What's at the Core of Your Business? (Part II)

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In the first part of this back-to-back set of articles, we looked at how Core by BQE is the next generation of business software designed for the heart, soul and mind of your business. In order to give you a feel for this phenomenal software, I began our start-to-end project journey by taking on a new client.

After a brief consultation with the client, I set up the project and allocated time and resources to help accomplish the various QuickBooks-related tasks associated with the work. I also assigned my No. 1 guy, Sam Smartguy, to the project and provided a “to do” list with related guidelines.

Sam performed admirably. He performed the work in less than the allocated time. I easily tracked his progress via his time and expense entries made in Core. While this project was a little too simple for a formalized dashboard, I illustrated just how beneficial the Core Customer or Project dashboard can be (using sample data).

With all the work completed, we’re ready. Here, we’ll look at closing out the project, invoicing the client, paying the associated expenses and wrapping things up. We’ll also take a look as some of the additional features, including the QuickBooks integration Core offers.

Back Office Simplification

With the project complete, and the time and expenses reviewed and approved, it’s time for the staff to perform the billing and pay the associated costs. Many businesses refer to this as the “back office,” but with Core you might find that you’ll prepare client invoices while sitting next to the pool using the Core Mobile App (for iOS or Android). 

Invoicing in Core is just as simple as every other task:

1. From the Core main menu, select Billing, then Invoices

2. Click our old friend, the blue “Create New” button, and select Single Invoice from the drop-down options

3. In the Create Invoice window, enter the required information, including project, from and to dates, and invoice date

4. When you reach the “Create From” field, select one of the drop-down options (scratch, approved time & expense, billing schedule, budget, estimate, previous invoice). In my case (shown below), I selected approved time & expense.

5. Depending on your configuration, you may have other Options from which to choose (non-billable items, show entry dates, group by item, etc.)

6. Click Continue. Core populates the Invoice form with the information from the time and expenses I previously approved for this client’s project

As you can see (see illustration above), Core has listed every time entry as well as the billable amounts for the two trip charges. I can review, make changes and post the invoice to draft status if needed. Or, I can finalize the bill and send it to the client.

Whether you’re using Core’s internal accounting or you choose to integrate Core with QuickBooks Online, the general ledger posts the new Invoice to your accounts receivable. Because I’m a bit of an accounting purist, I like to show my readers the accounting side of a product, too, so here’s a snapshot of the Chart of Accounts showing the invoice balance.

Let me interject that this type of “simple invoicing” isn’t the only functionality of Core’s incredible billing capabilities. Core can speed up your invoicing process and save you countless hours through its automated billing feature. This allows you to set rules and frequencies to invoice your clients. 

Automation of this type not only insures that the billing gets done, but it also helps your cash-flow by turning historical payment trends and current outstanding invoices into meaningful projections of future income.

But invoicing the client is only half of the back-office requirement for this project. We also have an employee who needs to get paid for his local travel. Core already posted the “cost” associated with those expense entries as a payable, so we’re going to process a bill payment to our man Sam.

1. From the Core main menu, select Payables, then choose Bill Payments

2. Click the blue Create New button

3. In the Create New Bill Payments window, enter the Payee “from” and “to” filter, and select the Show option from the drop-down; then click Continue

4. In the Create Bill Payments window, enter your payment details, including date, account (from which you want payment made), payment method and Check number. if you select check as your payment type.

Core will display the appropriate employee expenses to pay. You can either accept these or enter alternative payments if you choose. When ready, click the blue Save button. I can option to print the check now or later.

As far as the work is concerned, we have just one additional task left – receiving the client’s payment and depositing it into our bank. 

1. From the Core main menu, select Billing, and then choose Payments; Core displays a list of our outstanding invoices (shown below)

2. Click the checkbox at the left-end of the row, as we want to accept a new payment, then select Payment from the drop-down menu at the right-end of the row

3. When the Add Payment window opens, enter the Payment details, including the date, payment method and amount

4. Core will have already displayed available invoice(s) to which the payment can be applied. Click the “Apply to Invoice(s)” radial button.

5. In the list of invoices, click the blue "Auto Apply" link at the right-end of the row to apply the payment to a specific invoice (or set of invoices). You can also allow Core to apply the payments in oldest-to-newest order by using the “Auto Apply All” button above the invoice list.

6. When you’re finished paying the invoice, select either “Save & Add New” if you want to enter additional payments, or “Save & Close” if you’re finished entering payment.

As you can see from the illustration of our Chart of Accounts (below), Core has posted the payment we received into “Undeposited funds.” Those of you familiar with QuickBooks know all about Undeposited funds, which is a holding account that gives you the ability to match your posted deposits with the actual deposits you make at the bank.

To make our deposit:

1. From the Core main menu, select Accounting, then choose Deposits

2. The Add Deposits window automatically presents you with all the payment transactions awaiting deposit on the Existing Client Payments tab; however, it’s also possible to fill out a deposit line manually using the New Funds tab

3. Enter the required information, including bank account to which the deposit is to be made, and the deposit date

4. In our case, we click the checkbox at the left-end of our Client’s payment, and then click Save

We have gone through the entire process of an initial first call contact with a new client –  entering the client information, creating a project and allocating resources, performing the work, tracking our time and expenses, reimbursing our employee for his costs and invoicing our client as well as receiving payment and putting it in the bank. And Core was “at the core” of the entire operation.

There is more when it comes to the back office, because Core not only insures your current internally, but at the bank, where it really counts. 

Core connects to bank feeds all over the world, so you can reconcile automatically. That means your back-office personnel isn’t wasting time manually trying to check what has cleared the bank. As we’ll see later, Core also integrates with QuickBooks Online to exchange data if your accountant prefers the QBO platform as their general ledger of choice.

Information is at the Core

There is a wealth of reporting available with Core. Below is a partial list of just the “financial” data that can be produced.

Here’s an example of a Core produced balance sheet. (Note: I’ve switched to a Core “sample data,” file because the information in my own file was so limited I didn’t think it was a good reflection of Core’s data display capabilities.)

But who wants to look at a boring old report or financial statement? Today’s management and business decision makers are more visual than ever. They don’t have time to delve into every number on a balance sheet or profit and loss, especially if they want to see trends or values over time.

Core gives you unlimited fully customizable dashboards to display the information you want and need in the way you want to see it, bar graphs, pie charges, interactive lists, and more. 

Core from the Start

As we start to wrap up our journey to the Core of our business, I want to tell you a couple of things about the start-up experience. When you initiate your Core account, even a trial account, you’ll have the opportunity to configure your Core company. Yes, you can have more than one “company” associated with Core.

A series of “Welcome to Core” windows will walk you through the basic configuration. And while you have the option to click a “Take me directly to Core” blue link, I respectfully suggest you go step-by-step through configuration.

If along the way you have any issues, you can always pop over to their in-product help that provides a wealth of details. I could probably spend another article telling you all the things I like about the Core Help feature. 

  • First of all, it's laid out exactly like the Core (product) Dashboard. Whenever you’re working in Core, no matter where you are, just click the little ?-mark in the upper right and you’ll go to the matching section of Help
  • Almost all sections of Help contain a short video to step you through the respective feature. For many quick study tech-types, the video will be enough, but some of us need more, so
  • Help provides detailed “how to” instructions on each feature, and even
  • Step-by-step guidelines ("can you say 'cheat-sheet')

Personally, I didn't find a question that I couldn't get answered by either searching the Help or going to the Core feature description using the ?-mark access

Core works with QuickBooks

Let me wrap up by discussing Core and QuickBooks Online. For a long time I believed businesses that needed sophistication of third-party software like Core would never think about using QBO for their accounting. But I can honestly say I have been changing my mind over the last year.

I can see why businesses running Core might option to use QBO as their general ledger, even though Core would handle the majority of the “heavy lifting.” These reasons are “accounting segregation” and “access.” 

If I have people who only need to do the things they can do in Core, I don’t have to give them access to QBO. If I have other people – including my outside accountant – who need access to my accounting, but I don’t want them in my project management system, then I only need give them access to QBO. 

In either instance, the users can be working from anywhere they have internet access – field personnel using Core in the field, and my accountant or bookkeeper using QBO at their office or home.   

Core is intended to be a very comprehensive solution, but it doesn’t do everything yet. For example, it doesn’t offer “payroll” functionality, so time and employee data can be sent to QBO and used for QBO Payroll processing. 

While BQE’s products for architects and engineers were centered around expanding the functional limitations of QuickBooks desktop, Core is poised to be the solution that QBO will most likely never be. But Core provides QBO integration to allow users the freedom of an accounting package that enhances Core functionality while Core is expanding the capabilities of QBO.

Linking Core to QBO is as simple as linking any other app to QBO, so I’m not going to go through those steps.

But what I do want to show you is the degree of sophistication with which you can configure the exchange of data between Core and QuickBooks. In the illustration below, we see only a portion of the settings used to sync data between the two applications.

Core gives you almost unlimited flexibility in the data you share, how it is shared, how often it is shared, and how it flows between both systems. Map the data exactly you, or your accountant, want in QuickBooks. Link the QuickBooks information you want with Core to save yourself set-up time. Streamline or expand the data flow as makes sense for you and your organization, as well as your QBO users.

By the way, you can also link Core with Dropbox, Google Drive and Amazon Web Services depending upon your exact requirements. 

If you’re ready to see Core in action, check out their website and use the on-site chat, schedule a demonstration or try it for 15-days free..

When you do, I think you may just find that you need Core at the heart of your business.