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Our blog: how to improve your cash flow and profits by improving your financial processes in and around Quickbooks.
Shred (SRED) your R&D Costs
You probably know that SRED (pronounced “shred”) is short for Scientific Research and Experimental Development. There’s more; you may be in for a pleasant surprise. SRED applies to Process Improvement (and we’re all about that) SRED isn’t limited to work by people...
read moreHow Do You Eat An Elephant?
How Do You Eat An Elephant? You cut him into bite-sized chunks, and eat them one mouthful at a time. (The oldest jokes are the best, and the funniest ones have an element of truth to them.) The same principle applies to making changes to your processes: don’t try...
read moreDo It Right the First Time
Do It Right The First Time (DIRTFT, pronounced “Dirtfoot”) is a variation of “a stitch in time saves nine”. Nonetheless, it is honoured more in the breach than the observance –we never seem to have time to do things right, which means we often have to find a lot more...
read moreThe 80-20 Rule Applies to your Processes
No one process will address all situations, but the 80-20 rule applies: 80% of your work is routine, and 20% are one-offs. Automated voice attendants are great, if not universally loved, examples of this. Good ones are set up to quickly take the caller past the most...
read moreKeep It Simple
Do you remember your first bicycle? Did it have one gear, and you had to quickly slam the pedals backward to brake? Do you remember begging for a new bicycle, probably a ten speed? And – this is the critical bit – did one of your parents tell you “The more gears it...
read moreGet Rid of Excel Where You Can…
... and Give it More Grunt Where You Can’t. The world record for a spreadsheet-based error is US$6.2 billion (yes, Billion with a B, with JP Morgan). It involved a copy-and-paste error, and was a real cash cost. The runner up is “only” US$2.6 billion...
read moreAsk for Discounts and Take Them Where Offered
Of course you should ask (and take) discounts - ten bucks is ten bucks! This is the second of two posts about discounts. You can find the first one, which says “don’t offer them”, here. Ten bucks is a lot more than ten bucks if you can get your suppliers to agree to...
read moreDon’t Offer Discounts
Discounts cut into your gross margin, and you’ll have to get a lot more sales to make up for it. (There’s a bit of math in this post, but all of it just illustrates the previous sentence.) This is the first of two posts about discounts. This one tells you not to...
read moreWhich of Quickbooks’ versions should I use?
Good question. As we’ve said elsewhere, each of Quickbooks’ three editions (Online, Pro, Premier) can have multiple versions (eg. 2013, 2016), flavours (eg. Contractors, Non-Profit, Retail), and regions (eg. Canada and US for most of our readers). Features (Budgets,...
read moreBudget and Forecast in Quickbooks (4) – Jobs and Estimates
This is the fourth of four blogs on Quickbooks’ ability to help you see into the future. In this one, we evaluate Quickbooks’ ability to create Estimates (project budgets). Feature QBO Pro Prem Commentary Estimates (i.e. Job Costing) ✔ ✔✔ ✔✔ Initial estimate of a...
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