Guernsey Consulting | QuickBooks Dashboard Tips

Happy Sunday! This week will be a little bit of a change from our normal content, but I wanted to start diving into some more specifics vs larger department overviews. So, this week we are going to cover a few things I feel are critical that you should be analyzing and reviewing often in QuickBooks.

Not using QuickBooks and use another accounting software or ERP platform? That’s ok! These general topics below can be applied to other software applications so you are still going to get value out of this!

Here’s the general overview of how I have my QuickBooks Online laid out to view my dashboard. We will dive into each of these a bit to know how they can help!

1. Get Things Done

2. Business Overview

3. Cash Flow

4. Planner

Get Things Done

Under this tab I have a few things that are sorted for easy viewing. I can see my bank account information along with my credit card information that’s all linked in QuickBooks.

On the left, I have Quick Actions which allow me to see:

• Expense, Customer, Bank Deposit, Vendor, and Invoice are up top as my main actions to click on or create.

• Money In

  • Customer, Product or Service, Invoice, Receive Payment, and Sales Receipt

• Money Out

  • Vendor, Bill, Pay Bills, and Expense

This allows me to not have to use the menu bar on the left and get right into invoicing a customer, check on money going into my bank, or to add new customers or vendors quickly. Remember, these types of options can be adjusted to better fit what you want to see or get to quickly. You can add/subtract from these menu options to see as many or as little selections.

Business Overview

This menu is what I default to most days when I log in to QuickBooks to get a better understanding of where cash is at any point in time. A few main items I keep visible in this section are:

• Cash Flow Trend - I usually leave this on a monthly view, but can change it to view my actual cash balance on a graph. This will show you cash coming in as green and cash going out as a blue color. Compare this easily and quickly to see how much more cash you have coming in the door vs going out for the month!

• Profit and Loss - Quick access to see what income you have coming in for the past month along with any known/paid expenses. I like to view this as the “last month” option.

• Expenses - Taking into consideration the “last 30 days” here to get an idea of how my expenses are split. This will show you information like marketing/advertising, dues/subscriptions, utilities, etc.

• Bank Accounts - Just another quick overview of the latest balances in your bank account(s), credit cards, etc. and will let you quickly know if there are transactions that are not categorized or coded.

• Invoices - What invoices are paid vs unpaid and the total. This gives you a quick idea of how much $$ may potentially be coming your direction over the next month! I don’t know many who complain about seeing this figure trend up!

• Sales - I like to view this on the last year or 6 months to get an idea of how sales revenue is trending. This also may help you uncover some seasonality in your business.

• Taxable Profit - This is a newer feature, but allows you to view details like income, deductions, and your taxable profit!

Cash Flow

This is one tab that I like to build out my forecasted details on. I can take information that I know is planned expenses or income and make sure it’s added in so I can see how cash will trend.

This covers money coming in and money going out for your linked accounts. One thing I like about QuickBooks is the auto-recognition of specific expenses or payments as it will match internally for you which saves you and your team time on categorizing and coding transactions! More time to focus on other details in your business!

While I do use this feature, I still build out my daily cash and 13 week cash flow in Excel and Google Sheets. This is something that is definitely personal preference, but I just prefer the layout and how my file is built for more specific information (you may find the QuickBooks option perfect for you, so check it out!).

For anyone reading this that is wanting help in developing a cash flow forecast or want’s to learn how to use a 13 week cash flow for their business, reach out to me at [email protected] and we will setup a call to connect on this and figure out a time to put this in place for your business.

Planner

This goes hand in hand with the Cash Flow tab as the information you input here will feed directly over to the Cash Flow tab. This is where QuickBooks will recognize recurring charges you have happening and it will make either automated monthly charges/payments, planned details, or estimate payment amounts like credit cards. Similar to the daily cash or 13 week I mentioned above, you can input all of your cash inflow/outflow information here to get a better understanding of your business performance.

Connect with Guernsey Consulting LLC for Expert Guidance

Effective cash flow management reporting/analysis is crucial for most businesses and Guernsey Consulting LLC is here to guide you along and help establish the right layout for your business in QuickBooks. I specialize in tailoring financial solutions for small businesses, ensuring accuracy, efficiency, and strategic clarity.

[email protected] 

www.guernseyconsulting.com 

Reach out today or this week to discuss how we can partner together and make your accounting dashboard and analysis more streamlined and easier for you to understand and make decisions from. The first 3 to setup a time to discuss this will receive a 5% discount on rates now through 3/1/2024!

👑👑CASH IS KING!👑👑 

While we are on the subject of cash flow, make sure you head over to YouTube and watched the video below. This will give you tips on how to manage those receivables and collect your hard earned cash ON TIME!

While there, subscribe. It’s FREE and supports small businesses like me in more ways than you know!

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🙋‍♂️ My final ask of the day if you are still here……..

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