“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens. Brown paper packages tied up with strings. These are a few of my favorite things”1
Each year, I begin my favorite newbies article with the above excerpt from "My Favorite Things," which was composed for "The Sound of Music." The song emphasizes the simple things in life. Some of the things I like this year 'seem simple' to me even though they may have a great deal of complexity 'on the backside' (from an engineering standpoint). Others are things that seem simple because we can't figure out why we have waited so long for them.
Customize Payment Receipts
When it comes to standardized custom forms within QuickBooks Desktop ‘Payment Receipts’ have always been the ‘oddball’, you simply couldn’t make your payment receipts look like the rest of your QuickBooks forms (invoices, purchase orders, etc.). QuickBooks users were unable to edit payment receipts to add their Company log or include appropriate additional fields.
Core-13_Pmt-rcpts_01
But for 2021, QuickBooks Desktop finally offers us the ability to customize Payment Receipts so that they have a consistent, professional look that conforms to our other QuickBooks forms we have customized. This customization is done in essentially the same way you customize other QuickBooks standard forms (like invoices and purchase orders), so why has it taken so long? Despite how long this has taken, this is 'My # 1 Favorite Newbie'.
Automated Statements
QuickBooks Users frequently forget to send out Statements, or they forget to send them out promptly to notify their customers of payments due. The new Automated Statements overcomes these issues.
Core-10_Automated-stmts_03
Now this feature is reliant upon 'Customer Groups' so you must consider that newly enhanced feature of equal importance, but when I think of all the QuickBooks clients I have had in past years who were so reliant upon statements, and who should find Automated Statements a blessing, I can only say that this is clearly 'My # 2 Favorite Newbie'.
Advanced (Mode) Bank Feeds
Substantial enhancements were made to Bank Feeds within QuickBooks Desktop 2021. This new Advanced Mode of Bank Feeds will automatically categorize more of your banking transactions using rules enhanced via artificial intelligence. QuickBooks’ improved Bank Feeds will now automatically categorize a majority of downloaded transactions into the proper accounts and ask users to review them if they can not be automatically matched.
Core-03_Bank-feeds_02
And, to facilitate the posting of multiple transactions from downloaded Bank Feed data, a new batch action capability permits users to quickly select multiple transactions, edit them together, and then add them to their books with minimal clicks. In short, Bank Feeds simply works far better, and with more banks than ever before, and that's why it's 'My # 3 Favorite Newbie'.
QuickBooks Receipt Management for Desktop
QuickBooks Receipt Management for Desktop (only available to Plus and Enterprise subscribers) allows you to import receipt images through a mobile (Apple or Android) App or upload them via the appropriate QuickBooks Desktop version. QuickBooks extracts the data from the image of the receipts using artificial intelligence and machine language algorithms to create transactions for your to review.
Core-30_Payroll-reminders_02
Upon reviewing the receipt data within QuickBooks you match-up any unmatched information before posting it to your accounting. And, because the image is stored with your QuickBooks data, the digital copies of the receipts are available for audit in the future in the exact same place 'attached documents' are stored.
Even though this feature is only available to QuickBooks Desktop 'subscribers', it eliminates the need for a 3rd-party App, and that's why it's 'My #4 Favorite Newbie'.
Data Level Permissions
New for 2021, QuickBooks Enterprise v21 Platinum and Diamond Subscribers can use Data Level Permissions to provide more granular security for viewing, editing, or deleting specific customer or vendor records and related data by only those users who have been authorized.
Enterprise_02_Data-level-permissions_02
With Data Level Permissions properly configured only users/roles with the appropriate authorized permissions will have access to view confidential records along with the related transactional data and financial records, and that's why it's 'My # 5 Favorite Newbie'.
1-"My Favorite Things"; Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The Sound of Music (1959), Composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein.
Figit Friends Newbies (as shown in this articles' headline graphic) are the registered trademark of Mattel, Corporation.