It is that time of year again.  Time to upgrade to the newer version if you use the features that will be shut off come May 31, 2012.  If you have QuickBooks 2009 and use payroll or online banking, you will not be able to use either feature in June, as they will be shut down.

Normally, Intuit has a “sale” for all of the 2009 users at the end of May.  It is still best to shop around.  Google “QuickBooks 2012″ to see which vendor has the best price.  Sometimes it is Intuit, but many times it is Costco or Staples or Amazon.com.  And if given the option, go for the download as opposed to getting the CD.  The download is the most up-to-date version of QuickBooks 2012.  If you get the CD, you will have to go to help>update QuickBooks to get it to the most recent release.   We are already on R8, which means they have fixed the initial program 8 times since it was originally offered to the public.  They have fixed many bugs in the program since it was first offered in late September.

Now, many people will complain, “Why does Intuit sunset it’s program?”  The official answer is:

“We are committed to developing easy, straightforward financial tools that help you today and grow with you tomorrow. But it’s a balancing act – making QuickBooks better and easier to use while still supporting older versions. So we offer support for the current version of QuickBooks and the two previous versions.”

Here is a link to what is discontinued.  If you do not use these features, you can certainly keep using the 2009 version.

I hope that this explains the issue.  If you have any further questions, feel free to post them to comments.

First you click the new search engine, Find a ProAdvisor.  When I did this with my own zip code, this was the initial result:

As you can see, it looks the same, but what is that help me choose button?  To me, you should be able to filter down by additional criteria in that button.  But it just randomly selects 4 out of the “X” number of ProAdvisors in the search range.  Now, random is the operative word.  When I questioned Ian on Radio Free Intuit’s blog radio program, he started explaining the different algorithms and to be honest with you, things that are beyond my expertise.  He also indicated that this search button will have different results at different times and I may actually show up in both searches at different times.

I played around with the site.  I put a zip code in that is 17 miles away.  Lo and behold,  I popped up in the “Help me Choose” box, albeit at the bottom under less certified ProAdvisors.  Intuit is working on fixing that problem.  Here is my result from the Help me button:

So, at first glance you would think, why does Lynda have an issue with this?  She will show up in her hometown and 17 miles away in Naples.  Well, I had to do this many times over several days to show up on the Help Me Choose button.  Additionally, I already show automatically under another Advanced ProAdvisor on the first page when you click that Naples zip code (because I am further away, which makes sense).   But I will not always show when you click the “Help me Choose” button.

My biggest issue with that  button is that it looks like Intuit is endorsing these ProAdvisors.  While Intuit insists that is not the case, this is my interpretation of the change to the site.  Some of Intuit’s selections are ProAdvisors that are not even certified in 2011.  Why?  I am sure there is a real geeky answer for the programmers who designed this button.  But the fact that the way the program chooses is such a secret and by looking at the results, it has to make you wonder.

Additionally, from what I gathered from talking to Ian on the radio show, that once a user does use that “Help me” button and sends these four ProAdvisors an email looking for QuickBooks help, it will cause them to drop from the queue.  Then four new selections will show up.  Here is a link to the radio show, if you would like to listen to it.  The part about these website changes doesn’t come up till the 2nd hour of the show.

Here was the response from Sean Daken, former employee under Ian, as to the question of why did they change this site since it works so well:
“There are several pain points we are addressing. First, “Help Me Choose” enables a low-friction way for small business owners, who would otherwise not select anyone (a problem we saw for years on the old site), to quickly get connected with a range ProAdvisors who can meet the their needs. On the old version of the site, we saw a significant percentage small business owners get overwhelmed and just drop off the site. Those small business owners didn’t have the knowledge and context to know who or what they needed. The new features reduce the small business owner’s frustration and saves them time. It also provides them with choice in terms of price points.

We know that many small business owners who contact ProAdvisors are tire-kickers. Their first question is, “how much do you charge?” Not every small business owner is the right fit for every ProAdvisor. Not all small business owners can afford the services of the best of the best. Still, we’re heavily favoring Adv. Certified ProAdvisors with this feature, given the VERY SMALL percentage of Advanced Certified ProAdvisors relative to the total Certified population. We also have internal reasons for including non-Adv. Certs, and other Certified ProAdvisors, particularly newly Certified ProAdvisors. We want to help the newly Certified ProAdvisors understand the value of getting Advanced Certified, but we are not doing this to the detriment of Advanced Certs or other “more qualified” ProAdvisors. I can’t share the details of the algorithm specifically, and so without giving away our “secret sauce,” I can say with confidence that if the majority of small business owners went down the “Help Me Choose” path, Advanced Certified ProAdvisors and “regular” Non-Advanced Certified ProAdvisors would see a substantial bump in calls and emails from small business owners.”

As of yesterday, Ian Vacin,  who is the leader of the ProAdvisor Program, has answered our complaints about these changes in an open letter that he has posted on Michelle Long’s LinkedIn site, Successful QuickBooks Consultant’s, which is a fantastic tool for reaching out to other ProAdvisors.  It is a closed group, but I believe you can request to join it.  It is an excellent resource for all ProAdvisors and Michelle does a great job with it.

Bottom line, I  don’t like the “Help Me Choose” button because it looks like Intuit is endorsing selected ProAdvisors.  Additionally, from what I gathered (and I could be wrong on this), if you list higher on the regular first page of the site and someone connects with you, this will hurt you from showing in the “Help Me Choose” button spot.  I get 80% of my new business from the Find a ProAdvisor site, so I really need to be sure that I speak up, if there is something I don’t like about it.

I also feel that if enough of us complain about the changes, we may be able to get Intuit to tweak this button.  I cannot guarantee it, but don’t forget, as ProAdvisors we promote Intuit and their products.  We are important.   So I am going to post this blog on the LinkedIn site and on the Community forum.

I am interested in hearing from you.  I am using this to reach out to ProAdvisors that are unaware of the changes.  I am also interested in hearing from others who may like the changes too.  I want to have an open mind on this issue as well.

Feel free to post a comment or two.  Let me know what you think of this new site.  Also, when Intuit started the Advanced Certification, we attended classes and got to meet with other ProAdvisors.  It was such a great experience.  I was sad to see that change to the online test (although I understood the reasoning behind it was due to many people could not just drive over to where the classes were held). I am interested in seeing if we could create our own group that meets once a month, perhaps on a Meetup Group.   Please let me know if anyone is interested in doing this, after tax season, of course.  You can email me directly (if you want to keep it private) at lynda.artesani@gmail.com

Thanks for letting me vent.  Have a wonderful weekend!

I opened and closed the company (data) file and now there is no password to enter.

Again, I want to reiterate, I do NOT recommend removing the company password from the data file.  However, I do have a client or two that have requested this, so this is how you do it.

When I try to open a client’s accountant copy and upload to my computer, a message comes up on the screen stating that when the accountant’s copy was created it was encrypted with a password for security and requires you to enter that password.  My client did not assign any password when creating the accountant’s copy.   How can I find out what this password should be?

Well, you have to use an encrypted password to create an accountant’s copy.  It is part of the procedure.  See below:

So, how do you proceed?  Here are the steps I provide my client’s when sending me an accountant’s file:

1. Log in as Admin in the file and go to company>users and passwords>and create a new “external accountant” type user for me.  I give them a password that I want to use.
2. Then go to file>accountant’s copy>send file to accountant.  Use this password:  “Xxxxxx12345″, which is a password that I provide to the client for me to open the accountant’s file.  Remember, it has to be a strong password with one capital letter and numbers in it.

This way I will know both of my passwords.  The one to unlock the file from Intuit’s server and the user name and password to open the client’s file.  Creating your own user is an important step as it will show on the audit trail any changes you created as the ProAdvisor or accountant.

So why does this happen?  Well the user has their data file saved to the desktop.  The extra files occur when you backup that data file.  The desktop is NOT the place to save your company file.   It is better to either create a file folder called “data files” or “company files’ and move these files to that folder or save it to the default location Quickbooks selects which for the newer programs is in the Company files folder in the Intuit Folder which is in the Public Documents folder.

This would be the path:  C/users/Public/Public Documents/Intuit/Company files/ABC Company.qbw

Well, that is really helpful!  So I tried to find a solution on the help search engine for QuickBooks.  This is what their support page told me to do:

1. Make sure the latest release for QuickBooks version is installed.
2. Verify that there are no special characters in the company file name, or in the file path where the original file is saved. (If you find any, remove any apostrophe’s, ampersands (&), greater than (>), less than (<), etc. and that should resolve the issue.)
3. Create a Portable Company file.
4. 1. From the File Menu, select Save Copy or Backup.
   2. Click the radio button next to Create a Portable Company.
   3. Click Next.
   4. Select the Folder where you want to save the Portable Company file.
   5. Click Save.
   6. • If you get the message You may not have sufficient permissions to create a portable company file from this computer, copy the company file locally and create the Portable Company file.
      • Once this step is successful, create another Accountant’s Transfer file and convert
5. Troubleshoot company file for data damage

1. In Microsoft® Windows, right-click the Start button, and then select Explore.
2. Right-click on the company file folder, and then select Sharing and Security.
3. If Sharing and Security is not displayed, right-click on the company file folder and then select Properties and  the click on the Security tab.
4. If running Microsoft® Windows XP Home:
   a. Click on the Sharing tab.
   b. Since Microsoft® Windows XP Home does not allow you to add users, select the Allow users to change my files button.
5. If running Microsoft® Windows Vista: Right-click on the company file folder, and then select Share and then Add the users.
6. For a domain or peer-to-peer:
   a. Click on the Security tab.
   b. Select  the service related to your version of QuickBooks:

• Quickbooks 2006 or Enterprise 6.0: QBDataServiceUser
• QuickBooks 2007 or Enterprise 7.0: QBDataServiceUser17
• QuickBooks 2008 or Enterprise 8.0: QBDataServiceUser18
• QuickBooks 2009 or Enterprise 9.0: QBDataServiceUser19
• QuickBooks 2010 or Enterprise 10.0: QBDataServiceUser20
• QuickBooks 2011 or Enterprise 11.0: QBDataServiceUser21
• QuickBooks 2012 or Enterprise 12.0: QBDataServiceUser22
• Verify that the Full Control checkbox is selected.
•  Click the OK button.

For my client, making the portable file corrected the issue.   Hopefully, if you are reading this post, one of the above solutions from Intuit’s support page above will work for you.

Intuit did make it very easy to set up.  Especially if you use a gmail or yahoo email account.  If you do not, you need to know your mail server addresses or just sign up for a gmail or yahoo account for this purpose.

Here is how you set this up in QuickBooks:

That is really all you have to do to use your web mail account in QuickBooks.  Remember to set up the bcc to be your email as well since you will not have any way to know when the email was sent when you use your own web mail account.  Unfortunately, the history button that shows an email was sent only works with Intuit’s mail servers.  So in order to keep a record of what you sent and when you sent it, you need to bcc your own email.  That is done by simply clicking edit>preferences>send forms and add your email to the bcc line.

Have a wonderful week!

I personally use the find feature in write checks when trying to troubleshoot for clients for when they used bill/bill payment instead of vendor/pay sales tax and other times when someone has perhaps used write checks to pay a payroll liability instead of using the payroll functionality.  I also use find when searching for an invoice or a bill (if I get a duplicate warning).  It is a very powerful function in QuickBooks.

But what if you are searching for a deposit?  There is no “find” button at the top of the make deposit’s screen, like there is at the “write checks” level or at the invoice level.

Here is how you can search for other types of transactions:

That is really all you have to do to search.  There are other things you can search for under the advanced tab.  You can really filter it down, as well, to define the search.  Of course, if you are using the newer version of QuickBooks, it has a really wonderful search key right on the icon bar that is akin to the old “google” search feature of the older version of QuickBooks.  I will demonstrate that feature in an upcoming post.

That is really all there is to it.  As you can see from the report, the bank service charge has been reversed and the account balance is zero.

I really hope you all have a fabulous, happy, healthy, and prosperous 2012!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of my blog followers.   I hope you all had a successful 2011 and wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2012.

Check out my website www.artesanibookkeeping.com