn more, share our implementation experiences and how growing businesses can solve their accounting challenges, deploy a better financial software like QuickBooks and get their financial report right.

An emerging trend now is that a lot of businesses opt for the “Enterprise Version” of QuickBooks without a proper understanding of why and when an enterprise solution is appropriate for their business.

What we really want to address is the influx of unskilled QuickBooks consultants who claim that they are auditors or IT consultants, advise businesses owners to buy QuickBooks Enterprise without a clear reason, except that they feel its “robust”.

No doubt, the Enterprise solution is a robust financial software that offers more features and functionalities compared to QuickBooks Pro or Premier but the question is, do you really need Enterprise for your line of business?

Let’s share the instances, and when a business is expected to deploy QuickBooks Enterprise:

The number of concurrent users of the QuickBooks is more than 5; from 6 – 30 users are required to log into the company financials at the same time.
The number of inventories, customers, vendors exceeds 14,500.
You want a cloud-based solution for multi-users in different locations (optional) so that you can track inventories transfers between/among various retail stores or warehouses.
You are keen to FIFO as your preferred inventory valuation method, other than the default-weighted average cost method the software uses.
You want to integrate barcode scanner with your accounting software. But, if you are using POS, you really don’t need this. Barcode scanner is best used alongside QuickBooks POS software for capturing product information faster.

If you don’t fall into any of these criteria, you would be spending more than necessary or committing your business to an avoidable lifetime subscription model.

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Why & When You Should Upgrade your QuickBooks Software.

The desktop versions of QuickBooks accounting software were designed to help small and growing businesses to simplify their accounting systems, automate transaction entries and generate a real-time financial report.

Currently, there are four variant of the desktop software: QuickBooks Pro, Premier, Accountant and Enterprise. The Enterprise version can be upgraded to offer cloud-only solutions which is available in the subscription model, the remaining three can be installed on a PC for offline use.

See – Check the prices of our genuine QuickBooks accounting software with license keys, product number, and validation code.

From experience, we realize that a lot of clients prefer the offline version because it does not require the internet. Considering the unstable nature of our local internet services, it is a good software for retail, manufacturing, or serviced based business who do not want their daily postings to be tied to availability of internet connections.

Continue reading “Why & When You Should Upgrade your QuickBooks Software.”

Why You Need an Expert for your QuickBooks Pro, Premier & Enterprise Implementation

Two weeks ago, we received an invite from one of the reputable Transport and Haulage Companies in Nigeria. This company is a group with three (3) subsidiaries: one is a spare part importation and engineering department, the other provides transport services while the third provides logistics services to FMCGs.

The three (3) departments use QuickBooks Enterprise to manage and track cash flow on a daily basis. However, there are some challenges: improper posting of transactions that resulted in several imbalances, and wrong ending figures in the books of account.

In resolving this, we conducted a full review of their QuickBooks entries and discovered that despite the fact they have been using the software for more than 5 years, their transactions were not treated the way they ought to be treated in the accounting software. This, coupled with similar challenges from clients in other industries, led us to conclude that a lot of QuickBooks users in Nigeria are neither exploring nor maximizing the full potentials of the software. We have reviewed QuickBooks Chart of Account, from real estate to hospitality, oil and gas sector, manufacturing, retail, credit company, etc., and we found out that there were irregularities in the Books of Account.

What we found in their books of account:

Upon review of the company’s QuickBooks accounting software, we discovered the following irregularities on the file that manages the transport service section:

Wrong Set-up of the branches and the buses under management.
The sales of tickets and branch expenses were wrongly treated.
Cash deposit by various branches cashier into the bank was wrongly treated.
Bank balances were in red, indicating that such accounts were overdrawn.
Cash deposit on tickets sold for the day was not sent or attached to the sales receipt for validation.
The Class list did not represent branches and as such, profits or losses by branch report were not available.
Reconciliation of the bank statement will not be easy if “write check” window is used for the cash deposit.
The customer balances’ did not reflect the actual position of the company

Continue reading “Why You Need an Expert for your QuickBooks Pro, Premier & Enterprise Implementation”

What You Should Know About QuickBooks POS Multistore for Retail Businesses.

As we scale our accounting software business model to accommodate smaller and growing retail business owners, who are looking for the right financial solution to their day to day accounting challenges, we share implementation experiences so that prospects or business owners in the same line of business will learn and understand how our solutions can solve their related challenges.

Here is a real-time story that will help you avoid wrong installation and setup if you are looking for a POS software for your retail business.

A retail business owner, who wanted to upgrade to a newer version of QuickBooks POS software called in to request for the latest version of multi-store which as of this writing, was 2018. She bought a user license of the POS software without a proper understanding of how QuickBooks POS multi-store for retail businesses works. After installing the software at her stores’various locations; networking became a challenge. She thought that all the remote stores could easily be linked to the head office such that inventories, sales, purchases and reports would be centralized.

Normally, QuickBooks POS multistore software was not designed to work like that; you need to get the number of user licenses equivalent to the retail store branches. For instance, if you have 10 retail stores and 1 head office for your business, the number of licenses needed to configure these stores and connect to the head office (remotely) is 11. Each retail stores, including the head office, must have a separate QuickBooks POS license software. If not, centralization will not be possible. When we say “Centralization”, we mean connecting all the remote or retail stores to the central head office.

Technically, for the head office POS software to receive data from the various stores, the applications check the user license of the sent file, and if they are the same, it will display an error message with the reason – your file shares the same license with the receiving file – but if the user licenses are different, the file is received and the sales or purchase information at the retail store is updated on the head office POS to generate an accurate inventory quantity on hand and balance.

“As a recap, on QuickBooks POS software, a multi-store POS software is a front-end sales software that makes it easy for you to record inventory sales at the different retail store locations so that report can be sent to the head office POS for proper accountability and reporting.”

If you are looking for QuickBooks POS software for your retail stores but do not know the number of licenses you need, the easiest guide is to confirm the number of stores you would be installing the license at or user systems. Assuming you own 10 retail stores but wouldn’t like to centralize inventory; you prefer to treat each store as an independent unit, you only need one (1) user license but if centralization is key, then you need ten (10) user license.

Do you need more information QuickBooks POS multi-store software or license purchase guide? Please send a mail to us at info@accountingsoftware.com.ng or call us at 08105090001 for professional support!

Accounting For Debit/Credit Card Payments On POS Terminal In Quickbooks Desktop.

POS terminal is a portable point of sale machine that allows payment through credit and debit cards on the go. Businesses use POS terminals as an alternative mode of payment for customers who are not comfortable carrying cash around.

Since the introduction of this point of sale machine, transactions value processed had since hit a height of N1.4tr, according to the 2017 data presented by Nigerian Inter-Bank Settlement System. Over 155,462 active POS terminals have already been made available to retailers or merchants in Nigeria.

The growing adoption of POS is a positive development which is not unconnected to the fact that Nigerians are now using less cash for transactions and more of POS as a preferred settlement method. A noticeable accounting and financial challenge is brewing from this payment method. Businesses that are not using point of sale software like QuickBooks POS software or other POS for making sales are finding it difficult to account for their actual bank balances in real time, due to delay in POS transactions settlement.

If you are currently using QuickBooks Pro, Premier or Enterprise Edition, and you accepts payment via POS terminal, this guide will help you find a better path to tracking all POS transactions in your accounting software.

Normally, it takes 2-3 days for banks to credit merchants account for the value of POS transactions carried out in stores or in their various business locations. Account officers or cashiers from their end do make the mistake of recording customers’ payment as cash received into the bank resulting in the increase of QuickBooks bank balances without immediate corresponding increase in the actual balance.

Here is an issue we recently resolved in one of the fast-growing hotels in Lagos:

A customer booked a room for 3 days at NGN 24,500 and paid NGN 73,500 via his debit card using the POS terminal. The payment was debited from the guest’s bank account but was not credited instantly to the merchants’ account. The cashier recorded the transaction as cash received which was saved directly to Zenith bank.

Continue reading “Accounting For Debit/Credit Card Payments On POS Terminal In Quickbooks Desktop.”

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How QuickBooks Works for a Car Dealer or Auction Brokers

We had a demo session with a fastest growing car dealing and auction broker in Lagos last week to discuss the scope of QuickBooks software implementation and how they could effectively monitor their cash flow on a real-time.

During our conversation, the panel of managers was concerned about tracking foreign currency transactions; their model is in such a way that car buyers prefer to pay in Naira while they, as a licenced car auction broker, bid on various car brands online, handle all landing cost and settle the bills in US dollars.

Businesses like this require an affective foreign currency translation processes and real-time exchange rate update in order to get their books of account right.

How then could QuickBooks solve their financial management challenge, key personnel ask?

To answer the questions, we will divide their business transactions into four (4) key parts:

Domiciliary account setup and exchange rate update.
Creating a foreign seller account and bills to track all payables in USD, including shipping fee.
Creating another service provider account to track custom duties on the car imported.
Invoicing the customer in Naira to record receivables and receiving payment into a Naira bank account.

Domiciliary account setup and exchange rate update.

We have already shared a complete guide to adding your domiciliary bank accounts in QuickBooks and updating your foreign exchange rates in one of our previous posts, click here to learn more

Creating a foreign seller account and bills to track all payables in USD, including shipping fee.

Continue reading “How QuickBooks Works for a Car Dealer or Auction Brokers”

How “Bank Statement Pro” Helped a Credit Company in Reconciling Customers’ Balances.

The business of Credit and Asset Purchase Financing is a business that requires effective bookkeeping, especially when you have a larger chunk of your capital already advanced to customers as a loan with expected interest income.

An Accounting Software deployed for SMEs in this line of business will not only help management to understand the company’s financial positions, but will also help them to see and monitor their profit and/or loss position. For businesses in Nigeria; real-time customer’s account balance and bank reconciliation remain a key subject of concern that require immediate attention.

One of our clients had this challenge – upon approval of loans receivable in 3-6 months, customers start the repayment plan by making credit transfers to the bank accounts (Lender). Credit officers, who are in charge of tracking repayments do not have a direct access to the Credit Company’s bank statement, they miss such payment transaction as they aren’t aware of these payments. The customers, on their assumption that these periodic payments will be automatically recorded against their loan and interest payable, felt no need to do a follow up.

At the end of the loan tenor, the account officers sent a payment notice to the customers with the amount due. The customers upon this, requested for the statement of account and discovered the difference in the balance following the non-recognition/ non-recording of some payments. In order to trace the difference, the credit officer contacted the bank for a review of their statement and found repayment that were in the statement which were not recorded for the customers (borrower). These had been going on for a long time until we propose an application called “Bank Statement Pro.”

Our “Bank Statement Pro” didn’t just close the gap by providing the credit officer with the flexibility of importing multiple customers’ payment into QuickBooks Accounting Software, but also eliminated possible conflicts by reconciling all loan balances on the company and at the customer’s end.

Continue reading “How “Bank Statement Pro” Helped a Credit Company in Reconciling Customers’ Balances.”

How We Configured QuickBooks POS Multi-Store in a Pharmacy

Solving the challenges of our clients and sharing the numerous success stories is our passion, our goal, and our joy as our clients are into diverse lines of businesses and various fields of work ranging from hotels, travels, financial services, co-operative societies, NGOs, etc.

Early this month, we were invited by a multi-store pharmacy to help fix their QuickBooks POS issues; they have different stores within and outside Lagos State but could not centralize their inventories nor link all the stores’ transactions to the head office for proper accountability. Another issue was that each of the stores was treated as an independent sales point which is not in the best practice of accountability, profitability and sustainability for a multi-Store. The good news is that our expert and professional team solved this challenge by introducing and configuring QuickBooks POS multi-store. Now they can send and receive files to/from other stores, with higher transparency and profit on the increase!

Order QuickBooks Multi-Store Genuine License, Call 08084219399, 08105090001

This guide focuses on the basic step we explored to set up QuickBooks POS multistore in a pharmaceutical company.

Installing QuickBooks POS

The company had already installed QuickBooks POS but do not understand the processing of configuring a system as the main head office server where the company file resides, and sync with QuickBooks desktop financials. Our team checked the POS software and discovered that the system wasn’t properly installed nor set up to accommodate other retail branches in different locations, this was quickly fixed under the “Preference menu>multi-store” window.

Step-by- Solution:

List the number of stores to connect to the central head office POS.
Select the communication method, i.e., how you want to send and receive files to/from other retail stores.
Download a central Dropbox or Google Drive folder on PCs at the head office and at the retail stores.
Create a “send” and “receive” folder inside the downloaded Dropbox or Google Drive folder.

Configuring Store Exchange

The store exchange section is a very vital aspect of the QuickBooks POS multi-store setup as it is the core configuration that will help you send and receive files (like inventories, customers’ data, sales information, etc.) from other retail stores into the head office POS.

Continue reading “How We Configured QuickBooks POS Multi-Store in a Pharmacy”

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You Can Now Import Your Bank Statement Into QuickBooks Accounting Software!

Our strategic team of accounting and financial software professionals have been working on resolving the biggest challenge of our fast-growing clients in retail, distribution, real estate, hotel, travels, etc. We tagged it “the biggest challenge”, because it does not just hinder them from keeping their cash flow in check, but also a major test of how accurate their accounting software transaction entries had been. Every day, we receive enquiries from business owners, CFOs, accountants, etc., on how they can fast track their bank reconciliation processes, especially when they have a backlog of past receipt and payment transactions to treat.

A few weeks ago, this was a major setback for one of our clients who recently bought the QuickBooks. She wanted year 2015 (the year she started the business) to be the year of the opening balance. They already had two (2) years’ transactions recorded via invoice in excel, receipts and cheque on their bank statements. The need for the actual year the business started and its transactions, to reflect on the bank statement was tied to the fact that a major private equity company wanted to invest in her company, and there was need to review her transactions’ history. There was absolutely no way she could convince them (the investors) to use the current opening balance, hence we had to commence the process of developing our in-house bank transactions import software, known as ‘Bank Statement Pro’.

With Bank Statement Pro, You don’t have to wait for month-end reconciliations again.

Contact us for pricing and setup – Call 08105090001 or mail at info@accountingsoftware.com.ng

“Bank Statement Pro” is a flexible bank transaction import application specifically developed to help you save time and improve productivity. You can easily upload the bank statements of any Nigerian bank in excel, map the relevant column on excel to their corresponding heads in QuickBooks and sync all transactions to their appropriate account. Even a novice outside the field of accounting can use the software, as it doesn’t require any special accounting knowledge or skill.

The software does not only reconcile your bank statement with QuickBooks, but also designed to track every inflows and outflow in your bank statement, map them to their respective account heads in QuickBooks, and eliminate the need for month-end reconciliations since all transactions have already been taken care of.

Reconciliation is a task every profit-minded business owners, CFOs, accountants, and finance managers must carry out if they truly want to understand their cash positions, track actual profit or loss, and generate a reliable financial report. Just imagine you already have a software that records every deposits and withdrawals on your bank accounts on a daily or weekly basis? Do you think reconciliation would still be necessary or required? No! That’s exactly what “Bank Statement Pro” would do for you and that was why we developed “Bank Statement Pro”.

Whether you have one or multiple banks to import transactions from, “Bank Statement Pro” can help you save time on importing high volume transactions.

We are still improving the financial application to connect directly to your bank via an API. For now, you can only import bank transaction statement from excel. What this means is that any time you want to import bank transactions, you need to download it in excel from your internet banking application or contact your account officer to send a weekly statement.

Bank Statement Pro is here to help you import your GTbank, Skye, FCMB, Fidelity, Eco Bank, First Bank, Heritage, Diamond Bank, Unity Bank, Union Bank, Wema Bank, Zenith Bank, UBA or Stanbic IBTC Bank statement into your accounting software!

Continue reading “You Can Now Import Your Bank Statement Into QuickBooks Accounting Software!”

My Law Firm, Her Accounting Pains And The Growth Strategy!

As at the time this review was published, we had just helped a fast-growing Law Firm re-organized their accounts using QuickBooks Pro accounting software. You might ask, “Does a Law Firm really needs an accounting software?

To answer this question, we believe that as long as tracking cash flow remains a top priority for businesses in which Law Firms are one; then we say YES, Law Firms need an accounting software! Besides, our interaction with the firm’s account officer revealed so much about Law Firms that we decided to share some key points on how QuickBooks software brought in a new life in their Accounting Department, and consequently, leading to an overall financial growth of the firm.

Clients Receivables & Trust Accounts.

As at the beginning of 2018, they have a pool of individual and corporate clients with outstanding balances arising from professional services fee, litigation, retainer-ship fee, debt recoveries, etc. And at every point in time, the management would like to see their clients’ balance for cash flow projections on a real time.

Solution – we imported the names, addresses and receivable balances via excel into QuickBooks.

Another major concern was that they maintain a trust account on behalf of their clients and these funds are fully invested in call accounts with asset management firms.

What is a trust account? In simple terms, it is a fund account held by a professional (who is known as a trustee) on behalf of a client.

Our team assisted the account officer by creating a parent trust account under liability, since the fund is owned by clients and subject to their instructions. They also organized all the clients whose money are held in that account under a parent account head, and added a corresponding investment account (with the asset manager) on their chart of accounts, to track the funds that were invested in short-term securities with accrued income posted to an interest income account. One key feature of a call account is that you can request for your money at any point in time. For instance, whenever clients send instructions to the Law Firm as regards the purchase of a property (with the amount held in the trust fund) on their behalf, a call is immediately placed to the asset manager.

Continue reading “My Law Firm, Her Accounting Pains And The Growth Strategy!”

Foreign Exchange Transactions and the QuickBooks Software.

Foreign Exchange Transactions involve purchases or sales in currencies different from your local currency, and as such, requires effective tracking of exchange rates as the exchange rate is known to be in constant fluctuation.

As a business owner who pays for services or transacts in other country’s currencies, you need a flexible and simple financial software that will help you track banking transactions on your domiciliary accounts and reports, realized or unrealized gain/loss, in a manner that is easy to understand.

We have been deploying QuickBooks for small businesses in different career fields, we have seen variations in foreign exchange transactions, and we have helped our clients found a lasting solution to tracking their Foreign Exchange Transactions using the QuickBooks. The tips shared here works well on Pro, Premier & Enterprise Edition of the QuickBooks.

Here are key outlines you should understand when recording Foreign Exchange Transactions in QuickBooks:

Activating multiple currencies.
Add your domiciliary accounts & exchange rate.
Updating your exchange rate daily, weekly or monthly.
Funding your domiciliary account via BDCs.
Transfers from your domiciliary account via BDCs.
Tracking unrealized gain or loss on your domiciliary account.

Activating Multiple Currencies

The first step to exploring the multi-currency features of QuickBooks is to activate your home currency. QuickBooks accounting software generates your financial report in a selected home currency and as such, needs to know your currency built.

To activate multiple currencies in QuickBooks:

Go to Edit>Preference>Multiple Currencies.
Select “Yes! I use more than one currencies”.
Click the drop-down, view more currencies and select your home currencies – for the purpose of this guide, I will select Nigeria Naira as my home currency.

Add Your Domiciliary Accounts & Exchange Rate.

After activating the multiple currencies, the next step is to load all the domiciliary accounts held in their respective banks and their various balances. The same way you add your bank accounts in QuickBooks is also applicable here; but on the currency drop-down, select the currency in which the balances are held. For instance, if I want to add a USD domiciliary account, I will select US dollars under the currency list. The next step is to click “Enter Opening Balance” to add the US dollar balance as at selected date and then enter the latest exchange rate. You might ask; is it the CBN official rate or parallel market rate? Whichever one you are to choose will depend on the rate at which you fund your account.

N.B. QuickBooks is designed to automatically update exchange rate of companies whose home currencies are USD, EURO or GBP. Exchange rates are relatively stable, and the presence of multiple currencies dealers is largely minimal. But, currencies outside these three requires manual updates.

Updating Your Exchanges Rate Daily, Weekly or Monthly.

As exchange rates fluctuate daily, you are also expected to update your QuickBooks Accounting Software so that all your foreign currency balances will reflect the current status of your business bank account, and if there is an unrealized gain or loss, the system will report accordingly.

Continue reading “Foreign Exchange Transactions and the QuickBooks Software.”

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