Archive for June, 2011


    You Know You Need a New Accountant When..

    June 28th, 2011

    You know you need a new accountant when:

    1. You ask them how they are doing business in the cloud, and they say, “What’s the cloud”.

    2. They blindly recommend QuickBooks for your business without considering other options.

    3. They force or threaten you to use QuickBooks by insinuating that bad things will happen to you if you don’t.

    4. They complain about having to log into your cloud-based accounting system to help YOU.

    5. They claim that their fees will be lower if you use a system that THEY are familiar with.

    Don’t let that tail wag the dog.


    The One Page Business Plan

    June 23rd, 2011

    Last night I gave a talk on how to develop a business plan for a small business.  The fifty women in the audience, were part of a Cincinnati entrepreneurship program, Bad Girl Ventures.  The energy and excitement in the room was sky high!  Imagine fifty entrepreneurs, beginning their business journey.

    Writing a business plan, while a necessary requirement of starting a business, can be a major source of dread and anxiety for the entrepreneur.  Long, detailed, business plans that take hours and hours to complete are often pursued.  It doesn’t need to be this way.

    A much shorter version, the “One Page Business Plan”, allows the entrepreneur to move quickly into action, summarizing her key assumptions about the marketplace.  Suffering and dread is dramatically reduced.

    Here’s a link to my slide presentation, Zen and the Business Plan, that will get you started.

    Enjoy!


    User Permissions for Invoicing and Bookkeeping Added

    June 20th, 2011

    The Bee has added “permissions” to our Invoicing and Bookkeeping service.   Now, when you add a new team member, you have the option of setting permissions for the team member.

    Maybe you would like someone to enter their time, but not generate an invoice.  Or have an assistant enter some expenses, but not access your Books.  Team permissions give you control over the more sensitive areas of your business.  Here’s how it looks:

    permissions 02 User Permissions for Invoicing and Bookkeeping Added


    An Easy Alternative to QuickBooks

    June 13th, 2011

    Finally. Its been two years in the making, but we now have an easy alternative to QuickBooks.  What started as an “online invoicing system”, has evolved into a simple and elegant bookkeeping system for small service businesses and freelancers.

    We have heard from a lot of… QuickBooks “refugees”.  Thank you for taking time to tell us what you need, and most importantly, what you don’t. And a special thank you to those that took the plunge, ditched your QuickBooks, and became beta users.

    To your success!


    Getting started with Books

    June 6th, 2011

    The Bee is more than than just an invoicing system.  Much more.  With the release of Books, the Bee has been transformed into a complete system to meet all of the bookkeeping needs of a small service business or freelancing operation.

    For existing Bee customers, here’s how to get started using Books

    Books was released to all Bee customers on June 6, 2011.  As part of the release, we did the following:

    1. Created Books accounts (general ledger accounts) for all expense categories.

    2. Created Books accounts for a typical service business.

    3. Created an entry for books account, Accounts Receivable, that agrees to the total of unpaid invoices.

    4. Created an entry to books account, Opening Balance Offset, to balance the balance sheet.

    5. Created books transactions for income and expense transactions for calendar year 2011.  You can see these in the Trial Balance (detail).

    Here’s what you or your accountant should do:

    1.  Create general journal entries for the balance sheet accounts.

    If you have any questions about how to get started with Books, please email Bee support.

    Thanks!


The Bee is an online invoicing, expense tracking, and profit reporting tool. Using the Bee is simple, and makes online billing a snap!
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