Enabling maximum efficiency. Let’s start with efficiency since it’s my jam – and it’s what I’ve been helping businesses achieve more of for 23 years. In my work, Enterprise is unmatched. Not only does it help you manage your whole business, but it’s also easy to use. All the efficiency starts from there – beginning with the software package itself!
Right from the get-go, Enterprise gives clients the ability to customize and choose the perfect edition of Enterprise for their industry, whether that’s construction, manufacturing, wholesale and distribution, and even retail (just to name a few). This also means that your clients get the benefit of tools and reporting built with their business in mind.
Enterprise is driven by data, which means that this one seamless application allows you to access all of your clients’ vendors, inventory, sales, pricing, and customer information, increasing efficiency for your firm.
Inventory efficiency is a true game-changer. Another Enterprise efficiency extra: Helping clients manage inventory. This is a key example of how my accounting firm has been able to save time and provide an enhanced client experience with Enterprise. It truly is a game-changer!
Case in point: The Advanced Inventory dashboard in Enterprise gives you the ability to manage your items and order fulfillment across multiple locations in one place. You have three levels of tracking, down to a bin or pallet. And you can use your smartphone as a barcode scanner to help you manage warranties, returns, recalls, and the whole pick, pack, and ship process. Imagine what this can do for your clients!
For one business, I used Advanced Inventory and barcode scanning to create an entire freight system. They would regularly ship items on a ferry, and Advanced Inventory completely changed the way they would account for all the items they shipped!
Gaining the business agility advantage. Adaptability is invaluable for any business, given the dynamic shifts of the market, which is why I recommend QuickBooks Enterprise to my clients. It gives them the edge of efficiency and the agility they need to leverage Enterprise’s customizable functionality to meet their specific needs.
No matter what stage my clients’ businesses are in, I know that Enterprise can handle their changing needs. After all, business success depends on the ability to evolve and scale.
For example, when clients need to receive payments, Enterprise offers several options to allow convenient payments, with automatic reminders. Plus, when invoices are paid, all the reconciliation happens in the background and flows directly into their books.
Putting payroll perfectly in place. Payroll can be a huge weight on a business owner’s shoulders because there’s so much at stake. As a CPA and tax practitioner, I cannot stress enough the importance of getting this right. No one wants to mess with the IRS! Rather than trying to do it yourself or getting an outside provider, you can use QuickBooks Assisted Payroll.
When your clients have confidence that their payroll is done right, their team is paid and all the data is natively captured in their books, allowing them to focus on other priorities. As their trusted advisor, you have the comfort of knowing the responsibility is taken care of. Not only that, their taxes can be filed and paid automatically with an error-free guarantee. Wow! Amazing.
Another way Enterprise helps support a solid business strategy is by helping my clients streamline their operations by incorporating time-keeping data. With QuickBooks Time and the QB Workforce mobile app, paper timecards can be eliminated, along with paper checks and manual entries in your books. Yes! All the data is natively in Enterprise, and it goes straight into your projects and payroll, so that your clients always have true, complete cost information right at their fingertips.
Beyond this bevy of built-in features, you can also recommend best-in-class apps to add specific functionality that’s customized for your clients. That data then flows to Enterprise, offering real-time information for more accurate reporting.
Secure, streamlined, and strategic data management. When you have one home for all your data, it’s just easier to make informed decisions.
Let’s talk about your team. It’s made up of different roles, and each role has its own purpose for accessing your business data. That’s hard to manage – which is why the custom user permissions in Enterprise really do make it easier for my business clients to keep their data secure.
With Enterprise, each team member can be designated access to only the information they need. Having these assigned roles enables separation of duties, giving business owners peace of mind and a sense of control.
Another strategic use of Enterprise’s data customization capabilities is especially powerful for retailers. By creating their own flexible pricing and discount rules, they can set a discount to activate automatically at whatever number of items they choose. Then, when customers fulfill the requirement, they receive the advertised discount automatically, eliminating the need for any manual intervention. I even helped one of my clients set this up to work across multiple locations.
Automating pricing and discounts definitely save time, reduce errors, protect profits, and keep customers happy.
If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that every business needs to be prepared to implement their business continuity plan. A central component of this is running your business in the cloud. No business owner should be their own IT department, nor should anyone run Enterprise locally. There are many reasons for this, but the security of customer information is one of the most critical ones.
Intuit’s® Protected Cloud access lets you use QuickBooks Enterprise from anywhere, using any device. All of the data is stored using state-of-the-art protocols, giving me peace of mind.
Insights that drive businesses forward. Once your data is secure and streamlined within Enterprise, the real benefits begin to emerge, in the form of all of the actionable insights you can access in it. The data from current operations truly is the key to understanding how to continuously improve. These deeper, real-time insights mean better decisions, and there’s really no limit to what you can learn about your business from the reporting in Enterprise.
With Enterprise’s Advanced Reporting, your clients have over 200 standard reports that can be tailored to their business, or you can help them create their own. Even if a business has unique data types and details that you want to search, sort, or filter, Enterprise lets you create custom fields.
Take our freight system example from earlier – for that, we set up custom fields that were specific to the items being shipped, so they wouldn’t have to enter them manually every time. Talk about a timesaver. I also love custom fields because they pave the way for pulling even more specific and actionable information into your custom reporting.
Another insight you need to make solid business decisions is, of course, from the profit and loss view of a project or job. This is easily accessible in Enterprise. Your clients can clearly see which of their projects are making money and the costs of each job, allowing clients to pivot, as needed, to protect their profitability.
Providing clients with that kind of visibility and helping them make better decisions is what I love to do – and it positions me as a true partner in their success. This is my sweet spot, helping my clients be more successful!
Support that’s second to none in supporting client success. As an Enterprise user, from the moment you open your software – like I did, from that pretty green box so many years ago – you’ll have the right help when you need it, which helps to ease stress and keep your clients’ success strategies on track!
Starting on day one, there’s an account team and unlimited U.S.-based 24/7 support. They’ll lead your clients through the onboarding process, including bringing in their data and any custom setup needed.
When your clients call or click “chat” in Enterprise, real accounting experts are right there to answer, giving you the information and resources you need. Clients also get free on-demand training, in the form of self-paced online courses to help everyone on your team get started and make the most of Enterprise.
Another perk: reliable, turnkey data protection with automatic, daily backups, so that your clients always have a copy of their data file in case you ever need to retrieve it.
After using Enterprise for 23 years, there’s no doubt in my mind that the level of support it offers truly is indispensable for myself as a practitioner and for my clients who need solid support, so that they can focus on growing their business.
Efficiency, insights, adaptability, and support – Enterprise truly was made to manage any business. From my vantage point, the most beautiful thing about recommending it to my clients is that they truly can use it as an integral part of their strategy for success!
To learn more about QuickBooks Enterprise visit https://quickbooks.intuit.com/desktop/enterprise/.
