Hector's Wish List for QuickBooks Accountant 2016

by

Intuit has made 'major' strides at getting through to the Accountant community; with over 3 million QuickBooks Desktop users and over 100,000 QuickBooks ProAdvisors globally; there is an obvious synergy between small businesses using QuickBooks and their Accountants and QuickBooks Consultants (which I call the "Power Users") supporting them.  The 3 most productive tools Intuit has given to these Power Users of QuickBooks Desktop are:

  1. Add/Edit Multiple List Entries: Introduced in all Windows Versions of QuickBooks in 2010
  2. Reclassify Transactions: Introduced in QuickBooks Accountant 2010
  3. Batch Enter Transactions: Introduced in QuickBooks Accountant 2013

But with all their greatness;  I really wish they could do more...  So here are my ideas, or "wishlist" for upcoming versions:

Improvements to the Add/Edit Multiple List Entries feature

  • Ability to Copy/Paste on columns with Checkmarks like (ACTIVE/INACTIVE)  For example if I want to make some vendors Inactive via PASTE, I have not figured out how to do this yet.  Maybe by Pasting a "Y" or "N".. or even "1" or "0"
  • Ability to Export into Excel EXACTLY what I am looking at on the add/edit screen.  Right now Add/Edit is great for ADDING via Excel.... But to EDIT via Excel, is complex, because the user must know what list to export, setup the columns correctly, and mind the INACTIVE items, or order, etc...    Additionally, it would be nice to be able to LOCK the structure (filters and sorting) to prevent "mis-clicking" while performing this type of copy/paste
  • Chart of Accounts would be such a MAJOR feature to be able to Add/Edit multiple accounts; right now via IIF or Advanced Excel import is too cumbersome.
  • Other Charges, it would be beneficial to be able to work with these too
  • Bills Of Materials, I know this is probably a big task, but being able to import Bills of Material (items directly into an assembly) would be really important to many manufacturing clients
  • Employees, for larger Payroll migrations, would be an awesome enhancement
  • Additional Filters like Customer Type and Vendor Type would be really useful
  • Last Transaction Date it would be nice to have a flag that tells the user when that item or vendors was last used, to help us make them inactive to clean up the lists
  • Inventory Adjustment via Add/Edit, or add copy/paste to the Inventory adjustment window, being able to copy and paste an Inventory cycle count would do wonders for Inventory users
  • Add/Edit multiple price levels for per-item price level this is one of the most tedious tasks to manually enter the price of EVERY item
  • Add/Edit Budgets, or similar copy/paste features to the Budget Module

Improvements to the Reclassify Transactions feature of CDR

Reclassify Source Payee. It is so important to be able to reclassify the payee in batch, I consider this one of the most needed functions. And being able to reclassify a Customer:Job assigned is also big need.

  • Add a MEMO when reclassifying.  I would like to be able to append a common memo to all transactions being reclassified like: "HG: reclassifying all personal expenses before tax returns prep on 04/14/2015".  This tool is much better than using Adjusting Journal Entries; but there is no way to document a paper trail, the Memo capability would really help.
  • More Columns:  It would be beneficial to see the SOURCE account as well as a reference, not just the Split.  The Reconciled flag and the Downloaded/Match (lighting bolt) flag should also be column choices for display.  The split account column is missing when looking at transaction from a Balance Sheet account, this needs to be corrected in a future version.
  • It would be great to have Shift Click to SELECT all items from the first one selected to the last, as in Excel... it is a PAIN to click 100 times...
  • Filter by Source Account; right now the main filters are Date Range, Split Account (P&L mode), and Payee.  Having a source account filter like Accounts Receivable, or a specific bank account, would really add context; or having it as column would be sufficient
  • The ability to include sub-accounts when choosing a parent account on the left side would be a major enhancement.

Improvements to the Batch Enter Transactions feature

  • Fix the Copy/Paste issue within the SPLIT Screen.. you currently are not able to copy paste anything into there... I suspect this is a design flaw
  • Ability to batch enter transactions with splits; the system really should be smart enough to match if the transaction has the same DATE and NUMBER (check number, invoice number, etc..) to recognize it as multiple lines within a single transaction.  By the way, this is how Transaction Pro Importer and Zed Axis 3rd party tools do it now.
  • QuickAdd Shortcut:  QuickBooks should have the ability to CONTROL+ENTER or ALT+ENTER or SHIFT+ENTER, whatever.. to QuickAdd a Vendor and QuickAdd a Customer; it is an huge pain the neck to CLICK on Quick Add, and then on Vendor or Customer.  By the way, I think this should really work on ANY screen in QuickBooks, like the register or write check
  • Recognize $ signs and automatically Round to 2 decimals.  It is very common to forget to remove the formatting and round the decimals; QB should just do this when pasting.
  • A Checkmark that says "Automatically Quick Add NEW VENDOR" so basically if I copy/paste 100 checks with new vendors, QB should just batch create (QuickEnter) all the new Vendors.
  • Batch Enter Journal Entries, with two modes: Single Journal Entry - which allows for one journal entry with multiple splits.  Useful for things like Payroll Entries or Entries to re-allocate overhead to Classes and/or Customer:jobs  Multiple Journals - which allows for multiple transactions with one one debit and one credit. Useful for entering transactions on Asset Accounts, Loan Accounts and Equity Accounts
  • Other Transactions: Estimates, Sales Orders, Purchase Orders, Customer Payments, Sales Receipts (so crucial)

A man can dream, can't he?   Intuit is known for listening to their customers, so I hope you like this article and add comments bellow!

Hector

About the Author:

Hector Garcia is a CPA and an Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor. He lives in Davie, FL and works predominately with small to medium sized local businesses. Hector was a member of Intuitive Accountant's 'Top 100 ProAdvisors' for 2014.  He also serves as co-host of the QB PowerHour and is a member of Intuit's Trainer/Writer Network.

Editor's comments:  Hector has given us some "great" suggestions for these three tools, personally I would like to see all of these expanded capabilities as well.  What would you like to see?  If you have specific suggestions for these three 'accountant' and 'power user' tools, please post them in the comments to this article. We look forward to hearing your ideas as well.

Murph