Author: Digital Touchstone

QuickBooks Online allows you to give multiple users access to your account. Here’s how to set them up.

Adding employees to your staff is reason to celebrate. It means you’re growing enough that you need to bring new people on board to get all of your work done.

Adding employees that need access to your QuickBooks Online data, though, requires a high level of trust. Those individuals will be able to see a lot of very sensitive company, customer, and vendor information. You need to make sure that they can only view what they need to and that their ability to enter and modify data is limited.

QuickBooks Online makes this possible with its user management tools. You can provide users with their own login information that restricts where they can go and what they can do. Here’s how it works.

Types of Users

Warning: Your QuickBooks Online subscription allows you to invite a specific number of employees, though you can add more. Ask us about this.

To set up a new user, click the gear icon in the upper right. Select Manage users under Your Company. Or click Get things done in the toolbar and select the Manage users icon in the Company box. 

Click the Manage users icon to add a new user to your QuickBooks Online account.

You’ll see a table with your own account information listed there. Click Add user in the upper right. In the window that opens, you’ll have to choose a user type. This can be a:

• Company admin. This user could see and do everything, like adding users and sending money.
• Standard user. This user would have full or limited access, without admin privileges. 

Both of these user types would count toward your employee limit. You can also invite someone to have access to Reports only, excluding payroll and contact information (wouldn’t count toward your user limit).

Choose Standard user and select Next in the lower right. The page that opens asks you how much access the individual should have. Your options are:

• All, including or excluding Payroll.
• None. User could, though, manage some things and submit timesheets.
• Limited. You can allow access to Customers and/or Vendors, with access rights spelled out.

QuickBooks Online shows you what specific users’ access rights are.

After you’ve made your selection on this page, click Next in the lower right. You’ll answer a few Yes, No, or View only questions, things like Do you want this user to add, edit, and remove users? Click Next and provide the user’s name and email address. He or she will receive an invitation (good for 30 days) to set up a password and log in. Click Save to be returned to your user access list. Your user can log in after accepting your invitation.

Other Ways to Keep Your Data Safe

Limiting access for other employees who must log into QuickBooks Online is one way of safeguarding your company file data. Here are some additional suggestions:

• Try to avoid printing data other than necessary transactions from your QuickBooks Online file. When you do, either store it in a secure place or shred it when you’re done with it.
• Keep your networks safe. Create policies and put them in writing for employees. Don’t allow workers to download apps onto their work computers, and discourage unnecessary web browsing. Encourage them to practice good email hygiene (no clicking on links or attachments unless they’ve requested the information). Consider network monitoring software, or, if your company is big enough, managed IT.
• Protect data remotely. If you or your employees have company-issued phones with QuickBooks Online data on them, stress to them that they should never use those phone on public Wi-Fi networks.
• Don’t leave QuickBooks Online open when you’re not at your desk.
• Update your applications and operating system when necessary. QuickBooks Online updates itself, but many other applications don’t. These updates sometimes contain system security patches in addition to new features.

One serious security breach could shut you down. Follow these best practices to avoid hackers and other intrusions that could seriously compromise your data or put it in the wrong hands. Your customers, vendors, and employees entrust sensitive information that you’ve added to your QuickBooks company file. Continue to earn their trust by protecting their data as well as your own.

Questions about system security or about QuickBooks Online features? We’re here, and we stand ready to share our accounting expertise with you. We want to see you succeed, and good financial records are essential in making that happen.

It’s more enjoyable than paying your bills. Here are three ways to process incoming money from customers.

One of the biggest problems small businesses face is maintaining a positive cash flow. It’s a constant battle. How do you keep your income running ahead of your expenses?

QuickBooks Online can help. It provides specialized forms and a mobile app that help you record and deposit the payments that are coming in. Do you ever receive payments instantly for some products and/or services? Are you ever out of the office and have to document a sale for both you and the buyer? Do you send invoices for products and/or services and need to make sure that payments get reported accurately when they come in?

QuickBooks Online supports all of these situations. It also provides a service that can automate your payments and help you get paid faster. 

Applying Payments to Invoices

If you send invoices to customers for products and/or services, you can receive their payments easily using QuickBooks Online. Businesses can record payments manually, but there’s a better way that can help you get paid faster: QuickBooks Payments. This is a merchant account that allows you to accept credit card and bank payments electronically. 

Using QuickBooks Online’s mobile app, you can check the payment status of an invoice.

Once you set this up in QuickBooks Online, your invoices will allow bank cards and electronic checks as integrated payment options. Your invoices will go out with a button that customers can click to provide bank card or check information. You’ll be able to see when invoices are viewed, paid, and deposited, as shown in the image above. You can also get notifications of invoice activity. 

Of course, you can also check the payment status of the invoices you’ve sent in the browser-based version of QuickBooks Online on your desktop or laptop. Open your list of invoices on the site and click on one to highlight it. A panel will slide out from the right side of the screen displaying the invoice’s timeline. 

You can also record payments manually. Look at the end of the row for an invoice that hasn’t been paid. You’ll see a Receive Payment link. Click it to open the Receive Payment screen and complete the fields that aren’t already filled in, then save the screen. There’s also a Receive Payment link on the invoice screen itself.

You can record payments for invoices manually from the Invoices screen.

There’s no cost for setting up an account in QuickBooks Payments. There are only per-transaction fees. For ACH bank payments, the rate is 1%, with a maximum of $10 per transaction. Credit and debit cards (plus PayPal, Apple Pay, and Venmo) are 2.9% if they come in through an invoice, 2.4% if you use a card reader, and 3.4% if the payments are keyed in. There’s also a $0.25 fee per transaction. Payments that come in before 3 p.n. PT should be in your account the next business day. 

Payments On the Road

To accept payments remotely, you’ll need to get a free card reader from Intuit that attaches to your mobile phone. Customers can tap or insert their cards or make digital wallet payments. You can also key numbers in, but, as we said earlier, the per transaction fee is higher. You’ll also need to download the GoPayment app to process transactions. The app also allows you to add labels, prices, and images so you can find the item you’re selling quickly. Multiple security measures are used to help keep this method of mobile data transmission safe.

Receiving Payment Instantly

There may be times when you provide a product or service for someone and they pay you on the spot. QuickBooks Online allows you to create and send sales receipts for just those occasions. Click +New in the upper left corner, and then click Sales receipt under Customers. QuickBooks Online then opens a form that should look familiar to you. It looks and works like an invoice or estimate. Select the Customer in the upper left corner and complete the rest of the fields as you would with any sales form. If you click Save and send when you’re done to email a copy to the customer, you can see a preview first.

About Receiving Checks

Money from payments you’ve received sometimes* go into the Undeposited Funds account.

When we created a sales receipt just now and indicated we’d received a check, the Deposit to field defaulted to Checking, because QuickBooks Online assumed we’d be depositing this check on its own. When you have multiple checks that you’re going to combine into one deposit, you should have the payment deposited to the Undeposited Funds account. This is an account that holds any payments that have come in but not yet been physically deposited in the bank (usually cash and paper checks from invoices and sales receipts). It’s a good idea to look at this account occasionally to make sure you don’t have money just sitting there.

Questions on any of this? Contact us to set up a consultation. The mechanics of receiving payments are not that difficult, but you need to make very sure you’re recording all payments properly and getting the money into your bank accounts.