Quickbooks in the home inspection industry

[Patrick J. Cloninger]

I am hoping some of you with the Quickbooks software can help me out a little.

I bought Quickbooks Pro a little while ago and I am trying to start using it, but could use a little help. I know the basics of it but I have heard over and over that you can customize it to fit the home inspection industry. If there is anyone out there who uses Quickbooks and can give me a little guidance as to how to make it work for this industry it would be more than helpful. I am really just looking for some good tips and tricks from some of you who know the software. Thanks a lot.

[Michael R. Boyett]

Patrick, I have used QuickBooks Pro for a couple of years now. I am not aware of any customization that one can do to make it fit the home inspection industry though. I am anxious to see if anyone has any ideas on this.

[Claude Lawrenson]

Quickbooks is an awesome program, that has served me well for the past 7 years. Michael is right - I consulted with my accountant and he helped me set up the books that seems to best fit my business. In addition I also use another tax filing program called ProFile by Intuit. It nicely meshes with my (Canadian) tax returns using a GIFI interface. (General Index of Financial Information).

Also their website offers a number of online forums that can help the novice or even seasoned user on other points.

http://forums.quickbooksusers.com/

http://www.intuit.com/community/

[Patrick J. Cloninger]

I am sure there is no way to make it specifically for the home inspection industry, but I guess what I am looking for is a way to make it work efficiently with our business.

One question I have is how different users put their customer information in. Example-There is no where to put the clients current address and the address of the inspection. Also I don't think there is anyway to upload their reports to their specific file.

I am sure I can think of a lot more questions, but I just started using it. If anyone has any advice or can remember problems they had when they first started I would love hear them.

One more thing, do any of you use quickbooks to write checks?

[Fred Duemig]

Originally Posted by pcloninger

I am sure there is no way to make it specifically for the home inspection industry, but I guess what I am looking for is a way to make it work efficiently with our business.

One question I have is how different users put their customer information in. Example-There is no where to put the clients current address and the address of the inspection.

You can add a field to the template. I added property address fields and both the mailing address and property address print on the invoice.

Fred

[Larry J. Brown]

I bought the Quickbooks Pro. and after a couple of months I gave up. It was too smart for me. I need a simple system for one person if anyone knows of one. Thanks Larry Brown

[Patrick J. Cloninger]

Fred, this may be hard for you to explain, but how did you add the field and get it to print on the invoice? That is exactly what I am looking to do. Also, do know of anyway to upload files to the customers account? Thanks for the reply.

[Fred Duemig]

Originally Posted by pcloninger

Fred, this may be hard for you to explain, but how did you add the field and get it to print on the invoice? That is exactly what I am looking to do. Also, do know of anyway to upload files to the customers account? Thanks for the reply.

Patrick,

You can also add your logo to the invoice. I will look when I get back to my office and send you something.

Fred

[Patrick J. Cloninger]

I really appreciate it Fred. Thanks a lot for your help.

[Fred Duemig]

Patrick,

Youve got mail.

Fred

[Patrick J. Cloninger]

Thanks Fred.

[Michael R. Boyett]

Patrick, did Fred's email explain the adding of the fields sufficiently for you? If not I can also show you how to do that. I'm not sure about the attaching of other files though, I'll look into that.

[Fred Duemig]

Michael,

I sent him my template file which is modified. He can change the logo and company information to make it his own. I am certainly not a Quickbooks expert, it took me a long time to figure out how to do it, so sending the template is easier than explaining.

Fred

[Kevin A. Richardson]

I started my business using QuickBooks, but switched over to Quicken Home and Business 2007 just a few weeks ago.

QuickBooks does the job just fine, but I want a solution that combined personal and business finances in one package. With Quicken you get a glance at both personal and business finances all in one inetrface and on one page. It keeps all business and personal accounts seperate.

I will not go back!

Here is the 2008 version:

http://quicken.intuit.com/small-busi...business.jhtml

-Kevin

[Michael R. Boyett]

Patrick...after talking to you the other day I decided to look around again for some Customer Mgmt s/w that was reasonable. I had forgotten that QuickBooks actually has a stand-alone program that interfaces nicely with QuickBooks and Outlook. I downloaded a 30 day trial version of it from the Intuit website and have been playing with it some and really like what I see so far. It can import your QuickBooks data (clients & more) and your Outlook data and even other data in CSV form. The program says it is a Customer Mgmt tool but it's more than that, it's really also low end Project Mgmt tool that I can really use. Like setting appointments, to-do's, linking .pdf files (my reports), etc. So far, I like it a lot! It's only $79 if I decide to buy it and I probably will. There's a free trial offer a try at http://quickbooks.intuit.com/product/add-ons/small-business-management-software.jhtml .