QB Question

[iAssist Virtual Solutions]

I have no experience with QB and I am setting it up to run my business. I confused by a couple of things. How do you deal with recording/invoicing foreign currency (i.e. CAD)? I'm also reading about keeping a manual revenue & expense journal which would then be transferred to the monthly P&L statement....is there a need to keep this manually if I record all expenses, income etc. on a weekly basis in QB? My business is still new so I'd like to set it up correctly from the beginning. Any help would be much appreciated.

[christinenc]

Hi Amanda,

Will all of your transactions be in CAD? If you are using QB for your business then there is no reason to keep manual records. All of the transactions that you enter into QB will automatically flow into the P&L as they're made.

Christine

[iAssist Virtual Solutions]

Hi Christine,

No, my transactions will be in USD. That's what I thought re: keeping manual records. Thank you!

[bluewaterbusiness]

What version of QB are you using? Are you planning ahead for possible foreign transactions? If so, to simplify things you can require payment in US$. That way you invoice in US$ and are paid in US$ so there is no accounting for exchange rates.

[christinenc]

Amanda,

Angie is correct; if you only accept payment in USD, then you don't need to worry about exchange rates. The only time it would be an issue is if you need to pay someone in something other than USD; which is highly doubtful. I have a client that pays out in USD as well as Euros, so I work with foreign transactions regularly.

Also, if you should ever need to work with multi-currencies, the US version of QB 2009 has that function.

Christine

[Office Goddess]

I have no experience with QB and I am setting it up to run my business.

The setup wizard will help you to do a basic setup from the get-go. HOWEVER - I highly recommend having a CPA check your setup BEFORE you start doing data entry. It shouldn't take more than 15 minutes with a CPA but can save you an incredible amount of grief (and time/money) come tax time.

I have been paid big bucks by clients who set up their QuickBooks (or had an employee set it up) improperly and then had to have the whole thing fixed. In fact, when I started at my 9-5 at the end of February (over 4 years ago) I spent the first 8 months of my employment FIXING the QB setup and the prior year's financial data entry the previous 'bookkeeper' had done in order for the CPA to be able to file the taxes (6 months late with time extensions) (AND doing the current data entry at the same time). Very frustrating for everyone, and VERY EXPENSIVE working with the CPA to fix the mess!