ALERT: Accountant's Copy and Bank Reconciliations with Special Characters

Error Can Appear When Viewing or Exporting Accountant's Copy. Intuit has learned that several special characters in the names of accounts used in reconciliations will trigger an error if reconciliation is done in the Accountant's Copy.

If this problem exists, you would know because when you attempted to view or export changes for your client in an Accountant's Copy working file (.qba), you would receive the following ERROR MESSAGE:

We are unable to display the accountant's changes,
please contact Intuit technical support for more help.

Note: This problem is addressed in QuickBooks 2008 Release 4 (R4) published January 17. See next item.

The release prevents the error from occurring in the future. If the error has already occurred, options for repair are found in the QuickBooks Knowledge Base item KBID 1009092. Intuit understands how many accountants are likely to work on reconciliations to prepare financials for income tax purposes, and sincerely apologizes for any inconvenience.

ALERT: QuickBooks 2008 Release 4

New Release for QuicKBooks 2008 Addresses Two Issues. Last week Intuit published this release both as an Automatic Update and a manual download. The release is crucial for avoiding two potential problems likely to surface when accountants prepare QuickBooks files for tax purposes:

Potential Error in Reconciliation in Accountant's Copy. See above for more information, as well as the KBID for repairing any affected Accountant's Copy.
Several Issues with QuickBooks Payroll and W-2. Without R4, clients can make changes to the W-2 form but in some cases the changes aren't being saved. Or, clients can have problems creating W-2s for employees whose names begin with special characters. (NOTE: A QuickBooks Payroll subscription is required to access W-2s and other payroll forms.)

Tell Your Clients. The W-2 issue affects your clients with employees, so please spread the word about updating their QuickBooks 2008 to R4.

Keep track of this and other QuickBooks 2008 updates and releases here.

Client Cheatsheet: Nine Tips for Success in QuickBooks 2008

Help educate and motivate clients on the latest QuickBooks version with this cheatsheet showing Nine Tips for Success. You can download the PDF and share it with clients to answer their questions about "what's new." The cheatsheet covers how to best manage file location, the icon bar, lists, centers, desktop, and more.

Download here. [PDF, 3.2M]

Workaround for Downloads from Financial Institutions

If you use the WebConnect file to download information from the Financial Institutions page, and like most practitioners have several versions of QuickBooks installed, you may have run across this problem: The wrong version of QuickBooks opens.

Start using this convenient workaround now.

Important Tax Law Changes Take Effect in 2008

While your main concern right now is preparing returns for the 2007 tax year, it’s not too soon to starting thinking about the 2008 tax year. Our tax authors Terry Myers and Dee DeScherer identify the most important changes for you to discuss with clients – plus a client/prospect letter you can adapt for that purpose.

Learn the important changes here.

IRS Finalizes Electronic Filing Requirements for Corporations and Nonprofits

IRS final regulations mandate electronic filing of tax returns by certain corporations and nonprofits. Coming to an end are the gentler transition rules that cut filers some slack. Here are the new requirements. Learn more.

Make sure you understand the less-forgiving standards here.

Home Foreclosure Rules Now Law

Congress acted and we updated our recent coverage to reflect the final changes.

Tax Law Training for the Whole Office

Lacerte 2007 Tax Law Update Training

For $299, you and your entire staff will receive unlimited access to the on demand web-based Lacerte Tax Law Update Training. This course explains the new tax law changes and demonstrates step-by-step where you enter tax-related data in your Lacerte software. Attendees can earn 3 hours of CPE.

Learn more or see free demo here.

Last Chance for Free Webinars Based on Accountants Update Seminar

These free webinars replicate the contents of the live QuickBooks 2008 Accountant Update Seminar (live tour), in two separate webinars of 100 minutes each:

Course A: What's New. Covers what is new in QuickBooks 2008, across the lineup of products and services, for accounting professionals and their clients.
Course B: The Right QuickBooks for the Right Client. Covers how to evaluate and recommend the best QuickBooks products and services (including payroll) for your clients.

**QuickBooks User Certification Can Help with Clients and Staff**

Last month, after months of beta testing with over ten thousand registered testers, including hundreds of accountants Intuit launched its QuickBooks Certified User Program. This program was developed in part to respond to requests from accountants to help them in two ways:

Fewer Errors Likely from Trained Clients. ProAdvisors (and other accountants) tell us that their clients frequently make mistakes which the ProAdvisor has to fix later, slowing down the process. Thanks to such feedback, the new user training is strongest where clients are usually the weakest.
Easier to Find Good Help. With user certification, QuickBooks practitioners looking to hire good help have a way to identify applicants who have demonstrated a basic level of competence. Some firm owners will want to use the program to train staff, or combine this with CDs and in-person training already available for a complete educational experience with QuickBooks.

Learn more here so you can refer clients or staff to this program.

QuickBooks, Other Intuit Products, in Top 100 Accounting Products

Accounting Today editors chose the Top 100 Accounting Products and again this year Intuit makes a strong showing.

Winners include not just QuickBooks versions but Enhanced Payroll for Accountants, Lacerte®, and EasyACCT®.

Learn more.

REMINDER: You Can Ship Through QuickBooks with QuickBooks Shipping Manager

For FedEx and UPS. We are reminding you about Shipping Manager because at a conference late last year, many accountants were surprised and happy to learn QuickBooks already had this capability for themselves and their clients. Using either FedEx or UPS with Shipping Manager, you can work directly in QuickBooks and process shipments, print FedEx and UPS labels, schedule pickups, and track packages.

Saves Data Entry. Shipping Manager pre-fills the shipping labels with the customer address information from your QuickBooks Invoice or Sales Receipt forms so you won't have to write labels by hand or enter data twice.

Ready to Go. Shipping Manager is already built in to your QuickBooks software and it's free to use. You only pay FedEx or UPS charges on what you ship.

Learn more here on how to sign up and start using QuickBooks Shipping Manager it right away.

Notes

Versions: Shipping Manager requires at least QuickBooks Pro, Premier 2003 for Windows or Enterprise Solutions 2.0 or QuickBooks Point of Sale 7.0 Pro, Pro Multi-Store or higher. UPS functionality available in QuickBooks 2005 and higher and QuickBooks Point of Sale 7.0 and higher. UPS, the UPS Shield trademark, the UPS Ready mark, and the Color Brown are trademarks of United Parcel Service of America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. FedEx, FedEx Express and FedEx Ground are registered marks of FedEx and used under license.

QuickBooks Point of Sale 7.0 has Shipping Manager for UPS only.

Starting with QuickBooks 2007 you can use thermal label printers.

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Your Practice

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QuickBooks® Financial Software: Tips and Alerts

ALERT: Accountant's Copy and Bank Reconciliations with Special Characters

ALERT: QuickBooks 2008 Release 4

Client Cheatsheet: Nine Tips for Success in QuickBooks 2008

Workaround for Downloads from Financial Institutions

Tax Prep & Planning

Important Tax Law Changes Take Effect in 2008

IRS Finalizes Electronic Filing Requirements for Corporations and Nonprofits

Home Foreclosure Rules Now Law

Technology

QReportBuilder: You Want QuickBooks to Tell You What?

Product and Training News

Tax Law Training for the Whole Office

Last Chance for Free Webinars Based on Accountants Update Seminar

**QuickBooks User Certification Can Help with Clients and Staff**

QuickBooks, Other Intuit Products, in Top 100 Accounting Products

REMINDER: You Can Ship Through QuickBooks with QuickBooks Shipping Manager

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