WSW - Accessing your Clients in QuickBooks
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[00:00:00]
Introduction and Greetings
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Dan DeLong: Welcome everybody again to another Workshop Wednesday, which is all about casual conversations for serious workflows brought to you by school bookkeeping.com, where it allows you to learn QuickBooks your way. Hi, Rachel, how are you?
Rachel Dauchy: I'm good. How are you?
Dan DeLong: Fantastic. You are, this is a new vantage point for for Rachel.
She had some, camera issues, so she. Pivoted. And I like this angle.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah. That's what happens when my daughter uses my computer.
Introducing the Guest Speaker: Allison from Q Box
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Dan DeLong: And we have a guest joining us today Allison from coral Tree. You wanna, or Q Box? You wanna talk? Introduce yourselves for those.
Alison Garcia: Yeah, of course. I am the head of customer success at Q Box.
We've been around since 2012 helping share QuickBooks Desktop files.
Dan DeLong: Excellent. And [00:01:00] so we're gonna be talking about five ways I. Accountants and bookkeepers can use, desktop and co collaborate with their clients. So I, definitely wanted to have Allison join us to talk about Q Box, which is one of those five ways.
So now now Rachel. Pay attention.
Rachel Dauchy: I'm trying to put my phone on my gosh. I do the way Noah said too, and it's not working. Noah
say it did.
Dan DeLong: All right. What was I gonna say?
QuickBooks Online vs Desktop
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Dan DeLong: Oh now Rachel you are solely. QuickBooks online, right? That you do not use desktop QuickBooks at, at, all, correct?
Rachel Dauchy: I used to, and that's how I originally learned it. But no, I just just do cloud-based now.
Dan DeLong: All right. So in, in that regard collaborating with your clients in QuickBooks Online [00:02:00] is.
Easy, and I'm using air quotes there for those that listening to the podcast, because once you get that accountant invitation, as long as you have an active internet connection, you're in their QuickBooks. And that's one of those, one of the niceties about cloud accounting is that. You don't have all of these environmental and windows based challenges with your with your setup and those types of things.
We'll, talk a little bit about that.
Intuit's Policy Reversal on Tags
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Dan DeLong: But before we get into that, I have a couple announcements that I wanted to talk about. So we did a workshop, oh, probably about three or four weeks ago, about. Tags, right? And we talked significantly about tags being going away and what you have to do to migrate your tags to custom fields.
And you have to do that by the middle of this month. And wouldn't you know it. [00:03:00] Intuit changed their stance on tags,
Rachel Dauchy: oh boy.
Dan DeLong: So we have to roll back all the things that we said about,
Rachel Dauchy: so read only for the next three years. 'cause I was gonna set an alert at my daughter's high school graduation that would be the last time that I'd be able to access them.
Dan DeLong: So basically based and this is, this is a testament to intuit listening to feedback, right? Because as as they may or may not have been aware of the people that we're using this feature I. They heard from 'em after they announced that the tags are going away, right?
And they really didn't make it in such make the transition in such a way that they were usable to the same extent as what they were being used for inside of QuickBooks online. [00:04:00] In with, in light of all of that, Intuit decided not to make them read only. Basically, nothing's changing with regards to tags.
As of today, who knows what happens tomorrow, right? But as of today, that deadline of the middle of the month where tags will go to read only is not happening. And, the changes that they made with all of the flavors, the lower flavors of QuickBooks Essentials, triple Start. And plus having that new dropdown custom field still remains, so you actually got something out of, into it. Through this whole debacle of the, that you do have that dropdown functionality as a custom field inside of all versions of QuickBooks for however many custom fields that you actually have in whatever flavor that you're on. So [00:05:00] that's the update there.
I don't know if we should just hide our video that we did or just make Yeah. To that workshop. Thank God I didn't write a blog about it.
Rachel Dauchy: How many people maybe reached out to them, or if maybe it was a couple that were heavy users or maybe they got. A lot of inquiry about it from a lot of folks.
I don't know. I'm really curious to know.
Dan DeLong: When I worked there i, wouldn't, I, mean I wouldn't know about this particular circumstance, but this is not abnormal for Intuit to make, to change a policy and then change their mind based on feedback.
Rachel Dauchy: Okay. That's good.
Dan DeLong: They, did something with the accountants copy transfer service, which we'll talk about here in a moment.
Where they were gonna charge accountants and ProAdvisors per year. And they made that change. And I. Me being the frontline employee [00:06:00] that I was, heard all about it.
Rachel Dauchy: Oh, yeah.
Dan DeLong: That this was not the right thing to do and that sort of thing, but they did change their mind and change that policy.
And so I got to deliver message,
Rachel Dauchy: ask for that's know.
Dan DeLong: Yeah,
It's a large company and they have a lot of customers and they have a lot of initiatives and they have a lot of feedback to to sort through. Yeah, this is one of those things where someone made a deci a decision to make, to change something.
It wasn't completely end-to-end, seamless. You outreach. Yeah. Wasn't a seamless transition. And people, let their voices be heard, and lo and behold. It was heard, right? Yeah. So kudos to Intuit for doing that and shame on them for doing it in the first place.[00:07:00]
Rachel Dauchy: Well, I.
Trying to be more efficient and maybe do a time or a money saving thing. And
Dan DeLong: yeah it, was a very lowly, lowly, it was a very, it wasn't a, it wasn't a very broadly used feature. And to that, in that regard spending time developing and maintaining and doing those things, is, a challenge and a cost.
And when and, it, in the grand scheme of things, it does smell like dimensions which is. Like an Intuit Enterprise Suite feature. Which, so having tags inside of your simple start that kind of does the same thing that dimensions does in a $20,000 software or whatever the price is, because we can never get a straight answer from Intuit to find out [00:08:00] what the cost of it.
Into an enterprise suite is, but, that kind of thing seemed very sim similar and it would be difficult to sell that if it already existed in a Yeah. In a different. Different manner. So that's that's the news and updates there with regards to the tags.
Upcoming Premier Cohort Announcement
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Dan DeLong: we also wanted to make sure that people are aware of our premier cohort, which was gonna be happening in July. Where we're gonna be talking with Ted. McCray from Maker's Hub. He's a certified prompt specialist. I'm
Rachel Dauchy: trying to, yeah, the AI guy.
Dan DeLong: I am trying to make his official title Ologist.
Oh yeah.
Intro: Yeah.
Dan DeLong: And he, might get some latex gloves out of the outta the deal here.
But he is a certified prompt [00:09:00] specialist. And we are gonna be doing a four week cohort at school Bookkeeping where we'll talk about AI tools and functions and how to create a prompt library for your practice. Oh, that's so
Rachel Dauchy: cool. And I'm already using some things that he suggested that I started doing.
It's awesome.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. Here's a co series. Here's a QR code for that. If you wanna check that out. Now let's move into the meat and potatoes of what we were gonna be talking about here today. And let me quickly share my screen. There are some, yeah, I'm really excited
Rachel Dauchy: because I don't really know a lot about how this works.
Yeah. And and I know some of these tools are really, they make it really simple.
Dan DeLong: Yeah.
Challenges with QuickBooks Desktop Collaboration
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Dan DeLong: So the, big dilemma here is, when you're working with desktop clients there is a file at play here, right? [00:10:00] Unlike QuickBooks Online where everything's stored up in the cloud, there's nothing to save backup store or install QuickBooks desktop functions.
In, a manner that you've got a program, QuickBooks and a file, a company file stored somewhere. And, if you are, if you're, in a multi-user environment where you have multiple people in your computer or in your in your business and you want all of them to work in the same file, they have to be networked together.
And there's a, there's an environment type of thing that, that you need to establish ahead of time in order for that to happen. Now here comes an outside employee or an outside person to help with the QuickBooks data entry or whatever your, manner of engagement is with with [00:11:00] accountants and bookkeepers and your clients, you need access to that file in order to view or change things and make those changes.
So having that file. And, accessing that file is paramount, right? Because when a file is copied and put somewhere else and modified separately now you have two separate files that, each other, right? So that. It gets quite maddening to manage all of those things, especially if one person on one of the workstations is in a separate file than everybody else and they've done all this work and now they can't synchronize their changes.
Because merging data is not something that QuickBooks. It does very well. You, you don't necessarily want, there are [00:12:00] utilities out there that, that allow you to do that, but that's a, headache in and of itself. So we wanted to talk about the, different ways that accountants and bookkeepers can support their clients using QuickBooks Desktop.
Because despite what the Intuit marketing says there, they still sell QuickBooks Desktop. QuickBooks Desktop. It's still a significant amount. Allison, do you know, like the, breakdown of, QuickBooks desktop versus online?
Alison Garcia: We look every year, but I don't know the number off the top of my head.
Rachel Dauchy: It's not even probably people that are acquiring it now, it's just people that had, that are still using what they previously bought. They can still use it.
Alison Garcia: Yeah.
Rachel Dauchy: For quite some time. And what I was gonna say is the alternative to what you're gonna talk about, Allison would be.
This is what I thought when I came back to [00:13:00] accounting. I thought, oh, I'll just go into my client's office and I'll that's what I'll do. 'cause I knew some people that did that. Working in accounting previously. And so I thought that would be my only alternative. But this is before I even understood about QuickBooks Online or what you're gonna talk about with remote hosting.
So that would be the way that you would go in and access their QuickBooks. And so this, I just wanted to point that out because. That really, that with the nature of this desktop software, you'd have to physically go there and be in their QuickBooks. Yeah.
Dan DeLong: And that, was the old days, right?
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah
Dan DeLong: Putting on the mileage, going into the client's location.
Sitting at a designed works workstation for the accountant to come in on a, routine basis, whether it was once a week or once every other week or however frequently. But [00:14:00] with, remote access and being able to virtually be there. These other options have, really taken the forefront.
Allison, would you agree that the, that's how things have evolved as I'm sure 2020 and Covid probably accelerated, this need, right?
Alison Garcia: Absolutely, a hundred percent. And we hear it all the time. And CO. Really did amplify it, right? COVID, we saw everybody going remote, having to share a company file.
And for the small businesses the people who can't afford a hosting solution or maybe they don't need multi-user access, Q Box is a great alternative for that.
Dan DeLong: All right, and we're gonna save all that, for the end here. So let's so let's talk about, accountant Edition. So Accountant [00:15:00] Edition is one of the ways that you can access, your, client's company files concurrently.
With as, an accountant, and we had we, had done a workshop a while ago about the accountants copy transfer service and I'll, mention that's one of the options down here. But Accountant Edition allows you to have the accountant center, the client data review. These are functions that are gonna be built into into QuickBooks Desktop that aren't in.
QuickBooks Pro or Premier and in some, manner of of, enterprise. So you've got these batch entry of transactions, there's industry specific reports, so you have that as a as an addition sort. EE ed edition, not addition.
Rachel Dauchy: Oh, that's cool. So you can, upload, or [00:16:00] I don't, know if uploads the right word but, access their customer file, but in the surrounding of your accountant edition, so you can perform some of those.
Dan DeLong: So this in this example is they're sending you the file, right? Whether it be a backup or portable file, you're restoring it and you're able to use these functionalities.
Rachel Dauchy: You're able to open it in your account, right?
Dan DeLong: When that's the case, right? Whether you're using Q Box or however you're getting that file back and forth, while you're working in the file, they shouldn't be.
Because now you've got some challenges with multiple files, right? Because they've sent you the file. They are, they could potentially. Have a problem and continue to work in the file while you're doing something in your accountant edition independently, because you've got essentially two QuickBooks [00:17:00] files at two separate locations and they're not talking to each other.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah.
Dan DeLong: So when you do something inside of the Accountant Edition with all these cool tools of the account client data review, or these batch transactions, now you've got. You've gotta make sure, or at least set the expectation, don't work in the file while I have it. So that lends to, okay, how do we alleviate this challenge of two separate files, right?
So using some kind of remote access service like LogMeIn or go to my pc team viewer, those types of things. That is essentially taking out the drive time of what we were talking about before of okay, there's a dedicated computer that you're able to access, but you're just accessing it as if you were sitting in front of the, that computer.
Through the internet. [00:18:00] You have to have that established and set up and those types of things. And that computer is essentially unusable at that point. Because it's as if you're sitting in front of the computer just using the internet in order to control the mouse and. And, those keyboards.
And it does one,
Rachel Dauchy: require a certain level of it knowhow
Dan DeLong: Yeah.
Rachel Dauchy: On their end. Yeah.
Challenges with Remote Access
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Dan DeLong: and, that's the biggest drawback is that, establishing all of that stuff first.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah.
Dan DeLong: And in getting that situated sometimes, depending on the service, it could be, attended mode or unattended mode, right?
Where you're able just to log in as if, as long as that computer's connected, you can connect to it. But other times like Zoom or something like that, right? You have to have somebody on the other [00:19:00] end pick up the phone to make sure that. That computer is accessible and open.
The computer's locked. Oh, no. You can't get, you can't get into the computer. I'm gonna skip over Q box for a second, Alison.
Accountant's Copy Transfer Service
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Dan DeLong: and I'll jump down to the accountant's copy transfer service. This is one of those things that is unique to the Accountant Edition, in that. E the client creates what's called a dividing date.
And this is, the answer. This is a QuickBooks file answer to be able to access two separate files concurrently and merge those changes back together.
Rachel Dauchy: Got it.
Dan DeLong: So client creates a file. They, choose this thing called a dividing date, and in. In, essence, anything prior to that date, the accountant can touch and everything after that date, [00:20:00] the client can touch.
So as long as those transactions don't cross that dividing date. It's a, border. Okay. So it's
Rachel Dauchy: getting better, like we're improving.
Dan DeLong: This allows,
Rachel Dauchy: but it's getting better.
Dan DeLong: Yes. This allows for two separate files. Two locations. To be able to the, for the accountant to make the changes.
And typically Rachel, I'm sure you would agree, typically the accountant is looking at historical transactions. So they're not necessarily dealing with the day-to-day entry of sales and, those types of things. So normally that dividing date is just fine.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah.
Dan DeLong: It you're reconciling bank accounts, transactions that are dated prior to that date.
Anyway, and then the goal is that there's a file that's then sent back to the client that they will, that will include all of the changes that the accountant [00:21:00] made, and then those accountants changes get. It's imported. So in the grand scheme of things, that sounds great on paper, but as a support agent in the ProAdvisor support channel, it was very hit or miss.
Because, the biggest challenge that, that I saw is that the, file was not in the same condition of where that accountant's copy left. So either they removed the restrictions because they needed to make a change that required that dividing date to be removed, which it tells 'em, Hey, any likelihood of your accountant's changes coming back into this file are slim and none, right?
There's two chances there, slim and none or slim and fat, right? I. It doesn't warn the accountant that they've done [00:22:00] that. So they go on their merry way doing their thing and the accountants file not knowing that they've canceled the accountant's copy changes and then,
Rachel Dauchy: oh gosh,
Dan DeLong: and then the client then goes, oh, I'll just put it back in that condition and create another accountant's copy dividing date.
Thinking that will fool QuickBooks. No, It will not. It's like it's gonna come back and go, this is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife. And go, I'm not gonna bring, I'm not gonna bring in those changes.
Rachel Dauchy: And they could likely create just a chain reaction of.
Dan DeLong: Exactly.
And then that causes the accountant to get upset with them and say, Hey, why did you do that? And say I needed to make a change. Or they've gone in and done a modification to a, transaction. And then all of their. [00:23:00] Reconciliations that are attempted to be brought in, don't come in because the change that they made, and it's very difficult to manage this when you know you never know what clients are gonna do.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah. And that's one of the reasons why I chose not to do that. And it was because I didn't have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 lists like this to show the different options of what, I could do. And so I heard a couple of those horror stories and I was like, forget it. No not gonna do that.
Dan DeLong: So the best way and, this is what we're getting to here, is that the best way to be able to access.
As an accountant is to be there, right? To, be able to be there in the same file, and ensure that the changes that you're making as an accountant, are in that file, right? And the, likelihood of problems occurring when you have. [00:24:00] Separate files is alleviated because of that, right?
Cloud Hosting for QuickBooks Desktop
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Dan DeLong: So one other option is cloud hosting, right?
So this is the, Hannah Montana of, of QuickBooks Desktop. Where you have the best of both worlds of the cloud, access of QuickBooks Online and the desktop functionality of QuickBooks Desktop, right? So you're able to take that QuickBooks Desktop, put it in a cloud hosting environment.
And as long as you can access that cloud hosting environment, it's as if you're sitting in front of QuickBooks, but you're not sitting at a dedicated machine inside the client's office. It's some cloud hosted environment, which is, great. However, the biggest drawback of that is the cost and expense to set that up because those cloud hosts don't operate on their own.
For, they don't do that out of the kindness of their heart. Every login [00:25:00] typically requires its own subscription. So not only are you paying for multi-user access of QuickBooks Desktop and the number of users that are able to get in concurrently, but you're also paying for cloud access to that, just that environment,
Introduction to Q Box
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Dan DeLong: So the last option that we want to talk about is just to simplify all of this with Q Box. So Allison, what is Q Box?
Alison Garcia: So Q Box will share your company file with remote users. And unlike the other ones you're working from the file from your own computer, so only one person can work in the file at a time.
Once they're done working, Q Box will then sync your company file to all of your other remote users so that they have the exact same copy of the file you just worked in. Okay. And unlike like unlike with hosting, right? You can print locally because it is a local file. You can print locally. [00:26:00] You don't, you can export to Excel, right?
So you don't have to ask a hosting company to add on other things to your subscription. Your attachments are all local to your computer and no latency, right? So unlike. When you're remoting into somebody's computer, you're having to rely on their internet, right? With Q Box, it is your own local environment.
And again, print locally, backup locally, everything's done from your desktop,
Dan DeLong: right?
Q Box Features and Benefits
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Dan DeLong: I, always thought of this as the best day analogy that I could come up with Q Box is like, Q Box is like a library book, when you go to the library, you check out the library book, nobody else can get the book until you bring it back.
Blake: Yep.
Dan DeLong: So that's, does that kind of resonate with you? Alison.
Alison Garcia: It [00:27:00] does and, two, we have notifications, right? So even if you bypass the first notification that I have, the library book checked out, as soon as you open the file, it will tell you again in big red letters, I have the file checked out.
You can only continue as a read. Only I. So you can view historical information, you just won't be able to see the live edits that I'm making while I have the file checked out.
Dan DeLong: Okay. So that was one of the questions that I had. And I think one of the challenges I, guess with, this solution is the multi-user access.
So other people will be able to see the file, even if it's checked out by the accountant.
Alison Garcia: Correct? Yep. You can always go in as a view only.
Dan DeLong: Okay. I thought it would just say, Nope, you can't access it. The library book's not been returned yet by your accountant?
Alison Garcia: Nope. You can always access it and while you're in it, because you are in read only, you can print locally.
If [00:28:00] you wanted to print a report, if you wanted to build your report within QuickBooks, you can also do that. But again, it's historical information. It's not live real-time edits.
Rachel Dauchy: Can you export to Excel? Yep. See, that's great. 'cause a lot of times somebody may not need to go in to do anything or create any new transactions they might need to get, grab something to export and I.
Do some other project, and so that's really great to be able to at least access it. Read only.
Alison Garcia: Absolutely. Yep. Or even if the accountant is working on it. But at the client site, their client calls in and says, Hey, did you get my check? And they wanna go in and quickly check, right? Yeah. If they're,
Rachel Dauchy: yeah, because there's a lot of that too.
Let me just go in and look and see if that's there. Yeah,
Alison Garcia: exactly.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. So that's, really good to know because I had thought and not not [00:29:00] using QuickBooks or Q Box for my for my client access. I didn't know I. What the experience of the clients would be when they, try to access, I knew that the general concept of Q box, but not necessarily what it was actually what they would actually experience Now.
Say that again in comparison to some of these other options like, like a cloud hosting.
Cost Comparison: Q Box vs. Cloud Hosting
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Dan DeLong: What, how does this compare cost-wise for for an accountant Allison?
Alison Garcia: Yep. So we're not a per user license seat, so for us, we charge by the number of folders and so an accountant sharing with the client, we would recommend.
Its own separate folder because you want your client only to have access to their specific files, right? So in that use case, each folder is $20 a month or $200 a year. If you're a small business and you just want to share with your. Team [00:30:00] members who are remote, you usually only need one folder. That one folder has 10 gigabytes of storage capacity, so you can put multiple QuickBooks files in one folder, and that's gonna be $20 a month or $200 a year.
Unlimited amount of shared users.
Rachel Dauchy: Okay. Reasonable.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. Comparing that to a cloud hosting environment where it's 50 to $60 a month Yeah. Just for the cloud access and then you have to up the u the number of users, if it's, if they need to be in concurrently that can get really expensive.
Yeah. So this is really, yeah. That's what it was
Rachel Dauchy: for me when I first started and I thought. Okay I'm not gonna go into client's offices. I am going to do this remote hosting. And the sticker shock was really hard for me when I was just starting. I was like, oh my gosh, this is how much it's gonna cost.
Let me check out QuickBooks Online. That's literally why I started doing that. But you guys, we haven't even [00:31:00] discussed the best benefit of this. Can you guys think about what I'm gonna say?
Dan DeLong: No, I'm, yeah.
Rachel Dauchy: I have ex I. Okay.
Expanding Service Areas with Q Box
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Rachel Dauchy: Before we'd have to go into client's offices, this allows us to expand our service area.
Yeah. Anywhere, to be able to log into their QuickBooks desktop at, a reasonable rate. That, that's huge. For all of us independent firm owners and bookkeepers and accountants. It's a big deal.
Dan DeLong: Yeah, that's that is a good point because when you are needing to get into your client's location and, limited by the mileage that you're able to drive. Yeah. Then that's it. That is a, huge huge benefit. [00:32:00] Yeah.
Rachel Dauchy: Because back when I worked in corporate accounting before and we'd have somebody more senior come in once a week or once a month, I was totally that model.
They even, they were only limited to their regional area. This really has changed. The scope of how we do business for sure.
Alison Garcia: Yeah. And for all of the, go ahead. Yeah. One of our customers, he lives in la. For most of the year, but he takes the summers in the keys and he doesn't take his laptop.
He doesn't take his computer, he has everything set up at his home office. He turns it on. He lets Q Box run with all the latest files and he's good to go for the summer.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah. I mean it, it's incredible and it's really to be able to do this and not have to just be in QuickBooks online. By the way, there's a lot of people that I know that.
Operate with a lot of clients in QuickBooks Online, [00:33:00] and they use Q Box to service their desktop. So they, they have both. And this, these tools enable them to do that in a cost effective way. So you really have a lot of flexibility to decide what types of clients you wanna service,
Dan DeLong: right?
Future of QuickBooks Desktop
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Dan DeLong: I, I feel like desktop is that guy.
In Monty Python, right where they're bringing out your dead and he's saying, I'm not dead yet. I feel happy. I feel like taking a walk right there. There still is life left in desktop. I. For for the foreseeable future until there's not, right?
Rachel Dauchy: Eventually at some point everything's gonna be zipping around in the cloud.
I don't know a hundred years from now, but maybe before then. But until then I think as long as we're all [00:34:00] working and probably even our kids there's still gonna be. Things living in desktop software that somebody will still need and use, and there'll be a need to access that.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. The mindset there when I worked there was, as long as there's a hard drive and a Windows based computer, there will be a need for for, QuickBooks desktop, until there's not, yep. Other factors are probably gonna change before Yeah. To, to d to drive that change for sure.
Conclusion and Next Week's Topic
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Dan DeLong: Allison and Rachel, appreciate you joining us here today on the, workshop. And next week we're actually gonna be talking about, I. Unbuild charges. And how do you clean those up?
Rachel Dauchy: In a
Dan DeLong: desktop migration to QuickBooks Online. Allison, any any final thoughts from from you?
Alison Garcia: Nope. Thanks for having me.
Dan DeLong: All right we'll see you [00:35:00] next time on the workshop Wednesday, and we hope you all have a great day. And I'm stalling for time 'cause I'm looking for the, outro video. There it is.
