When using QuickBooks is a no-brainer

by Tony Novak, CPA, MBA, MT     January 22, 2015

I ran into an old friend by chance on a Philadelphia sidewalk today. We used to see each other often but now he lives more than an hour away with his three dogs at a rural country place in beautiful upper Bucks Country. He knows that I am an accountant but we’ve never “talked business” before. His modest window cleaning business is quite simply managed, all cash, and I never suspected that he had any reason to consider using an accountant or a computerized accounting system.

Today he surprised me by mentioning that he recently resolved to set up his small business accounting on QuickBooks because he was tired of being disorganized and paying late quarterly filing penalties. He says that he’s always known that accounting and organization are not his strength and he knows that he needs to improve. He also thought that by using a computer-based accounting system, he might learn to better manage his cash flow.

 This surprised me a little since I think of him as barely computer literate and it never occurred to me that he was a candidate for QuickBooks services. I always presumed that he was able to handle all his accounting on the little paper notebook that he carried in his back pocket. Not surprising, he said he might have a few questions about setting up his new accounting and asked if it would be OK to call me.

I reminded him that I was a certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor (I pulled out my business card to show the ProAdvisor logo) and assured that of course I would help him. I also reminded him that all my accounting practice was online and so the physical distance between us posed no obstacle.

But I had even better news: because of QuickBooks new value pricing policy, if he sets up his QuickBooks through me then I would get paid without the need to add anything onto the cost of QuickBooks that he would have paid anyway. The wholesale price of QuickBooks is half of retail price and my fee for occasional help would not likely exceed that 50% markup. He was thrilled to hear about this option.

We did not get into the specifics in this sidewalk conversation but I estimate that he will ask me for an hour or two for help setting up QuickBooks. An important part of the process, in this case, is to set reminders for the tax filing deadlines that will go to both of us. I will likely suggest that he connect a bank account and debit or credit card. It would make sense to make his tax payments from this same account. After initial setup, I expect that he will have an occasional question and I will likely log onto his QuickBooks account records to take a look to see if I can offer any suggestions.

In this case, the entire cost of the QuickBooks accounting system will be 100% offset by what he saves in late filing penalties for his quarterly returns. I imagine his annual tax preparation and filing costs will also be lower as a direct result of using QuickBooks. Getting to use me occasionally to help with an accounting question at no additional cost was just icing on the cake.

As I walked away, I considered that this is a perfect example of how QuickBooks value pricing policy can help a small business owner, and that I ought to write a short article about it.