Yes, it’s true, I am now officially a Working Woman. No longer a Lady of Leisure, sipping Starbucks and eating bon bons while watching Oprah.
Now, before you think, gee, this is great, she won’t have to lower her vacation standards anymore and rent a piddling do-it-all-yourself mosquito haven of a villa in no-man’s land…..the job has one small glitch. There’s no salary. No benefits. But the hours are great. My boss is great. The commute is a breeze.
You see, I’ve become the Bookkeeper for my son’s new business venture.
Here’s how the conversation went:
Mom: Son, I’m thrilled for you about your new shop. You are super talented and smart. You will do great!
Son: Thanks Ma. I appreciate your love and support.
Mom: As much as I love you and know you will do well, your strongsuit is NOT handling money. How about you let me manage the books?
Son: Yes. Yes. Yes. That would be fabulous. I can’t pay you yet Ma.
Mom: Oh my. I wouldn’t take a salary even if you offered me one. This is just my way of lending a motherly (and fiscally responsible) helping hand.
So, here’s where I need your help times two.
One, I want to invest in a good bookkeeping software. The company is a owner-operated business operation so far, no employees for now, so the software will be to manage daily sales receipts, sales tax to New York State, pay invoices etc. The limited research I’ve done shows QuickBooks Pro as the software to beat but every time I Google it, the user reviews of Customer Service are so bad, it has me worried about buying it. Please tell me what your experiences are, pro and con. And of course, if there’s a better product, holler.
Two, I want to get a simple business laptop that will be 100% exclusive to the company books and documents. No fancy add-ons, just a stripped no frills laptop, PC based.
The Lenovo seems to get high marks but I’ve never owned one so your two cents, pro and con, is appreciated. The Dell Vostro is half the price of the Lenovo but honestly, (a) I’ve never HEARD of the Vostro and (b) what a stupid name for a product line.
I’ve also suggested to Son I help him find a better system keeping daily receipts. This is what was handed off to me yesterday! 🙂
EOS, I work from home and bought a Lenovo desktop last year on the recommendation my IT guru. I had to replace my old dell. I am very happy with it.
Regarding book keeping software, I think quick books is the best. If you want to brush up your skills Intuit offer quick books training courses. I did a two day one in Stamford a year or so ago. There are also many online tutorials. Good luck!
Thanks!! That’s huge help. I noticed UCONN Stamford has classes – I intend to take one on the sooner side. I prefer an in-person training to online.
Wow. Great that someone young can actually still open a shop. I imagine the State Sales Tax paperwork is onerous, not to mention the LLC paperwork. I bet he’s a Republican! 🙂
Can’t help you with either the laptop or the software so the best I can add is Happy Monday!
Onerous is the understatement.
Setting up a corporation
Tax number
Business checking accounts
A system/swiper for accepting credit and debit cards
Getting the space ready for customers – new paint, reception desk (nothing fancy), cash register – all those things add up to some pretty stiff set-up money necessary before taking in the first dime.
Yes, he’s most definitely a Republican. An unabashed Trump fan.
Then he’ll love the Judge Janine opening statement from this weekend. She lit into Mitt (rightfully so) and sang Donald’s praises.
Yikes – that’s awesome. Janine is one tough cookie and she doesn’t hold back. I so wanted her to be the NY Senator but if you remember, she flubbed her opening statement and bowed out right away. She needs to be a Trump spokesman. Way to tell Mitt to go to hell.
Great! Now that you’ve got the nuts and bolts handled, we need to start thinking about the venue for the Christmas party. What is the outlook for a company car?
Company car? You are thinking way too low. As his accountant, I’m suggesting a company plane. C’mon man, get with the program.
Lots of new small shops, (not chains) in NYC operate with just an iPad and a 4square cc card reader. Customer signs on the iPad.
My local wine shop operates like this, so they must also be able to track their extensive inventory with this simple set-up.
New chip cc readers are apparently expensive.
I got a 4square reader for $1.99 at DuaneReade.
Some readers take too much money per transaction. He’s getting a great system from the bank that has his business checking accounts. One stop shopping has its advantages. We’re heading to Staples now to look at cash registers.
QuickBooks works very well for my small business. I also use the QB point of sale “cash register”.
I saw that on their website. Like an iPad. We’re going lo tech to start. There are very few extra pennies for high tech toys that look cool. Gotta get through year one with a profit before adding bells and whistles.
Shopkeep is worth looking at. That is the ipad system that many local merchants use. We use it in 2 stores.
Finally a topic I know something about. Quickbooks is great. I probably use 1/10 of its capability.
Taking credit cards is an expensive but necessary evil. As a Chase customer, they steered me to Chase Paymentech. Very expensive and it took a couple of days for the money to hit the account. I now use BankCardUSA, a no name outfit who rides the First Data platform. I am much happier. They are cheap (relatively speaking) and the money hits the bank the next day.
New York State sales tax. Ahhhh! The good news is on-line filing is simple. But it is an arduous process to learn how to register, etc.
Wanna tutor me? I think it’s going to be a bigger learning curve than I expect.
Son signed up with Well’s Fargo card swipe thing and plan. I looked at lots of plans and fees and WF was right in line. That’s where his company bank accounts are too so it makes like simple. I hope. 😁😳
I thought of something important. To my knowledge, almost all accountants use Quickbooks. You need to use the same software as your accountant, because there will be some file sharing with them, especially as relates to tax return prep. They will make an accountant’s copy of your books, make changes, and then send you a file with their changes a few weeks later for you to incorporate. With Quickbooks, you are able to do this and not affect any transactions you have since entered.
When I was looking at businesses to buy, one owner recommended Peachtree accounting software, which is what he used. I bought this software but didn’t buy his business. Money wasted. My accountants required me to buy Quickbooks for the reason above. Make sure your accountant (and any business needs one, you can’t do this yourself) approves of whatever software you choose to maintain your books, before you purchase it.
Also, with credit card processing, they make it difficult to compare apples to apples in terms of charges. You will think you are dealing with Spirit Airlines. Credit card vendors quote costs in terms of transaction fees, but there are all sorts of arcane one off charges added, most of which are pass throughs from Visa and Master Card. You are interested in American Express, you say? Ha! Get ready to be gobsmacked with charges from them. That is why many small businesses (including mine) don’t accept American Express.
Legal structures? I use an S Corp as that is what my lawyer formed, but upon further review, an LLC is a better asset protection vehicle.
That’s amazing content. Thanks. I have not asked the accountant what software he uses so that’s question number 1. I told son I would not and could not be his accountant. That had to be a legal licensed guy. I’m merely keeping books.
Wells Fargo was incredibly detailed with their proposal and we went line by line with their rep to be sure we weren’t missing those dreaded hidden costs. The business is such that the clientele is the 20-40 male with a fancy big truck so seeing an AMEX is unlikely. Who me, profile??? 🙂