Welcome to the six figure business mastery podcast, where every week

Kirsten and Jeannie dive into the essential topics to fuel your business

growth, from copywriting to course creation, mindset to video marketing.

They've got you covered tune in for expert guest interviews on all things,

marketing and business, and learn how to work on your business, not just in it.

So get ready to unlock your business potential and take it to the next level.

Welcome everyone to today's episode.

We are absolutely thrilled to have the lovely Sue Lobdell with us.

Sue is an accountant.

She's got 28 years of experience in accounting.

She provides expert services and payroll benefits, tax, and multi state sales tax.

She does both virtual in person and in person services.

She's available to clients nationwide.

She is a community driven and patriotic professional.

She dedicates time to coaching girls softball.

She's married with two adult kids.

She's excited to build new business relationships and contribute her

expertise to help clients succeed.

So today we're going to talk about.

There's more to accounting than QuickBooks, so I'm excited to learn more.

So welcome, Sue.

We're thrilled to have you here today.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm excited.

When Jeannie says she's not a big fan of it, bookkeeping was the first thing you

outsourced in your business, wasn't it?

Very first thing you outsourced.

Coming into my office and I would have all those receipts.

piled up in a pile on my desk and just seeing those it was the guilt

and the shame and the I really need to do this and I really don't want to

so yeah I was thrilled to find a good bookkeeper to take that off my hands.

Sue is an excellent bookkeeper she and I met out networking here in Sarasota

Florida and so we're excited to have you here because I think bookkeeping

most people feel like Jeannie does right it's overwhelming it's stressful.

So I'm excited to talk with you about QuickBooks and all the things

that small business owners need to know to be successful with their

bookkeeping and things that will help them grow their business.

So Sue, tell us what your thoughts are on QuickBooks.

So I've been using QuickBooks for 28 years, desktop for a very long time.

And then QuickBooks has chosen to move online, which has limited

some of the capabilities that so many professionals have.

Of many different industries are used to from the desktop version, the reporting's

not great from an accounting standpoint.

I'm sure that for some service professionals, it's

pretty adequate for them.

They've moved payroll online, and when you're used to 1 platform.

To go to something by the same manufacturer that's completely different

can be a struggle for small business owners to learn you have to transition

the data yourself for one thing there is tech support available but sometimes

people have to pay for it and there's so many maybe a half a dozen that I would

recommend other accounting platforms that are cloud based you can use them

anywhere there's a website there's an app that as soon as you pick it up and learn

it You find it so much more convenient.

So what are the, some of the softwares you recommend?

That's part of it.

And I also want to add that some clients come to me who maybe

just need reconciliations done or information to get to their CPA.

And in those cases, I just set them up on a free bookkeeping software

so that I can have their data to get it together for their CPA.

So a program like that would be zero.

There's a program called fresh books.

There's Zoho books is becoming more popular.

And there's a couple more smaller ones that are the basics.

People can go in, there's tutorials to help them, they can enter their

expenses, enter their checks, see how much money's in their bank, make

sure that everything's captured.

And for some small businesses, that's enough, but these

programs also expand to the full capabilities they're used to seeing.

So maybe like the starter version has some things in it,

but you can pay to have more?

They can do credit card processing.

Just like QuickBooks Online can.

And for some of them, it comes with the free basic plan.

And for other, uh, they pretty much have steps, like a free basic,

something with a little more features.

Then you can add payroll, which is something with a little more features.

And then the platinum plan, which does everything.

These programs can process credit cards.

They can calculate and pay sales tax.

They can calculate and pay payroll, and it's all from their computer.

So it's less outsourcing, I think, when companies can do it.

In house or learn to do it in house.

It's going to save them money outsourcing these tasks.

Yeah.

Wow.

So, and I'm assuming it does things like it.

They run reports of different things that you need.

The reports are pretty much at your fingertips.

If you have drivers or employees.

That you pay mileage for, or you need their gas receipts.

In their app, someone can take a picture of their receipt and it's going to

upload saying that this person was at shell on November 12th at 10 a.

m.

and they got 12 gallons for 315 a gallon, but then it's right

into your accounting system.

You can tell them that all the gas transactions, maybe go on the card.

Or it'll help you expense them and save time on manual entry.

Well, I would appreciate, have appreciated that many years ago, that

you could just take a picture of it and there it would automatically upload.

I love that.

Zoho specifically has something called Zoho Expense, but they have a whole

suite of just full office management capabilities and so do other apps.

And it's just a matter of working with someone, telling them what

your needs are and people who know that, Oh, this is probably a better

fit or could be in QuickBooks.

Yeah.

And it's interesting.

I think ZOHO has been around for a long time, but I think

they started out as just a CRS.

That's my experience as well.

So as a bookkeeper, do you review accounts for business owners who do it themselves,

or do you just do it for business owners?

I offer financial review packages for lack of a better term.

And this time of year, it's pretty popular.

I'll have business owners come to me and say, Hey, this

is what I've done this year.

And a lot of people at this time of year are looking to save money on what

they're going to have to pay in taxes.

So sometimes it's recommending.

You know, capital expenses they could make if their buildings need improvement,

if their fleet needs updated, things like that, that will bring down their

taxable income, but benefit their business from a capital perspective.

Yeah, I love that.

I love how you're helping them think strategically about what

they're doing with their business and different things that happen

at different times of the year.

So do you also set up the accounts and things for people who, who

don't want to do it themselves?

Let's say.

They pick one of those softwares.

Do you help them set it up?

I do.

You know, I've been given spreadsheets and boxes and it's like, here's

everything from last year.

And the first question I always ask is, has your tax return been filed?

The reason I ask this is if their tax return has been filed, no matter

how much they give me, it has to equal what their tax return says.

So sometimes that takes a little more investigating, but I'll work with a

spreadsheet and a box of receipts.

Anything from a company file, from a different software, uh, pretty much

whatever they can give me to help them get set up and running a little

more independently and smoothly.

Yeah, I love that.

Now, out of the three different softwares that you talked about,

alternatives to QuickBooks, do you have a favorite out of those?

I love QuickBooks.

Zoho is my favorite.

It's easy to use.

It's easy to learn.

It's easy to customize.

It's desktop, website, and mobile app you can use.

And there's a lot of branches to it that feed to QuickBooks.

Here's my analogy.

When I say QuickBooks, I basically mean accounting software.

People are used to entering invoices, writing checks, doing things like that.

But what they don't understand is it's a spider web.

So you can enter an invoice, but it's going to touch at least two accounts.

Your accounts receivable and office expenses.

Which then feeds backwards, so it's face to face transactions feed different

parts of the accounting program.

So that's why you have to be very careful about correct entry

voiding it the correct way.

If you make a mistake, basically you have to do the opposite of what you did.

So if I entered an invoice to bill a customer and they canceled their job, I

can't just delete that invoice because it's not going to correct the inventory.

What I have to do is void that invoice.

So it undoes everything I did when I enter it.

And that's a big thing that happens when people's books seem off or get messed up.

The 1st thing I do is go on audit trail and you really don't want to

use an accounting system that doesn't have that feature might I add.

I also have a certification in forensic bookkeeping from West Virginia University.

So, the 1st thing I'll do is run an audit trail.

And run reports and look back to see the last time the report was correct.

That could be 2 months.

It could be 2 years.

And then you just work week by week, month by month to make sure that everything's

corrected, or your books are just good.

You know, not look right in perpetuity.

And I also think with an auditor's brain, if I pull a profit and loss

and I see this, that's a red flag.

So I don't just come in and enter transactions for people.

I come in and I analyze and I look with an auditor's mind and I use my skills

to make sure that information I'm going to enter is right before I touch it.

Thank God for people like you.

That's all I have to say.

Garbage in, garbage out, right?

And I don't want to be that person.

I want to make sure that it's right before I touch it.

Yeah, I can appreciate wanting to get down to the nitty gritty and

wanting to be totally informed so you can look at the big picture.

So I can appreciate that part, but the actual doing, you can, you're

welcome to do it for me anytime.

Sometimes it's like solving a mystery and you finally find that you're like, yes.

So do all three have that feature where you can go and dig back into

the history and that type of thing?

Yes.

If all the data's in there, you can look as far as the first

date of entry in an audit trail.

You can see when Pretty much when the software was activated

and what the first entry was.

And that gives you a start date.

It almost surprises me that QuickBooks doesn't.

It's like they, they were the leader of the industry and then they just stopped.

Know what I mean?

It's really sad because a lot of their clients are accountants.

And a lot of accountants are fighting back saying, listen, You're taking away

so many of our capabilities, and there might be clients that maybe they've

had a couple different bookkeepers, and they've been through 2 or 3

software transitions that can make things a little more challenging, too.

And I think that some small businesses aren't prepared for the cost, not

just of the software, which is cheaper than QuickBooks in most

cases, but a bookkeeper or accountant who's onboarding them properly.

That can be a pretty big upfront cost, but if your end goal is to

manage it yourself and have an accountant review it monthly, maybe

reconcile, it's worth it to know that.

If someone comes in, if the IRS writes you a letter that your books are

good and trustworthy, do these three softwares connect with QuickBooks?

So that makes it easier for the accountant?

Is that what you said earlier?

Does some of these softwares connect to QuickBooks?

The accounting softwares don't necessarily connect to QuickBooks.

What I meant by connecting to QuickBooks is field software that

maybe techs use in the field or sales people use in the field.

It's like a CRM with accounting capabilities to track

financially what your staff.

How do accountants feel when their clients come in and they're on one of these

three softwares rather than QuickBooks?

I think accountants that are knowledgeable in more than

QuickBooks are okay with these other softwares that aren't necessarily

as mainstream as QuickBooks is.

It's a learning curve for a lot of people because they're new.

And they're not what you're used to, but I think having the broad experience of more

than just QuickBooks is very important for a widespread, well rounded client base.

So you said already that there is for small businesses, there is a savings.

If they go to some of these other alternatives to QuickBooks, right?

Yeah, that's correct.

And I'll use the whole QuickBooks as an example.

So QuickBooks online for a small business that wants to run payroll.

That let's say has 300 transactions a month could cost close to 200

a month less a payroll package, which could be 90 a month.

Whereas if you have that.

Same capability in Zoho books.

You're spending 50 QuickBooks online has merchant services.

So does Zoho books.

You can process all your credit cards from an app.

You can process them on the website.

Their fees, they're pretty equal.

I've noticed maybe a 0.

2, 0.

3 percent savings.

QuickBooks, the processing time's the same.

You still have your money the next day.

Like say, if you use a square or stripe, it's all comparable and you get your

money in the same amount of time.

And it all feeds to your checkbook.

I love that.

So let's talk a little bit about like new technology.

Are they incorporating AI now into accounting software?

They are, they're pushing it pretty big.

It's nothing you have to accept to do.

I'm hesitant to use AI as of right now for a few reasons, but it's so new,

don't know that there's a specific way to track like an audit trail, what

AI is entering your course have to teach the AI and you have to make sure

that it's doing things the right way.

And I know some accountants that have pretty good success with

it, but they all say I'm spending just as much time checking it.

It saves them in labor.

Uh, if they have maybe a bookkeeper or an accounting clerk that they used

to pay to enter transactions, but somebody still has to scan documents in.

And I'm at a leave it point right now, as far as AI, I will use it.

If I'm trying to create a report, I mean, that maybe isn't a standard

report, but I am not an accountant who uses it for The work I do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's not going to be replacing bookkeepers anytime soon.

The funny thing is it's not intended to replace bookkeepers.

It's intended to make their jobs easier.

But if I have a bookkeeper that I'm paying 40 an hour to enter transactions.

But now all she's doing is scanning invoices to my system so AI can enter it.

I'm still paying somebody 40 an hour to scan invoices and upload them.

There's a lot of sides to it that maybe, or somebody could think, oh I can get

this program for 80 bucks a month and AI is going to do everything, but it's not.

You have to tell it what to do.

And you have to make sure it's doing it right.

Make me nervous with numbers and things to let AI take hold of it.

Because I would be the one who's constantly double checking

everything, accepted everything properly and categorized it properly.

Right.

And if the IRS comes calling, you can't say, Oh, well, AI did that.

You know what I'm saying?

If an auditor comes calling, using AI is not going to be a valid

reason to get you out of trouble.

Yeah, absolutely.

So the three softwares we've been talking about, did they use AI?

Do they have AI technology in them?

They zero.

Mentions it.

I don't know how robust it is.

Zoho does, but it's optional.

It's optional in all of them.

A lot of the service based softwares are incorporating more and more AI,

but I just think it's too new to do it when my brain is very analytical and

it's not going to look back on a four year old profit and loss statement.

And show me a mistake.

Yeah, no, I totally get that.

It's too new.

It's too new for, I feel like something is important and precise as bookkeeping

and a role for small businesses.

So, so if people want to get ahold of you because they need your help, or

they just want to reach out to you, what is the best way for them to do that?

So I do offer a free one hour consultation, which can

be scheduled on my website.

Which is www.va pro usa.

My direct line is 9 4 1 5 4 4 0 0 7 8, and my email is sue@vaprousa.com.

I love that.

Well, Sue, this has been so informative, even for someone like me who is not

a big fan, but again, I'm so grateful that there are people out there like

you who can help small businesses either get started with something that's gonna

work for them for a long time, or.

To be able to interpret and understand what they're working

with now and maybe make it better.

I love that you like strategically think about what's best for the

business and the business owner.

So thank you so much for joining us today.

So you've been a wealth of information.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thanks for listening to the six figure business mastery podcast.

If you enjoyed listening to this episode and you are ready to leverage video

marketing on all online platforms, or maybe even start your own video

podcast, then you need to check out the done for you and done with you

program at the marketing VA advantage.

com and take your business to the next level.