byalik said:
I have tried using Quickbooks atleast 3 different times in the past 2 years and its just so complicated that I can't seem to figure it out. I've read the book on but still does no good. There are different fields, and categories, and I don't know what goes where. I don't have that kind of time to figure it out every day. It would be too time consuming and as I am the only employee, I can't afford that right now.
I certainly understand! I know JUST how you feel ... that's why I was suggesting just using the parts of the program that you really need. The offer still stands ... if at any time you'd like to send me a basic list of what it is you'd like to accomplish, I'd be happy to try to set up a test copy of what you need in my copy of Quick Books and see if I can help you work it out. I really enjoy challenges, and I particularly love to take awful, complex tasks and make them as simple and easy as possible. If I can make it work, terrific ... it would be my gift to you. If not, you'd have nothing to lose. If you'd rather have someone else set up the program for you, that's fine, too. My feelings wouldn't be hurt at all.
I, too, have been my only employee for most of my career. I loved a time in the not-so-distant past when I had everything set up in QuickBooks (perhaps I can even dig out an earlier, far less complicated version of the program!) and all I had to do was enter about 15 minute of information at the end of the day. It gave me a great sense of control and power over the stuff I needed (I didn't do time-tracking for "tasks" and only had my "client charges" entered, for example). When I was too exhausted at the end of the day to enter ANYTHING into the program, that was okay, too. I could easily catch up on the weekend and many times, that was the more efficient way to go. The important thing was that I could send out bills to clients and get paid, I knew immediately what resources I had to work with and could keep track of all of those wonderful "deductible" expenses, and the heck with whether everything was done the way an accountant would do it or not. For that, I'd pay for a couple of hours of a terrific accountant's time once a year. The investment was WELL worth it. My accountant loved me and wished that all of his clients brought him the organized info. that I was able to bring to him.
The beauty of this was that at any time, I could easily print out a couple of reports that gave me everything I needed to know. I was on top of my billing and my expenses and it was a dream.
The HARD part was setting up the program to do what I wanted it to do. I thought I was going to either tear my hair out entirely or become psychotic when I first tried to set up my companies. Once the hard to face stuff of setting these up was completed, I found myself giggling at how easy it all seemed. And in a simplified form, I never DID have to re-learn things every day of constantly have to figure them out. The program told me precisely what needed to be done.
By the way, I am NOT a CPA or MBA; just a psychologist who likes to have things that work well for people, and that includes me! If you could have the program set up EASILY while your web sites are small and manageable, the tasks you actually need to take care of will remain under your control and you'll always know exactly where you stand, regardless of how "big" your businesses might become. If they get THAT big, you will have all of the resources you need to hire someone else to take care of all of this garbage for you, right? Anyhow, if you change your mind and think that I can help you in any way, just send me a message, and I'll do my best to help. If not, I really DO understand exactly how you feel about this stuff. And I'm sure that there are simpler programs than QuickBooks that would probably do what you need without the complexity and headaches of QuickBooks. I'm just glad that my first attempt at using that program was about 5 or 6 versions ago. If I had had to face the more current, super-deluxe upgraded versions that exist today, I'd certainly have given up long ago.
I wish you the BEST of luck in arriving at a solution that works for you. Perhaps others will have better or easier suggestions you can try. At least you know that we care!!
Best regards,
Sheila
take care.
