As a highly placed ProAdvisor® on the Find-A-ProAdvisor site and an energetic networker, I am blessed to get a consistent amount of inbound inquiries. My firm is always ready to help new clients, but before we start offering them solutions, we take the time to do a thorough assessment during what we call our “Assessment/Onboarding appointment.” Below is the #RecipeForSuccess that we use during those appointments, which are critical to our process because they help us truly understand our new clients’ needs.

What is a #RecipeforSuccess? It’s a campaign that provides key ingredients and steps for accounting pros and their small business clients to achieve success. Search “recipe” on this site for similar articles.

Master Chef: Jonathan Bello, One8 Solutions

Ingredients:

• An existing QuickBooks® file
• A meeting or series of meetings with stakeholders including:
  • The person doing the work (i.e. the bookkeeper, controller)
  • The owner or the president of the company
  • Others who rely on QuickBooks for making decisions
• A review of the current QuickBooks file for the top 10 mistakes
• A game plan or future actions

Directions:

Step 1: Get your client’s basic/static information:

• Business type (sole proprietor, partnership, LLC, S or Corp)
• Calendar or fiscal year
• Owner(s) name
• CPA
• Banking accounts
• Credit Card accounts
• Merchant Service accounts
• Payroll
• How long in business
• How long they’ve using QuickBooks (even though you might find this out from the data review – sometimes there is a story behind the current data file)

Step 2: Once you have all the basic info, move on to the dynamic info:

• Business Segments/Departments – for example
  • Residential & Commercial
  • Direct and Wholesale
  • Education
  • Public/Government
  • Non-Profits
• Marketing Activities
  • Online (SEO, paid advertising)
  • Email marketing
  • Direct mail
  • Networking (BNI, Chamber, Other)
  • Cold calling/warm calling
• How are they tracking a lead>Prospect>Customer/Client/Patron?
  • Are they using a CRM?
• Revenue Generation System:
  • Estimate>Sales Order>Invoice
  • Time and Materials Billing
  • Project Billing
• Do they need job costing/how have they been doing it?
• Inventory tracking, if needed
  • Work in Progress
  • Assemblies/Bills of Materials
• Expense re-imbursement from the customer/client
• Employee expense re-imbursement
• Payables:
  • Purchase Order system
  • Approval system
• Time tracking for Payroll
• 1099 tracking

Step 3: Find out what your new client is not currently getting from their QuickBooks:

• Reports?
• What would make their life/job better?

Step 4: Do a comprehensive review of your client’s QuickBooks data:

• Review the settings
• Are they reconciling? Start with bank accounts because they are the backbone of a business
• Do they have old items on their reconciliations?
• Undeposited Funds – are there old items, or items that have never been deposited?
• Accounts Receivable & Payables
  •  Old items
  • Unapplied Credits
  • Zero balances showing up on summary aging’s
• Inventory – do they have negative quantities?
  •  Check the inventory valuation report against the inventory balance on the GL
• Payroll liabilities – do they have large balances in Payroll if they are using it?
• Sales Tax liabilities-large balances?
• Are 1099s set up correctly?
• Look at the balance sheet (I have found the balance sheet to be the dumping ground for incorrect usage of QuickBooks)
  • Do Liabilities have debit balances? (i.e. payments but no credits)
  • Do the liabilities accounts mentioned previously have large balances?
  • Opening Balance Equity
• Then review the P&L for inconsistencies
  • Too high or low Cost Of Goods Sold Percentage?
  • Other expenses seem out of whack?

Step 5: As you are encountering any issues, start building a task list of what needs to be fixed/cleaned up. This will be part of your game plan that you will present to your client, along with the road map helping them get to their goals off a well-oiled QuickBooks environment.