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Establish a technology advisory committee. This step is a must. The committee’s job is to oversee the entire operation—from specifying the product to final implementation. The team should be recruited from each major company division or department so the needs of every part of the company are considered. The committee should include at a minimum, a senior manager who has authority to act, the CFO or the accounting department manager and a representative from the information technology (IT) department. Senior management in small to midsized businesses should include the principal owner. Only by including this individual will you get the critical buy-in. The team needs to develop an assessment based on your current systems, needs (including the feature comparison) and brainstorming the pain point analysis.

Identify the target software market for your size business. For simplicity purposes, there are only two profiles that should serve as a starting point. Are you entry level, defined with revenues of less than $5 million and up to 20 employees? About 5 million US Companies fit this profile. The next higher level is small to medium sized businesses, with sales of up to $100 million and no more than 100 employees. About 516,000 companies fit in this sector. The other two categories are Not-for-Profit and Enterprise Resource Planning, which covers companies with sales exceeding $500,000,000, which are being excluded for this analysis.

Intuit’s QuickBooks currently commands 85% of the market for small to medium sized businesses. These offerings include QuickBooks Online Advaced, Pro, Premier and Enterprise, as well as industry specific programs. If you are using a lower level platform, you should consider an upgrade to Enterprise. Insofar as the principal competition, Sage has Sage One, Sage 50, Sage 100, and Sage 300, in addition to payroll modules, fixed asset modules and industry specific software. These are pretty much comparable to the Intuit Offerings. But as the Intuit Market share shows, most people prefer Intuit. An internet search for top small business software will come back with quite a few options. Examples are QuickBooks Online, FreshBooks, Zero and Zoho.  Most of these are very inexpensive and generally useful for very small businesses in the lowest tier. These programs should be excluded unless you have a low number of users and no complex accounting issues and no inventory. These are traditionally companies just starting out, or companies, for example, in industries such as landscaping, hair salons, small Mom & Pop shops, etc.

Evaluate the current software insofar as “Are you current on your existing software licensing? Is an upgrade of the existing software feasible and cost effective?” Check your existing vendor to understand upgrade options. We would be happy to discuss your current Intuit Software with you, and the options you are considering if you don’t have a premier reseller working with you. Remember, QuickBooks Solution Providers work directly with you and Intuit to get you the best pricing and integration.

To make sure you capture everything important, use the cycle approach. The cycle approach relates all phases of a transaction from cradle to grave. The revenue cycle covers transactions from the initial sales order or estimate, through the sale and corresponding cost of sale, then follows it through to the cash collection. The basic cycle work flows are:

RevenueExpenditureInventoryPayrollFinancing activitiesEnd of Period (Bank Reconciliation and Recurring Entries)Reporting (Assess needs and customize Owner & Manager Reports)

Ask the managers of each division and department to prepare such analysis for their departments by cycle. It should include the things they do—from invoice preparation to inventory operations—and then from there, have them separate the list of tasks into mission-critical (there is an economic impact if the task is not done) and those that are not mission-critical (it would be nice if it got done, but it has no major impact on the business. The Feature Comparison documents the features of the Intuit Products for comparison purposes and can keep you moving in the right direction in your analysis.

Software purchase. At this point you can narrow down your choices to those programs that satisfy the greatest needs and best solve the pain points that you’ve identified. Request on-site demonstrations and get a quote for pricing. Don’t forget to include the cost of implementation in the budget. Factor in the staff time currently taken up by day to day operations and overtime necessary to encompass the normal day-to-day activities plus onboarding the new system. Realistically assess your staff’s technical expertise. If you need a demonstration and customized pricing for QuickBooks Enterprise, contact us. Training and Implementation. One thing to remember is accounting software isn’t just a plug and go. You have more work ahead of you. This is the not so easy part, implementation and training. And don’t forget that buy-in. Buy-in includes a commitment to training.

Training First. When you acquire QuickBooks Enterprise, part of the package, whether you get Silver, Gold or Platinum, is 24/7 support. But Intuit support only solves software issues. They don’t do accounting or training. What they provide is training videos on all aspects of the program. It is known as Everything Enterprise. And while the program is user-friendly, it is still somewhat complex. There should be one person who is the administrator; the Go To person for QuickBooks. It’s important that this primary user take all of the 13 hours of training. Twice. Once in the very beginning, then again, once they’ve worked with the program for a bit. The primary user (one with a finance or accounting background or at least responsibility) should assign modules to the remaining users based on their assigned roles and responsibilities.

Implementation. Let’s assume that you do choose QuickBooks Enterprise. We have two scenarios, one is called a stretcher the other a switcher. Intuit calls those users that are moving up from Pro/Premier/Online stretchers. Before you make the move, even if you are a stretcher, make sure your books are cleaned up. Retained earnings should agree to the prior year tax return, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable and Inventory should agree to the underlying detail and all bank accounts reconciled. Get rid of (inactivate) duplicate vendors, customers and items. Make sure your chart of accounts follows the uniform chart of accounts. Consider this to be housekeeping tasks that you never got around to fixing The second type of customer is one that Intuit refers to as switchers. When you are a switcher, your job in getting the information out of the old software and into the new software is much more time consuming and, again, should be budgeted as part of the software cost. Before you even open up your new software package (pretending it is still in a box, which it’s not), there are decisions you need to make. Once you have reviewed the Implementation Steps and Needs below, you may find it overwhelming. It is a truly comprehensive project. Many find they don’t have either the skills or the time to accomplish it. We can help. We have specialized training, software and proprietary import solutions to get the data into the new software. Furthermore we’ve worked with getting the information out of the old programs, including as a last resort, new ink in the dot matrix printer and pdf conversion. If we’ve done it before, great, if not, then it’s a new learning experience. If you decide to assume this project yourself, we recommend a detailed step-by-step checklist and frequent backups. Step 9) What is your desired start-up date in the new software? It is going to take days and perhaps even weeks to set up your company. You must also know the company’s fiscal year-end. In addition, you will need to consider the amount of information that you plan to bring into QuickBooks and its level of detail.

Here is a list of suggested information:

• Balance sheet and income statement as of now. If this is selected, you will need to merge the information from the new system and the old system to arrive at year-end and year-to-date reporting.• Balance sheet as of the beginning of the fiscal year and year-to-date activity as of the selected Go Live date. You don’t need month-by-month income statements and you don’t need prior year history.• Balance sheet as of the beginning of the fiscal year and activity for each month. You don’t need details. All detailed information must come from your prior system.• Balance sheet as of the beginning of the fiscal year and all transaction leading up to the Go Live Date.• Some combination thereof. For example, prior year balances plus customer history through sales receipts and all transactions for the current fiscal year.

Lists and additional information to bring into the new system and notes related thereto follow

List Items

• Chart of Accounts. The Chart of Accounts is sometimes referred to as the “Backbone” of accounting. It keeps everything organized and in the proper buckets. Further, if you are used to looking at the P&L first, you need to change that mindset. The hard and fast rule? If the balance sheet is correct the P&L falls out, i.e. the net income is right. You can start with your existing chart of accounts, but you may need to reformat it to conform it to the software specs. If you are not used to using a numbered chart of accounts, you need to start doing so now. QB uses a maximum of 7 digits and the classes are identified separate and distinct as classes. Further, you need to ensure the COA conforms to the Uniform Chart of Accounts. Because everything is alpha or numeric driven, the financial statement presentation will conform to normal standards if the Uniform COA is used. You cannot duplicate account names or numbers, but you may have sub accounts.

• Customer List. Names cannot be duplicated and you cannot have an accounts receivable customer who is also an accounts payable vendor. To resolve that issue, use * or another mechanism to separately identify them. Information that can be imported includes name and address information, bill to, ship to, terms, credit limit, contact information, sales tax code, price level, etc. For multiple ship to’s we can use a job-like work around. If you your needs analysis indicates additional fields are needed for certain reports, we have 12 custom fields that can be text or other formats, including drop-down multiple choice.

• Vendor List. Names cannot be duplicated and you cannot have an accounts payable vendor who is also an accounts receivable customer. To resolve that issue, use * or another mechanism to separately identify one or the other. Information that can be imported includes name and address information, contact information, federal ID number, Sales tax resale number, Eligible for 1099. Etc. If your needs analysis indicates additional fields are needed for certain reports, we have 12 custom fields that can be text or other formats, including drop-down multiple choice.
• Employee List. If you are subscribed under either the Gold or Platinum Level, you have access to Enhanced Payroll. Information that you can import into the new system includes personal information including Social Security Number, birth date, marital status, and citizenship documentation, Address and contact information, Payroll Information including pay rates and pay frequency, direct deposit information, withholding data, vacation information and workers’ compensation rates. Insofar as the pay history, there is currently no import solution for this information, but can be entered in either as paid or quarterly, both after the fact. You must also manually reconcile to issued payroll tax reports. There is a wizard built in to assist you in this task. If you have enough lead time, Intuit can enter in the payroll history for you. Full Service Payroll and Assisted Payroll is available.
• Items. If the Chart of Accounts is the Backbone of accounting, Items are the DNA. Items are generally the things your company buys and sells. When mapped properly, the items handle all of the behind the scenes activities. The simplest example is as follows: When you create an invoice, items tell the system to record the sale and the receivable, remove the product from inventory and record the cost of sale. There are 11 different types of items so they cannot all be covered here. A few deserve explanation though. Inventory items are those that you buy for the purpose of reselling, non-inventory are those you purchase but do not resell, for example a screw; Sell but do not purchase, or purchase and sell but do not inventory, for example drop ship. There are service items and other charge items for services rendered and shipping or warranty, respectively. Also important is the assembly item, which is a product you assemble from items either inventoried or non-inventoried. The assembly is in effect a bill or materials. And sales tax items, which assign the appropriate tax to the sale. There are others and you can see that this is a complex area. QuickBooks Enterprise can handle an unlimited number of items. Examples of item components that can be imported are item type, description, manufacturers’ part number, units of measure, cost, sales price, reorder point, preferred vendor, general ledger revenue account, cost of sales account and inventory account, along with markups, customized fields, serial numbers and warehouse sites. While not available for import, images and bar codes are available for the items in inventory. The physical inventory counts and values at a point in time are also available for import.
• Fixed Assets. A different type of item that can be imported is a fixed asset item. In order to properly track and record fixed assets, use fixed asset items as opposed to the general ledger codes and you can track sales and purchase information, warranty and serial numbers. When properly populated, enabling fixed asset manager will calculate and record depreciation for book, federal tax, state tax, AMT, ACE and calculates Section 179. By creating a Service Item linked to the fixed asset, you can track repair and maintenance costs to manage repair vs. replacement decisions. This is helpful if you have a fleet of trucks or machinery and equipment out on leases. • Other. The above is a relatively comprehensive list of the types of lists that can be brought in, but is not exclusive. You need to assess the list items applicable to your business needs to arrive at a full listing of all items necessary for your business. You need to make sure the information is there in the database for the reports and forms you need for your business.
 Transactions Accounting level detail. Once you have the lists completed, you then need to input or import the accounting at the level of detail you selected. • Trial balances. Trial balances can be either input as journal entries or imported as of the dates you select. If you have had to modify your original chart of accounts to conform to QuickBooks, there will be a separate step to map the old and new numbers. If it is a relatively small list you can use one entry, if longer, you might want to separate into Balance Sheet, and Income Statement or smaller components thereof. You will need to create three “holding” accounts. A/R Start Up, A/P Start Up and Suspense or Open Balance Equity. The A/R & A/P accounts are necessary because you can use only one name (customer or vendor) in a journal entry. Suspense or Open Balance Equity is your Clearing Account. You may choose to have several clearing accounts, just make sure they are zeroed out when you complete the historical account details process. • Listing of Open Accounts Receivable and Open Accounts Payable. Again, names cannot be duplicated and you cannot have an accounts receivable customer who is also an accounts payable vendor. If you want the beginning Accounts receivable aged, the invoice date and terms need to be provided. If there are a few customers or vendors you can input them as if they were original transactions. If you choose batch entry/import, clear the Start Up accounts through the actual receivable/payable account.