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Use QuickBooks Online to Monitor Business Performance

QuickBooks Online offers tools for managing many aspects of a business’s finances, including income and expenses, inventory, projects and payroll. It can also generate reports and provide other financial information that business owners can use to evaluate performance, spot trends and identify opportunities to improve profitability.

Here are some QuickBooks Online features that can provide useful insights into your business’s financial performance.

Strengthen Customer Relationships

Strong customer relationships can contribute to repeat business and long-term growth. QuickBooks Online can help you review customer activity and identify customers who haven’t done business with you recently. Consider reaching out with a personalized email about new products or services that may interest them or, when appropriate, a special offer. You can also look for opportunities to recognize loyal customers and show appreciation for their continued business.

QuickBooks Online provides detailed customer records that can give you quick insight into past activity, current account status and potential opportunities. Beyond basic contact information, customer records offer comprehensive transaction lists and activity feeds that document your interaction with them. You can take notes and assign tasks, browse projects you’ve done for them and see their current open balance and any missing payments. Connect Gmail or Outlook to QuickBooks Online, and you’ll be able to store conversations with them right in their records. You can find customer records by clicking the Home button in the toolbar, then Customer Hub, then Customers & Leads.

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Manage Inventory More Effectively

Inventory management often requires balancing product availability with the cost of carrying excess stock. Maintaining too much inventory can tie up cash and increase carrying costs, while maintaining too little can make it difficult to fulfill customer orders in a timely manner.

QuickBooks Online can help you monitor inventory and address potential stock issues. The inventory home page provides an overview of low-stock items, top-selling products and open sales and purchase orders. Individual inventory records provide additional details, including the quantity on hand, quantities on purchase and sales orders and the reorder point you’ve established. Helpful reports include Inventory Valuation Summary/Detail and Sales by Product/Service Summary and Detail.

To see inventory pages in QuickBooks Online, click All apps in the toolbar, then Inventory.

Encourage Timely Customer Payments

Managing accounts receivable and encouraging timely payments are key to maintaining healthy cash flow. Businesses can take several steps to help reduce payment delays, such as:

Charging late fees,
Shortening payment terms, and
Offering a small discount for early payment.

Providing convenient payment options can also encourage customers to pay more promptly. For example, allowing customers to pay invoices electronically can simplify the payment process and potentially reduce the time between invoicing and payment. To do this, you can set up a merchant account through QuickBooks Payments. Customers can pay electronically using available payment methods, such as ACH transfers, credit or debit cards, Apple Pay, PayPal or Venmo. Transaction fees apply.

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Monitor Cash Flow

Understanding how much money is coming into and going out of your business is essential for effective cash flow management. Although positive cash flow isn’t the same as profitability, both are important measures of financial performance. QuickBooks Online provides tools to help you track and manage cash flow.

Click the Home button in the toolbar and scroll down until you see the Cash Flow graph. This provides a quick look at current and historical cash flow. If you need a more detailed view of your cash flow, the QuickBooks Online Statement of Cash Flows report can provide additional information for analysis.

Track Outstanding Receivables

To monitor unpaid invoices, consider regularly reviewing the Accounts Receivable Aging Summary report. It provides an overview of outstanding customer balances and shows how long invoices have remained unpaid, making it easier to identify overdue accounts. Although you can customize the report, the default view lists customers and related jobs by aging period: Current, 1-30, 31-60, 61-90, 91 and over, and Total.

You can also view outstanding customer payments. Click Home, then Sales & Get Paid, then Sales transactions. Colored bars at the top of this page show you the amounts associated with Estimates, Unbilled income, Overdue invoices, Open invoices and credits, and Recently paid. Click on any bar to see a list of related transactions below.

Make Financial Review a Routine

Using QuickBooks Online regularly can provide valuable insights into your business’s financial performance. Consider incorporating these practices into your accounting workflow to help monitor results, identify potential issues and make informed business decisions. For assistance using QuickBooks Online or interpreting your financial information, contact the office.

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