Laura and VCon
This article is written in support of the course titled "What's New in QuickBooks for Mac" at the Intuit 2014 Accounting Professionals Virtual Conference.
What’s New and Improved in QuickBooks for Mac for 2014
QuickBooks for Mac users and the accounting professionals who support them will be delighted to see enhanced features in this product that mirror many benefits which Windows users have been enjoying for some time. In addition, the interface on forms and reports will be uniquely “Mac.”
New! Import Journal Entries
(QuickBooks for Mac)
What this feature does: Accountants can create journal entries outside of the QuickBooks for Mac file and send the journal entries to the QuickBooks for Mac user to import.
How to access it: Using QuickBooks Accountant for Windows 2013 and above, the accountant can send general journal entries from Accountant > Send General Journal Entries, or by clicking an icon at the top of the Make General Journal Entries window. The client can import some or all of the journal entries form into QuickBooks for Windows from File > Import > General Journal Entries, browsing to the import file (.qbj) and then selecting all or some of the entries to import. (Slide 1)
How does this improve your clients’ efficiency? Business owners no longer have the difficult task of entering their accountant’s year-end/tax period adjusting journal entries.
What pain does this feature solve? When a business owner wanted to keep their data file in agreement with the accountant’s filed financials they had to manually enter the accountant’s year-end adjustments.
New! Income Tracker
(QuickBooks for Mac)
What this feature does: Shows a summary of unbilled, unpaid and recently paid customer transactions all on one screen, and allows users to take immediate action and create new transactions for customers in order to get paid timely. All data in the tracker is real time so the information is right at your fingertips. It is not necessary to prepare reports to see what actions need to be taken.
How to access it: Access the Income Tracker from Company > Transaction Center, or click on Snapshot on the Home Page (Slide 2)
How does this improve your clients’ efficiency? From one window users can improve the company’s cash flow by taking immediate action to create, print, or e-mail customer transactions.
What pain does this feature solve? Previous workflow required users to preview multiple reports about the customer’s open transactions. After viewing the reports, users would need to access different menu options to complete common customer transaction activities.
New! Sales Reps
(QuickBooks for Mac)
What this feature does: Ability to assign a Sales Rep to Customers and Jobs. Both vendors and employees can be designated as Sales Reps.
How to access it: Lists > Customer and Vendor Profile (Slide 3)
How does this improve your clients’ efficiency? Business owners can track profitability by Sales Rep.
What pain does this feature solve? Previously users were not able to have a list of Sales Reps.
New! Search in Reports
(QuickBooks for Mac)
What this feature does: Perform a search for any amount, account, reference number, or other fields in reports.
How to access it: From the Search box at the top of a displayed report. (Slide 4)
How does this improve your clients’ efficiency? Business owners can search reports for specific details.
What pain does this feature solve? Previously users had to scroll through reports to search fields.
New! Set Up and Go Checklists
(QuickBooks for Mac)
What this feature does: Provides directions for setting up a new QuickBooks for Mac file and training on how to use specific product features, and provides in-product video on details about other “cool stuff” like reporting and customization.
How to access it: Help > Set Up and Go (Slide 5)
How does this improve your clients’ efficiency? For the user, takes out the guesswork of setting a new QuickBooks for MAC file.
What pain does this feature solve? New users had to try to figure out of their own what steps were needed to setup a new file.
New! Adjust Sales Tax
(QuickBooks for Mac)
What this feature does: Ability to adjust sales tax for discounts or added charges.
How to access it: From the Vendor menu or directly from the Pay Sales Tax window. (Slide 6)
How does this improve your clients’ efficiency? Users can now conveniently adjust their Sales Tax payment directly on the Sale Tax Payment window. (Slide 7)
What pain does this feature solve? Replaces a cumbersome, three step process in previous editions of QuickBooks for MAC.
New! Create Purchase Orders From Estimates
(QuickBooks for Mac)
What this feature does: Ability to create a Purchase Order directly from the details included on an Estimate
How to access it: From a displayed Estimate, click the Create Purchase Order icon at the top. (Slide 8)
How does this improve your clients’ efficiency? For users who drop ship goods, this is a much more efficient way to create a Purchase Order to track expected costs. You can select to create a Purchase Order for all items or selected items on the Estimate. (Slide 9)
What pain does this feature solve? Previous versions required the user to manually create purchase orders to track expected costs.
Improved! Navigation Experience
(QuickBooks for Mac)
What this feature does: The Home Page can be resized to cover the entire workspace, and offers more of a central control panel environment, providing shortcuts to the redesigned company Snapshot and the new Income Tracker. The optional Toolbar can be placed on either the left or right of the screen and can also be viewed expanded or collapsed.
How to access it: QuickBooks > Preferences > Toolbar. Click the Customize icon at the lower bottom of the Toolbar for additional options. (Slide 10)
How does this improve your clients’ efficiency? More efficiently use monitor workspace when working with transactions. For accountants that work in different files, the Toolbar can be custom colored. New customizable size of the Home Page assures users that they the active application is QuickBooks.
What pain does this feature solve? The top placed Toolbar would monopolize the monitor space and move lower buttons outside of the workspace on some transaction screens. When QuickBooks did not fill the entire workspace, users would click on a background program and lose focus on QuickBooks.
Acknowledgement: The Publisher gratefully acknowledges the use of this material from Intuit's What's New in QuickBooks 2014 by this article's author; which publication was written for Intuit's 2014 Accounting Professional's Virtual Conference. This article was written and published for the express purpose of promotion, and in support, of Intuit's 2014 Accounting Professional's Virtual Conference.