Today I completed the certification course to become a Quickbooks ProAdvisor for Quickbooks 2009. The online course was fairly instructive, somewhat tedious, but certainly helped me to learn more about the functionality of the different Quickbooks software packages out there.I discovered that some of the bad things that I heard about Quickbooks are not true (at least if you use Pro or higher). An example is the ability to make what's called a "general journal entry".
In the world of bookeeping, every financial event is recorded using a system of debits and credits. Debits and credits must always be equal (this has nothing to do with profitabilty or viability, it's the only way the system can function). Each transaction may affect multiple accounts, but the total debits must equal the total credits for each transaction. The easiest way for a trained bookkeeper to enter a transaction is by making an entry in the company's general journal. For instance, if I were to write a check to pay my gas bill, I could enter it as follows:
Utilities Expense 100
Cash 100
The first (unindented line) is the debit, the second line is the credit. This system is great when you know it, and it can be much faster than using an entry screen that mimics a "source document" - i.e. purchase order, invoice, check - a piece of paper that has record of a financial event.
I was told that in Quickbooks you could only enter transactions from source documents (easiest for non-accountants, since the software makes the corresponding entry for you). This makes changing a particualr transaction difficult. Well, I was misinformed. Quickbooks Pro or higher allows for journal entries, and I've gotten to prepare a few year-end adjustments for some clients using this system.
I have to say, Quickbooks and Peachtree (the other leading bookkeeping software) are both good in my eyes, and serve small businesses quite well. Still, Quickbooks is far more prevalent, and I'm glad to know it better and have the chance to certify in it.
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