Your QuickBooks “Snapshots” (Company, Payments and Customer) can help you stay on top of your time-sensitive workflow. Reminders are more targeted.
If your company is large enough to have separate employees covering areas like accounts receivable and accounts payable, their workflow is pretty clear cut. But as a manager or business owner, you probably never know exactly what your day is going to look like.
You’re charged with overseeing the entire accounting operation. You’re responsible for seeing the big picture, though other people may actually be processing bills, invoices, etc.
So if you’re not using QuickBooks’ Reminder function, you should be. Here’s a look at what you need to know.
Establishing Preferences
As with so many other QuickBooks functions, setup takes place in the program’s Preferences dialog boxes. Open the Edit menu and select Preferences | Reminders. It will probably open to My Preferences by default. If it doesn’t, click on that tab now so you see this:
You should be looking at your reminders list multiple times daily, but especially at the start of your workday.
Click on the small box next to Show Reminders List when opening a Company file so that a checkmark appears. You’ll see what needs to be done as your work session begins. It’s likely that you’ll consult this list more than once daily, but it ensures that the most important tasks get done or assigned.
Now click on the Company Preferences tab. Here’s where you’ll tell QuickBooks which reminders should be included, and in what format. Before you start completing this screen, consider:
- How much of your accounting workflow you’re ultimately responsible for
- Whether you use online banking to pay bills and email for invoices and purchase orders, or if you send everything through the U.S. Mail (this will have some effect on how much advance notice you’ll need)
- How much of a grace period you offer customers when an invoice has passed its due date without payment
- What kind of detail you’ll want in reminders.
You can change these preferences at any time, but think carefully about what’s involved when you establish them.
Setting your Reminders preferences is a really straightforward process. First, do you even want a reminder for every element pictured here? Click next to Don’t Remind Me if you don’t.
For those activities where you do want a reminder, do you want to see a detail list or just a summary? Check the appropriate boxes. Finally, how many days ahead should it appear? When you’re done, click OK.
Tip: To leave a to-do for an employee, open the Employee Center and highlight the correct name. If you are using a version of QuickBooks that has contact management features, click the To Do’s tab. Click on the arrow next to Manage To Dos at the bottom of the screen and select Create New. Fill out the box and click OK.
You can create to-do’s for your employees here.
The mechanics of creating reminders are easy, but understanding your accounting workflow is more difficult. A QuickBooks training course can help you use Reminders effectively.
