Posts made by Spiral

@travisdh1 I do believe they could be. But as SAAS providers scale to serve more customers, could the variable load on the servers change the user experience unexpectedly.

lol. That's Awesome...

As a fellow certified public accountant, one thing I will say, I do believe SAAS accounting products is the future, but there are some major issues still. For example, one disadvantage, with the online versions of popular accounting software is the data entry lag. Could be caused by many, many different things, however, I have noticed it across many different systems in different locations. Granted most data entry these days hopefully is automated, however, there are still enough times where the online data entry lag is enough to make you want to throw the monitor out the window. Seasoned accountants are used to banging-out calculations on a mechanical 10-key tape, or spreadsheet as fast as possible. Sometimes the half second latency delay, on creating adjusting journal entries for 100 transactions, for whatever reason, just kills productivity.

@krisleslie The frustration is understandable. I am reminded of a 50k project I was called in for, where a business who was using QuickBooks Pro, was migrating to Microsoft Dynamics (Great Plains at the time), in preparation of business growth. The technical migration and implementation went fine, but it was the in-house accountant user which rejected it. I was brought in to help consult with the in-house accountant migration, but it was too late. The accountant quit. And the company hired a new accountant which only was familiar with QuickBooks, so back to QB they went... (I think the Enterprise version though, to allow for more concurrent users.)

Also, while I am at it, if anyone does support a lot of QB installations, you may want to take a look at the Intuit Pro-advisor Desktop membership. It is targeted at accountants, however, you get the software, all versions, and a special tech support line. The tech support used to be direct access without any wait time, however, in the past year, I have noticed an increase queue delay with chat support.

In addition, the Enterprise QB DBMS can host .QBW database files for the other non-Enterprise Quickbooks versions also.

Although, I have done this many times with the Windows version of Enterprise QB DBMS hosting for QB Pro clients. I would think it would be true with the Enterprise QB DBMS installed on a Linux server also but have never tried it with QB Pro clients and Linux combo.

Lol.

Yes it is only for the Enterprise version, which is basically the same as the regular version with different licensing, and few other bells and whistles.

I set it up and used it a few years ago hoping it would be more stable than the Windows version, to which I am not convinced. Although, my Linux skill set was and is still developing...

For clarification, you can install the QB DBMS on linux.
https://community.intuit.com/articles/1552445-install-linux-database-server-manager

@scottalanmiller yes it is. clarification: $30-40 K salary in the Midwest.

@scottalanmiller You are correct about "finding" other accountants, however, it looks to be the cheaper or less experienced bookkeepers, only know one accounting package which happens to be QB. (Intuit targeted that market) Larger companies with larger hiring budgets will hire the accountant with more experience with ERP and other accounting packages. However, it would be totally unacceptable, and just bad business if a CPA working in public practice required all their client to use QuickBooks.

Not sure how old this thread is, nonetheless, it was a good read. As a CPA myself, I deal with QB all the time, and agree with all its flaws, and yes, some are major flaws, as in the multi-user DBMS hack they implemented. I had to verify with Intuit, that users direct network access to the database file was an absolute requirement, because I did not want the fault, for requiring the QBW database file to be directly accessible and victim of a crytoware attack.

I make it my prerogative to become familiar with all accounting packages/tools my target business clients may use or benefit from. However, “for better or worse” the majority of the small business clients I see, are using QuickBooks.

I get the impression for the local small businesses, it is very difficult to find a decent experienced bookkeeper or accountant, for the right price, who knows anything, but QuickBooks. Granted, there are alternative options like "https://bench.co/", but those options only work for very small businesses, or when you do not need in-house accounting personnel onsite. (which could ask another question) Seems in small businesses at the 10-20 million gross revenue range, with staff budgeting constraints, and one or two full time in-house accountants, this continues to be a problem. This issue has gotten better over the past 10 years or so, as some younger bookkeeper/accountants are leaning more than one accounting platforms, but QuickBooks is still one of them.

Could "Ping Plotter" help?

If this is in relation to your new company startup, I would venture to think your personality and communication is critical. Use applicable discourse conventions to explain how you can add value to a particular business. While this also is true for an employee/employer relationship, as an outside IT business consultant, communication of issues and opportunities to improve profitability of a business are paramount.

I like all the answers above, and would like to add how important it is, to have a stress relief routine. Stress and related burnout are critical issues to seriously consider, and have a plan to manage.

@eddiejennings

Next order of business is to decide your income tax strategy.

As a sole proprietor LLC you generally have 3 taxation choices:

(These are tax elections only)

• Disregarded entity - this is the default for a single member LLC. It is the most simple, and is filed with your personal taxes on a Sch C.

• C-Corporation - this election will tax the LLC just as if it was incorporated at the state level, and is taxed as a distinct separate entity apart from the owner. The C-corp files its own income tax return, and pays its own tax. Can have tax benefits depending on the circumstance and corporate tax rates, however, adds layer of complexity, and introduces possible double taxation on dividends.

• S-Corporation - this election is a simultaneous election to be taxed as if it was incorporated, and elect the S status, which allows for pass-through tax treatment. S-Corporation files its own information tax return, but the income tax effect is passed onto the owners, and tax is paid at the individual level.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/llc-filing-as-a-corporation-or-partnership

Consult with a tax advisor, because, depending on your situation and circumstances, there may be great advantages with going with one election over the other.

That is correct.

"If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it is a duck."

If you form an LLC, you want to treat it accordingly on all accounts, to benefit from the entity creation. There are many benefits, such as taxation, to treating a general business like a business and not like another personal checkbook.

However, the LLC is not a silver bullet, for general liability protection. The issue with a single member LLC is, it is difficult sometimes to separate the owner from personal liability, when the owner is personally performing services.

When you start adding additional members to the LLC, the importance of the “agreement” becomes exponentially more important for many reasons.

@scottalanmiller

That is correct, however, the LLC has "charging orders" in regard's to creditors in relation to other member's personal issues.

Also, with multiple member LLC's, it is important to define what other members can do. Whether the LLC is member managed or manager managed. Define, how to add a new member, or remove a member out. Define the scope of operations. All this is to minimize exposure.

As a small single member LLC, when the LLC owner is performing all the work, the articles of organization is of limited effectiveness in minimizing exposure to personal liability. For example, many people acquire rental property in an LLC. (which is reasonable) Nonetheless, if the landlord him/herself personally fixes something in the rental property, and later, that thing breaks and hurts the tenant, the landlord is pulled into the dispute personally, along with the LLC. An insurance policy would be the greatest defense against liability in this case. Also, as a small single member LLC, any loan applied for, the bank most likely will require a personal guarantee by you as well, keeping you on the hook personally for the loan. However, the articles of organization becomes much more important when the LLC has multiple members.

In addition, not sure if applicable, but "Series LLCs", are even a newer form of LLCs, which have even more functionality, but less statutory history, however, probably not applicable in this case, but used more commonly in multiple rental property unit situations.

So, in general, you have state entities, and elected tax treatments, for which the LLC, a state business entity, is the chameleon, which has the flexibility to be elected to be taxed in such a way that best suits the facts and circumstances.