We currently use QuickBooks as our accounting package and keep track of each of our customers individually. This creates a lot of duplicate effort though, because we also use phpManager to also keep track of customers and send welcome and billing emails.

Since most of our customers pay by recurring credit card, it is somewhat tedious to add and manage accounts in phpManager and then keep track of individual accounts within Quickbooks to keep accounting straight so we are considering tracking sales in a "cash sales" format (i.e. daily sales)

What do the rest of you do to manage this workload. I expect at some point it will become inefficient to manage it this way.

Used to use quickbooks here to, it just wasnt a viable solution.

Switched everything over to modernbill.

Kind of an extension to the first question, but I would also love some feedback on how other hosts reconcile their accounts when using a third party CC company such as 2checkout.com.

As an example... Client signs up and pays $100.00 via credit card. Within Quickbooks you enter a 100 sale. Then at some point in the month 2Checkout credits your account with (to make the numbers easy) $95.00. Logically, you would want to show the $5.00 as a business expense, but how do you reconcile your bank account at the end of the month since you have a $100.00 sale, and a $95.00 deposit.

Right now, we just check everything that we know is true, and make separate entries for 2checkout's cut, which makes everything ok from a balancing perspective, but it doesn't make things match up from a bank statement perspective.

Thanks again,

Originally posted by be-hosted
As an example... Client signs up and pays $100.00 via credit card. Within Quickbooks you enter a 100 sale. Then at some point in the month 2Checkout credits your account with (to make the numbers easy) $95.00. Logically, you would want to show the $5.00 as a business expense, but how do you reconcile your bank account at the end of the month since you have a $100.00 sale, and a $95.00 deposit.
You record it in your bank register just like that:

- Credit: $100.00 Sale (this will probably link to your customer's account in quickbooks if you have one, so make sure it's $100 and not $95).
- Debit: $5.00 Transaction Cost/Fee

The end result is $95.00 in your bank register. Give the transaction fee a category (like Transaction Fee :)) and at the end of the month/year you'll know how much of your expenses went to transaction fees.

Thanks for the information. So here is an example of how we currently do this.

1. Enter new client into the system, and create an initial invoice. Memorize the transaction and schedule it to automatically occur (monthly, quarterly or yearly)

2. "Receive Payment" and lump the payment with other "undeposited funds"

3. Go to deposit funds. Click on all the items that would have been included in 2Checkout's deposit for that period, and enter an additonal line item payable to 2Checkout against the "Credit Card Processing" expense account, and enter a negative number. (This part is my least favorite because I don't know of an easy way to tell within 2Checkout, which clients got included in the most recent deposit. I have to guess based on the projected recurring charge date. I also have to break out the calculator to determine exactly what 2Checkout was paid for the transactions)

4. Reconcile Checking account monthly.

All in all this seems to work. My expense account for Credit Card Processing is growing, and the deposits in the Checking Account Register match what is on my bank statements... but it just seems like an awful lot of work, so I figured I would ask if anyone else had a better way.

I use MYOB, they are great as far as I am concerned.

http://www.myob.com

They even have a payment gateway that emails you a daily file to import the records direcly into your books.

I haven't tryied this yet as I have just set up with Authorize.net to integrate with Ubersmith because I want the ability for the client to view their invoice online. Though, I still think about the MYOB gateway regulary.

Be-hosted,

We have used Quickbooks for many years. The software misses many obvious opportunities to make our lives easier, as you've noticed. The biggest problem we have experienced is the inevitable leap from invoices to billing statements -- the obvious choice for businesses who bill monthly (ie. utilities) and wish to show a "Balance Forward" and new charges as a telephone bill does.

If your customers maintain multiple sites, you may also use Jobs, as we do. This becomes VERY helpful when your customer wants a statement grouped by website account, for whatever reason. Do this by hand for a customer with a dozen accounts just once and you'll know why this extra effort is worthwhile.

To answer your questions, we have overcome Quickbooks' limitations by writing a web front-end and exporting the transactions to QuickBooks every month. This way, we can write scripts to do ANYTHING needed, overcoming QB's limitations and automating the hell out of everything. Every recurring function of our business has been scripted into a robot that writes data for exporting to Quickbooks. Once imported into Quickbooks, we have the benefits of reporting and any post-sale refunds, etc., that must be handled manually. Writing the import/export scripts is a nightmare, but has been worthwhile.

For credit cards, you should create separate bank accounts for VISA/MC/Discover and another for AMEX. When payments are received, select the relevant "Deposit to..." account. [Afterall, that's where the money went -- NOT straight to your bank account.] When statements arrive from VISA/MC/Disc or AMEX, reconcile, moving funds to your bank account and apply service fees for the month. This is a LOT of extra work that could be made easier, but again Quickbooks fails.

Quickbooks is so close to being a truly useful product, but then each month, we find reasons to scream at it.

Circa3000 - I would be VERY interested in those scripts if you are at all interested in sharing! :)

Thanks!

Circa3000,

What docs, if any did u use to program the export tool for quickbooks?

In Quickbooks 2002 Pro, there's a "Reference Guide to Import Files" in the Help Index. Start here, though you'll soon find that it's insufficient.

The Quickbooks Knowledge Base contains "Sample IIF Files for Individual Transactions" here, at http://www.quickbooks.com/support/faqs/docs/w_iiffiles2.html . This is perhaps the single best reference available, though lacking in explanation.

A real nuisance, Quickbooks does NOT allow you to export transactions, making it very difficult to learn by example for those complex transactions you wish to create scripts for. You'll end up doing a LOT of trial-and-error to see what works.

I would also recommend the Quickbooks Forums, except that they are pretty much useless. I have posted dozens of questions and complaints only to receive brainless responses from morons who don't read the question all the way through. [I suspect they are employed by Intuit, posing as enthusiastic, satisifed customers (with nothing but time on their hands and unconditional love for good ol' Quickbooks.] If my hunch is right, the forums are less a support channel and more a platform for propoganda.

But, I digress. [Speaking of folks with time on their hands....]

I hope this helps.

We use Optigold for billing then export to Quickbooks for accounting. Seems to work pretty good that way.

I have struggled with the QB/Credit Card reconciliation battle since I got my merchant account too.

I finally decided it was not worth the headaches of worrying about tracking it to the penny during the month. At reconciliation, all I do is mark cleared the deposits that also show on the merchant statement and in my PayPal statement. At the end of the reconciliation, I am always off by an amount that is the total of the merchant fees. Then I just make an adjustment to my QB balance and file that to a "merchant fees" account.

QB balance is now correct and I still have all my hair (well most of it.)

I know it's not scientific but it works for me. I know about what my total monthly merchant fees sould be, so as long as the difference in the reconciliation is close to that amount, it's ok. If I'm off very much from the norm, I go looking for other mistakes.

Regards,
SonServer