What’s New In QuickBooks 2008: Part II

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• January-March 2008 Issue
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From the Jan./Mar. 2008 Issue

Intuit recently released the 2008 version of QuickBooks. This version is a relatively minor update to the product, but there are some very nice enhancements that may appeal to some or all of your clients. In this two-part article, I discuss each of the major new features and give you some ideas for how to put QuickBooks to work for your clients.

[This is the second of a two-part article. Click here to view Part I.]

OUTLOOK INTEGRATION
This feature is available in QuickBooks 2008 Pro and above. If your clients use QuickBooks to e-mail forms such as invoices and purchase orders, you probably know that previous versions of QuickBooks sent the forms through an Intuit server instead of using the client’s e-mail server. For some clients who manage all communications in their Outlook folders, this made it difficult to manage the sent forms unless the client sent a copy of the e-mail to their e-mail address.

QuickBooks 2008 has a new preference to e-mail forms via Outlook or Outlook Express as shown in Figure 1. The Setting for “Outlook” indicates that you’ll use Outlook to send forms via e-mail, while the “QuickBooks E-Mail” option indicates that you will use the QuickBooks Online Billing Solutions service to send and manage your e-mailed forms.

When deciding which e-mail method to use with QuickBooks forms, consider this tradeoff: Although using Outlook to send e-mails provides tracking within Outlook (the preferred way for many clients), if you select “QuickBooks E-mail,” the QuickBooks Billing Solutions service provides automated management, tracking, and follow up of the e-mailed forms.

Although there is no fee for the e-mail-only function of the QuickBooks Billing Solutions service, there are several benefits of the fee-based Billing Solutions service that help you manage and track your e-mailed forms (see Figure 2). Note, however, that even if you choose to pay for the upgraded Billing Solutions service, there are a few features that will not be available if you send forms via Outlook or Outlook Express. For example:

• The automatic payment reminders feature will not be available.
• The Billing Solutions feature that lets you track when customers view invoices and estimates will not be available. However, it is possible in Outlook, for example, to choose View > Options and request a read receipt.
• Customers cannot submit payments against Statements, only Invoices.
• When using Outlook or Outlook Express, customers can pay invoices online by clicking the link in the e-mail. However, the e-mail will not have the “View Invoice” button that is available when sending the invoice via QuickBooks directly.
• Customers cannot view estimates in the Customer Account Center.

EXCEL LIST IMPORT IMPROVEMENTS
The Excel import for customer, vendor and items has remained virtually unchanged since it was originally released with Version 2004. New with the Pro (and above) edition in version 2008 is a data import wizard to make the process easier. The wizard provides a spreadsheet template with predefined columns that describe what data fields can be imported. The user adds data to the columns in the spreadsheet, and the wizard then validates the data before you save the import file. (See Figures 3 & 4.) As errors are identified, they are highlighted along with a description of the error and a proposed solution. After validating and fixing errors, the spreadsheet is saved on the hard drive so it can be imported into QuickBooks.