DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT AN INTUIT EMPLOYEE OR DEVELOPER FOR QUICKBOOKS. THIS LIST HAS BEEN CREATED FOR THE SHEAR FUN OR BEING HOPEFUL TO SEE MORE FEATURES ADDED OR IMPROVED IN FUTURE VERSIONS. THIS IS ALSO SPECIFICALLY TALKING ABOUT QUICKBOOKS DESKTOP PRODUCT (PRO, PREMIER, OR ENTERPRISE)
Last Update 08/26/2017 by Hector Garcia CPA. I would like to first mention the particular features that were in my wish list from last few years that are now in 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017:
- Batch Delete Transactions: it is not 100% complete, but the limited functionality it is still very useful
- Restrict a user from selling inventory when non in stock
- More user friendly options in the Customize Report window: Columns and Filter options are now in alphabetical order and contain a search option.
- Enable ACCOUNTANT features for ProAdvisors: New QuickBooks Pro and Premier 2015 have the ability to unlock Accountant features if a ProAdvisor logs in as an External user. This is truly awesome!
- Negative Inventory control, ability to block the ability for a user to create an invoice that renders negative inventory, this is now available on QuickBooks Enterprise 15!
- Display estimated cost component in Sales Orders and Invoices the same way it shows in an Estimate. Now item cost shows in Sales Transactions.. of course it does not print on the invoice.
- Notes on reports, the ability to add comments or notes to reports before saved to PDF, this is so useful!
- Time and Expenses in Income Tracker: View unbilled hours and create invoices from Income Tracker!
- Automatically Close Estimates when Fully Invoicing against it.
- QuickBooks Enterprise now has ALL QuickBooks Accountant features: (Reclassify Transactions, Client Data Review, etc…)
- Advanced Reporting (QBAR): you can know build some really deeply customized reports in QuickBooks Enterprise
- Customer Type Filter in the Customer Center, Same for Vendor Type in the Vendor Center.
- Email Report automation. I should be able to setup QuickBooks to send me a daily email either from the standard reports, memorized reports, or even group of reports.
- Search/filter options in “Multiple items” filterting options
- Searching / autosuggest accounts and items if the typed data is contained within item/account name
Here is my list to QuickBooks 2018 Wish list:
- Ability to add any Filters (from the Customize Report, Filters Tab) to the top bar of a custom report: so we can memorize a custom report, and be able to add filters any filter to the reports top bar next to Dates, Sort, and Columns by.. to allow for quicker reports.
- Cash/Accrual Toggle on the top bar without having to go into Customize Report.
- Customer pre-payments: I would like for QuickBooks to have the option to book a customer pre-payment into a liability account (that works in conjunction with accounts receivable) so it shows in the balance sheet as a liability rather than a negative asset. Additionally, it would be nice to be able to “tie” the payment to a sales order, so that when that sales order is converted to an invoice, it automatically suggests to apply that payment to it. Additionally it would be nice to see a report of all the open sales orders that have a payment attached to them
- Vendor pre-payments: similar as the customer payments, would be nice to write a check to a “Vendor Prepayment Asset” account, instead of a negative accounts payable. Also would like to be able to tie it to a purchase order, so that when its received and converted to a bill, suggests the payment to be applies. Also would like to see a report of purchase orders prepaid or partially paid.
- Default Class for a Source Bank or credit card account account. I have many clients that uses bank accounts as the internal system to separate different entities, stores, business activities, etc.. Would be nice to be able to add a Default class to a bank account when income or expenses are added straight in the register
- Reclassify feature this was added on 2011 and its an amazing feature, but I would like to see which (bank) account the transaction came from to help me with the class reclassification as well. I would also like to see wether or not the transaction has been cleared. As part of this same tool, I would like to be able to reclassify the the source payee and the customer:job for checks, cc charges, and bills.
- Online Banking Improvements: particularly this one: QuickBooks should maintain the original full description that came from the bank originally after the online banking. This is already in QB Online.
- Clear Date on checks: would be nice to be able to enter a “cleared date” on the checks. And/or all cleared transactions should display on which month or which reconciliation period the transaction was reconciled.
- Deposits show cleared: should show wether they are cleared or not, and when it was cleared.
- Undeposited Funds improvements: first of all, I am a huge fan of the concept of Undeposited funds in QuickBooks, and hate when people take deposits straight to bank account as it is usually a reconciling nightmare, however.. without exception, every client I ever had, has had some issue with this feature. This are the improvements I would suggest: -There should be a message in the homepage between the Receive Payments Icon and the Record Deposits icon that says: “Undeposited Funds $10,000 from 7 pending payments to deposit”. This should have a hyperlink takes you to a report with all payments pending to be deposited and an explanation in the bottom on how this works -Also the “Payments to Deposit” window that opens automatically when you click on Record Deposit should be titled: “UNDEPOSITED FUNDS (Payments to Deposit)” -Additionally the “PAYMENTS” button on the top of the Deposits page, should say “Undeposited Funds (Payments)” -Every window that has ANY transaction that references the Undeposited Funds account should have a link to “What is Undeposited Funds?” that explains it. -Now the Payments to Deposit Window also needs a lot of help, you should be able to sort by customer, dollar amount, and reference number as well. Currently you can only sort by date or payment method.
- Customizable Columns in Receive Payment window: There should be an icon that allows the user to display MEMO, or other custom fields from the header field in this window to allow the user to use better reference information to apply payments
- Customizable Columns in Bill Payment window: For the same reason as above, being able to add MEMO or other field data from the bill to reference application of payment
- Ability to use Service Date in reports: why have it as a column if you cannot view in the report
- Be able to find or show a column for the reference field (check as check number) from customer payments
- The header/Name type of custom field items should be able to be used in Bills: Anything that is entered in a PO should be able to pass through in a bill with custom fields
- Assign a To DO to a QuickBooks user: to be able to filter To Do’s by user assigned to or view all. Also log which user marks it completed.
- Add a Column option in the customize reports to display transaction notes.
- Be able to Select a Class in the Receive Payment window: currently QuickBooks automatically assigns the default class of the client behind the scenes.. Or if this cannot be added, then make sure QuickBooks leaves the payment UNCLASSIFIED and Disable CLASS column for Deposits window when payment from from a Payment in UNDEPOSITED FUNDS.. as the Class should be driven 100% by the original Invoice
- Ability to add drop-down menu for Job Status in the Job Info Tab when edition a job in the Customer Center screen, to give the user the ability to quickly change the status of the job and add notes job description field.
- Preference to create Warning when using Parent Accounts or Parent customers when there are subaccounts or jobs to prevent data entry errors.. even a preference to PREVENT the users from being able to use a parent account or parent customer when a subaccount or job is present.
- Sub-Vendors: if we can have sub-customers (jobs) or sub-accounts, or sub items… etc.. we should be able to use subvendors as well
- There should be a sister feature to Price Levels called “Cost Levels“.. Works the same way but is assignable to vendors or Subvendors where the cost of an item will vary based on that Cost level assigned to the vendor or could be adjusted manually. This whole thing can play nicely combined with Billing Rate levels as well. Lastly, in the Estimate Screen, there should be a column for vendor/employee (kind of like Customer:Job on the PO side) on each item so the system can estimate the costs of the item (and markup) based on the Cost Level of that vendor. As a contractor or project manager, I not only want to estimate my items, also the vendors I will be using to then help me make the purchase orders to the assigned vendor, rather just the preferred vendor.
- Alternate Vendors: in addition to Preferred vendor, we should be able to add at least 10 more alternate vendors with different prices for the product, also LEAD TIME should be added. With lead time setup for each item and vendor, allows the user to choose which vendor to choose based on lead-time to cost analysis. Lead-time will also calculate the Est. Delivery Date as well.
- Location Tracking: (such as in QuickBooks online) to have another dimension to Classes
- Horizontal Collapse: in reports, I would like to be able to pull a P&L by Job or P&L by Class Report with collapsed Classes with sub classes or collapsed clients with jobs.
- Transaction tags and highlights: for example, every transaction should have a drop down with three colors: Yellow, Green, and Pink. Any transactions with this tag would show highlighted with a color in the reports. There should also be a quick way to add this highlight tag from within the report.
- Add the Name/Transaction side bar found on Estimates, Sales Orders, PO’s, and Invoices… to other transactions such as Pay Bills and Receive Customer Payment. Its good to see if a payment was made previously
- In the Transaction Tab, add the list of documents attached to the transactions, so they could be double clicked from there instead of going to Attach File
- Have a Report that shows all the transactions that have attached documents… or viceversa, all transactions without it
- Create a permission level in QB Enterprise, where limited users can view and add attached documents, but cannot delete or detach
- In the Combine Multiple Reports features of QuickBooks Enterprise, we should be able to save the “group” of companies to combine and the passwords so its a faster process for people combining reports of 10+ companies.
- Change the Avg. Sales time period on the Item Detail Reports, right now is limited to the last 6 weeks… I need to be able to change that to: avg. monthly sales in last year, or avg. daily sales in last 90 days, etc.
- Multiple A/R or Multiple A/P in a single journal Entry. or latest being able to do an try to affect A/R and A/P on a single transaction
- Report on “linked” transactions. I would like to pull a report of P.O.s for example, that are not linked to any Bill. This will help me to research weather or not the PO was invoiced correctly or from its original P.O.
- Transferring attachments from billable items into Invoices being prepared with those items. For example, lets say I enter a check and assign it to a job and mark it billable, furthermore I attach a receipt to that check. When I create the invoice using the billable item, them attached documents should be linked to the invoice, so I can send them to my customer along with the invoices.
- Reports with all Job Expenses grouped by Non-billable, Billable & Un-billed, Billable & Invoiced. This will provide a good idea of the types of expenses the job is incurring.
- Estimate Status and P.O. Status drop-down that the user can give to Estimates in different stages. For example, an Estimate can have these 4 status: Pending, Sent to Customer, Converted to SO/Invoiced, Unawarded, Closed. A P.O. could have these 4: Proforma P.O., Sent to Vendor, Shipped by Vendor, In Transit, Item Received /Bill Entered, Closed. Of course, this is all searchable or filterable in the reports. Or maybe these 5 statuses can be manually edited by the user similar to the way Job Status can be modified.
- Item Categories or Item Groups. Ability to group items with common characteristics without using sub-items. And these are searchable and filterable. Better yet, can be filtered when making inventory adjustments which will make it easier to count specific groups or types.
- Rename “Write Checks” function to “Check or Bank Debit”. Also add a checkmark next to CHECK NUMBER that says “Debit Card” or “EFT/ACH/WIRE”, and this will gray-out the check number in the same way “Print Later” does. This will make it easier for the user to understand using write checks for all bank debits. Furthermore in the Bank Reconciliation screen, the user can show/hide: checks, debit cards, and ACH, this will help a lot with larger reconciliations.
- Preview Open Bills in the White Check Function. If I am writing a check or creating a credit card charge to a vendor that has open bills, I should not just get one warning, it should also show in the top left black space of the check all the open bills with checkmarks, which will allow the user to pay an open bill even from the Write Checks window, and essentially turn the transaction into a Bill Payment Check, without having to exit the Write Check Function
- Open Undeposited Funds Report and Uncleared Bank Transactions Report. These two reports should come in automatically in QuickBooks, maybe in the Reports, Banking submenu. We should not have to be creating a custom report for this.
- Accrual Vs. Cash financial reports. This one is a little out there… but would be nice to pull a P&L with two columns the Accrual and the Cash version, with a % or $ change option. Some times allowing the users to see the difference in single report, helps them understand the numbers better. With the option to only show the difference column and compare month by month or quarter by quarter, this way the user can see if their accrual basis income is growing faster than cash basis income, or vice-versa.
- Customizable columns in the Bank Register window. I should be able to hide the Num/Ref column or add a Customer:job column, or even a class column. The 1-line option is nice, but I should be able to choose which lines I want to see in the bank register. If not, at least present an option to SKIP the Num/Ref column when hitting tab right after the date of a transaction I’m about to enter.
- Shortcut to QuickAdd Vendor. Either enable a temporary feature that every time I enter a new payee in the register, it automatically Quick Adds the vendor… or a keyboard shortcut like ALT+ENTER or CONTROL+ENTER, it would be cool to have a special feedback sound for new vendors being created. This will SPEED up data entry by HOURS, its so annoying to have to select between Vendor, Customer, Employee, or Other, and then have to select between QuickAdd, Setup.. blah blah. Worst case, just show up one pop-up that asks: Vendor, Customer, Employee with a checkbox under it for Quick Add. It its unchecked, it goes to SETUP, if it checks just Quick Adds.. this will reduce the amount of clicks or keystrokes. Further more, if a vendor is created and there is NO bills or PO’s even entered for that vendor, I should be able to convert it to a Customer or employee. Same deal with employees that never had a paycheck or customer that never had an estimate, SO, or invoice.
- Transfers being able to use an Income or Expense Account. It is really annoying not being able to correct a transaction that was originally booked to a Balance Sheet account. Then reconciled.. and since I cannot delete it, I’m stuck not being able to change it to P&L account.
- Add Cost of Goods Sold to initial create new Account window, instead of having it hidden under other. Also, there should be a setting that warns the user when a COGS account is being used an no Customer:Job is selected. Or there should even be a setting that PROHIBITS the user from using a COGS account without picking a Customer:Job.
- More Keyboard Shortcuts: We need a shortcut for: Vendor Center, Close all Windows, General Journal Entry, Item List (CTRL+L on the Home page should default to Item List). And an option to create your own keyboard shortcuts
- Contextual Audit Trail from ANY transaction. In other words, being able to pull an Audit Trail for a single transaction from ANY transaction. This already words very well inside of an Invoice or Inside of a Bill.
- Create Date/By & Last Modified Date/By should be in the bottom of every transaction as a reference.
- Reviewed check box. Every transaction should have a check box that says “For Review” and another that says “Reviewed by UserX” in order to be able to pull a report for transactions to be reviewed by Controller, CFO, or accountant. Then that person will login and check it reviewed. In Bills in particular, there should be a checkbox that says: “Approved” and then “By Admin 05/01/2016” which gives users a dimension of payables controls. Plus being able to pull reports for Approved and Unapproved Bills would be very nice.
- Being able to Enable Purchase Orders WITHOUT enabling Inventory. Plus the ability to customize the name of the Purchase Order in the home screen to say “Vendor Work Order” and rename the Sales Order to “Employee Work Order”. In any Case, being able to RENAME any of the icons in the Homepage
- Allocating Freight Charges. when adding freight to a single line item in a bill QuickBooks should give us the option to allocate based on quantity or cost, and automatically add the costs to the inventory item instead of an expense/cogs account. This may have to be a new item type called “Allocated Inventory Cost”. I am probably asking for too much to say that weight could also be an allocation factor.
- Inventory Reports. The following Inventory reports are crucial: Inventory Used in Date Range, Inventory with Negative Quantity On Hand, Inventory with Negative Quantity Available, Projected Inventory Availability on Date (assumes all P.O.s are received on Delivery Date and S.O. invoiced on Ship Date), Unused Inventory Items as of Date. This last one should also have a contextual tool in the report similar to the Auto-Create PO that makes all the unused inventory items INACTIVE.
- Troubleshooting Reports: Income from Deposits (this shows all the deposits affecting the income account directly), Expenses from Invoices (This shows all Invoices affecting Expense accounts (except for Inventory items affecting COGS accounts), Income from Bills, Checks, or Credit Card Charges (shows checks/bill/cc credits affecting Income Accounts), Vendors with multiple accounts used (this will show me all the vendors in QuickBooks that had more that one split account used over a specific timeframe, very good for trouble shooting classification errors), Vendors/Customer’s Last Transaction (shows me a list of vendors or customers, with the very last transaction used for them)
- Merge Tool. A tool that makes it very easy to merge vendors, customer, items, etc.. using a window where you can check all the items to be merged or even CHECK ALL and merge in a single swoop. This is definitely a QuickBooks Accountant Tool.
- Export Estimate/Invoice/PO to Word or Excel. Sometimes the users will do the transaction in QuickBooks and save it for accounting purposes… but then need to add something either graphically or textually before sending it to the client. Of course, you will NOT be able to transfer changes back, but that would be ok.
- Get rid of Receive Inventory With or Without Bill Icon and the Enter Bill Against Inventory received. Just have an icon “Receive Inventory”(which has the option inside to uncheck bill received) and then the next Icon called “Enter Bill” and thats it.
- Ability to print pictures of Inventory Items that have pictures attached in the Inventory Center (in QuickBooks Enterprise) as a secondary page to the Estimate, Sales Orders, or Invoices.
- Disable Other Names, either just get rid of “other names” all together or have the option to disable this list
- Add/Edit Multiple List Entry Should have an Excel Export Button that exports the list exactly as is so the user can make the changes in Excel and then Copy and Paste back to modify or override current fields. Also then this button is pressed and the list is exported, the Add/Edit item window should freeze all options to filter, search or resort the list to prevent an error when pasting the items back in.
- Ability to Batch Enter Estimates, POs, or Sales Orders as well as invoices and bills. Also ability to batch enter multiple lines per transaction. Ablity to batch Enter Journal Entries as well.
- Bar Code Label Print capability from the Edit Item screen for QuickBooks Enterprise with Advanced Inventory
- Display transaction MEMO in the Apply Credit windows for both Vendors and Invoices. This is useful when the credit was notated to which invoice it would be used for.
- In the Add/Edit Multiple List Entries, would be nice to also see Accounts. And the ability to use Filters on the headers, so I can, for example, only show items pointing to Construction income account, or only see item that are sub-items of two specific items
- I would love to see a Transaction Detail report, that exports in “Data Mode“, basically it exports without excess header columns or totals/subtotals; and if it can be created in EXCEL in TABLE FORMAT right off the bat that would be great too for fast pivoting
- When working on any Transaction, an Invoice for example, we should have a button that says EXPORT TO EXCEL, this function should be the Equivalent of Pressing CTRL+Y (Transaction Journal) and then Export to Excel. Additionally There should be a preference that sets which default columns show up in the Transaction Journal (CTRL+Y), I have many clients that need a specific field and must go to Customize Columns and add/remove the column
GO TO PART 2 OF THIS ARTICLE: Wish List for QuickBooks Accountant Edition and QBOA I am QuickBooks trainer, I am not trying to criticize QuickBooks or its short falls, I’m simply mentioning the features that would have a lot of impact in many of the users that come to my QuickBooks courses and my clients I consult with. I also would like to thank my colleagues for suggesting some of these great ideas. I also invite any developer from Intuit to call me to discuss the details. If you have any ideas or features you wish to see in QuickBooks 2016, email me to: hector@qbkaccounting.com and I’ll add them to the list…. who knows, maybe Intuit reads this blog as well!
2 Responses
New Feature called landing cost option to be included. Landing Cost option; it should include the customs duty, freight and other cost to be added to the inventory.
Secondly: Creating More Tax items with Different Liability Account. Now all the Sales Taxes liabilities are in one Liability Account (of course vendor wise we can take the report). The user should be allowed to create multiple tax items with different vendors with multiple liability account as required by the law of the land