After backing up all of my data and downloading the beta, I burned the .iso file to a DVD and rebooted my computer to begin the installation.  It went incredibly smooth and only took about 15 minutes.  Windows 7 recognized all of my hardware automatically.  The only thing I had to fiddle around with was my audio settings so that sounds came out of the correct sound device.  So far, so good!

The first thing I did was install my copy of QuickBooks Premier 2009.  I was curious if there would be any hiccups or incompatabilities, but the install was perfectly normal.  I downloaded updates, restored my backup file and all is well.  I haven’t had a chance to really test out all of the features, but the basic functionality is all there.

I then installed Intuit DMS (Document Management System).  This time, I was greeted with a warning message that the DMS printer was not installed correctly and I wouldn’t be able to use that part of the program.  I searched online for a solution, but I couldn’t find anything about running DMS on Windows 7 (hey, it’s only been available for about a week!)

I went into the DMS printer preferences on one of my other computers and noted the path that was listed there for saving the PDF file.  On my new Windows 7 installation, the path was completely different.  I hunted around for the DMS Temp folder and pointed it there and, voila!  It worked!

So I now have QuickBooks 2009 and Intuit DMS running on my Windows 7 operating system.  I am enjoying the updated look of the OS since I’ve been using Windows XP for as long as I can remember.  It even seems to run a little bit faster than my 2-year old XP installation!

You can download the Windows 7 beta here.

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Well, it seems that Intuit is finally listening to it’s users as I just received an email notifying ProAdvisors of two upcoming updates.  Here’s a summary of what is including in the updates (copied and pasted from the email):

Update 1 (QuickBooks 2009 Release 4) provides the ability to:

• Quick Fill. You will be able to start typing entry information, such as payee and account names, and QuickBooks will recognize what you are typing and complete the information for you.
• Add New. You can quickly add new names, accounts, and classes within Online Banking by selecting Add New from the dropdown list.
• Manual Match. You will have the ability to view and select QuickBooks register entries to manually match the downloaded transaction.

Update 1 becomes available on Thursday, Dec. 11, as a download at www.quickbooks.com/support (click on the Updates & Downloads link along the top navigation bar).

Thursday, Dec. 18 as an auto-update if you and clients have automatic updates enabled.

Update 2 (QuickBooks 2009 Release 5):

By working overtime, our programmers were able to complete this first update and catch up with one more heavily requested change. Update 2 provides the ability to

• Review and Add Multiple Bank Transactions at Once. You will be able to easily review, edit, and save downloaded transactions in a batch.

Update 2 becomes available on Thursday, Dec. 18, both as a download from www.quickbooks.com/support and as an auto-update if you and clients have automatic updates enabled.

Intuit also released a YouTube video demonstrating some of these new features.

I think that these updates and the YouTube video are both a step in the right direction for Intuit.  I congratulate them for listening to their customers and providing updates and improvements.

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Navigating through the Intuit website isn’t all that intuitive, so I thought I would make this video showing you exactly how to buy QuickBooks on their website and download it to your computer (and make sure you get the best price too).  You’ll notice that I mention something about a “beginner’s section” in the beginning of the video.  Please just ignore that, I originally was going to structure the site differently and have different sections but I changed my mind after recording this.

Video Length:7:17

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Intuit is releasing QuickBooks 2009 tomorrow, September 29.  I should be receiving my ProAdvisor copy tomorrow since it was shipped late last week.  I will have some new videos up soon using the new version.

After reviewing the information available online, here is a brief summary of what’s new in QuickBooks 2009:

Client Data Review
This appears to be a collection of tools that will help you find errors in different accounts. It allows you to clean up A/R and A/P transactions such as when there are unapplied credits sitting in one of those accounts.  It also lets you work in payroll, undeposited funds and bank reconciliations.  This could be a useful feature for accountants who need to review and clean up their client’s QuickBooks files.

Multi-User
A built-in instant messenger is new this year, allowing users to communicate with each other from within the program.  You will be able to perform a back up of the data file while still in multi-user mode, which is a great feature.  In previous versions you had to switch to single-user, back up, then remember to switch back to multi-user mode.

Company Snapshot
This looks like another great new feature.  It gives you one screen packed with information such as an income and expense graph, customer balances and reminders.  Anything that makes it easier for small business owners to get a handle on their finances is a welcome addition.

Miscellaneous
Other improvements have been made in online banking and the downloading of transactions, the ability to handle multiple currencies, time tracker improvements, list management (now you can right-click to delete a list item – yes!), conversion tools to switch from other accounting programs to QuickBooks, better security and more.

All of these new things sound great, but with Intuit I am always a little skeptical about how well these features have been implemented.  Once I finally have QuickBooks 2009 installed and have had a chance to run it through its paces, I will give my honest review of it.

Click here if you want to check out the new features in QuickBooks 2009

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http://www.thejinglegenerator.com/

I guess it’s their attempt at being “cool” and are hoping for a viral video kind of thing, but I think it’s just kind of weird. The site has a retro, 80s type music producer guy offering to record a jingle for your business.  You choose the type of business that you have, then you can enter some text that gets converted to speech and inserted into the jingle (using 1980s voice synthesizer technology!).  Then you get to hear your customized jingle and can email it, download it or copy the URL.

As lame as I think this is, it’s still better than anything that Microsoft is doing to convince everyone that Windows Vista is cool!

Here’s the URL for the jingle that I put together (I apologize in advance for what you are about to experience):

http://www.thejinglegenerator.com/index_recip.php?id=http://content.thejinglegenerator.com/userdata/flv/d46a956ec4ad3d78610f73b1e67aedc1e98e47ee_1218330334.flv

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PLEASANTON, Calif., Aug. 7, 2008 — The Sleeter Group has announced that a trial version of QuickBooks software will be included with the publisher’s three QuickBooks textbooks. Students taking courses in QuickBooks are often required to pay hundreds of dollars for a fully functional version of the program. But for the first time, a 140-day student trial version of the world’s most popular small business software will be included free to students using textbooks from The Sleeter Group, a respected publisher of QuickBooks resources.

The special trial version will enable students at technical schools, community colleges and other educational centers to have complete access to all of the features of QuickBooks during a quarter or semester-long class. Instructors generally select the course materials, then either pre-purchase them for the students or require students to obtain them separately.

“When instructors and schools can offer students a free version of QuickBooks that lasts as long as their course does, it helps both students and the schools achieve success in their training missions,” said Doug Sleeter, president of The Sleeter Group. “Students don’t have to worry about purchasing the system, but still are able to learn and engage the program with full functionality, instead of using a version with limited features.”

The Sleeter Group offers textbooks and resources for instructors and students, ranging from the beginner-level Fundamentals textbook, to Intermediate and Complete books. The materials, along with in-class guidance by instructors, help students establish essential skills in small business bookkeeping, making them better prepared for the workforce.

The QuickBooks Fundamentals course textbook ($79.95) is designed for users who may be computer novices, providing an introduction to basic program operations, including file setup, reports, sales, AP, AR and reconciliation functions. The QuickBooks Intermediate textbook ($79.95) covers more detailed tasks, including inventory, payroll, budgeting, forecasting, business planning, sales tax and period-end procedures. The Complete course book ($99.95) includes material from both the Fundamentals and Intermediate textbooks. All include hands-on, step-by-step exercises, review questions and a final summary problem. The 140-day student version of QuickBooks is included free in all 2008 QuickBooks textbooks, available at http://www.Sleeter.com.

The Sleeter Group also includes a variety of resources for instructors, including manuals, PowerPoint presentations and test banks that instructors can access online. Quantity discounts are also offered.

The Sleeter Group (http://www.Sleeter.com) is a community of experts who provide consulting services to small business owners in the accounting software and business process design areas. The group provides QuickBooks training resources to users and consultants, including textbooks, reference books, expert-level webinars, an annual Accounting Software Consulting Conference, a consultant membership network, practice management tools, teaching systems, expert-level technical support and a free online newsletter. Through a network of over 650 independent consultants and small- to medium-sized accounting firms, The Sleeter Group currently serves over 250,000 small businesses each year with QuickBooks and other small business accounting consulting services.

Contact:

Sherrill Sleeter
http://www.sleeter.com
888-484-5484

 http://www.Sleeter.com

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Bank reconciliations used to be difficult and confusing when we had to do them on paper, but doing them in QuickBooks is super easy.  You’ll see everything in the QuickBooks training video below, but all you have to do is type in the statement ending date, the statement ending balance and then click on each item that you see on the bank statement.  It’s literally that easy!

But there are still people who struggle with it each and every month and they always need help getting their accounts reconciled.  If you’re struggling with your bank reconciliation it usually means that you haven’t done a good job recording transactions in the first place.  You want to do everything you can to make your transactions in QuickBooks mirror how they are going to show up on the bank statement.  If you keep that goal in mind, everything will work out to be much cleaner and more accurate.

Some of the things that often lead to troublesome bank reconciliations are:

• improper use of undeposited funds (or not using it at all)
• data entry errors (recording transactions for the wrong amount or entering the wrong date)
• merchant account fees being deducted from each sale
• bounced checks
• messing with (or even deleting!) transactions that have already been reconciled in the past

Each of these topics will eventually be covered in their own QuickBooks training video, since there’s a lot to say about each one.

Damn! I switched to a different Wordpress theme and it doesn’t have the same column widths as the one I was using, so the videos don’t fit neatly into the left column. Not the worst thing in the world, but it’s something I need to fix. Looks like I get to play around with some more CSS! At least I got the volume at a decent level this time!

edit (7/24/08): I decided to have the videos open in a new window so I can have them be a larger size.  I think in the future they will be 800×600 so you can really see what I’m doing with even more clarity.  I have changed this video so it will open in a new window.

Video Length:14:42

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In QuickBooks, you uses “classes” to provide a breakdown of income and expenses by location, department, property, or any other criteria that is meaningful in your particular business. You assign a class to each transaction. This allows you to report on each class separately. The built-in “Profit & Loss By Class” report is great as it shows one column for each class, then the grand total. Class is also available as a filter so you can modify other reports to only show transactions from certain classes.

Here’s a quick video tutorial I just put together to demonstrate how to use classes in QuickBooks. I kind of messed up recording the audio so I had to go back and render the whole video over again, which made a pretty large file for some reason. I didn’t go back to fix it so please be patient if it takes a while to load – I promise I’ll do better next time!

Video Length:7:07

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