Quickbooks question

[Wandslinger]

How do you track referral and advertising? I'm sure you have to set up a field of some sort. I just can't seem to figure it out. Your help would be most appreciated.

 

[Brian R]

How do you track referral and advertising? I'm sure you have to set up a field of some sort. I just can't seem to figure it out. Your help would be most appreciated.

Get Service Monster for that.

I worked forever to try to track stuff in Quick Books...great for financials...not so great for Carpet Cleaning customer tracking.

Service Monster is made specifically for us Dirt Bags and it works like a charm.
They even let you play with it before you buy it.

It's all on line so you don't have to worry about backing up the program and you can use it from any computer that has internet access.

I sound like an infomercial...you better buy now because we can't do this all day.

Check it out.
http://www.principalfocus.com/?gclid=CL ... agod128Dqw

 

[Brian R]

I was supposed to set up the marketing on Friday but I was too busy. Go figure.

I will be doing a ton of it through Service Monster.

They will be printing as well...maybe even designing if it isn't crap.

The thank yous are like wedding invites and the automatic reminders (and thank yous) kick ass.

 

[Bill Soukoreff]

You have to turn on classes under preferences in the accounting tab. Then when you enter an invoice or sales receipt you add the appropriate class.

You can modify any report you want to show the classes.

I have a made up a class for each carpet retailer, designer, builder etc. and then generic classes such as referral, repeat, web, flyer and so on. Really easy for tracking referral fees, and where your business is coming from.

Quickbooks can do pretty much anything your want, you just have to figure it out.

If you can't figure it out, I will take a look when I have time and tell you exactly how to do it.

 

[SuperFly]

How do you track referral and advertising? I'm sure you have to set up a field of some sort. I just can't seem to figure it out. Your help would be most appreciated.

Tom.. Click on Invoice..

On your invoice window click in the left pane under item..
click on the drop down arrow..
click add new.. A small window opens..
Under Item name/Number type-Referrals or whatever..
fill in the description.. Rate.. Account then click OK

To see all of them or track them after the invoice is complete:

Click on Reports then Company & Financial..
then Profit & Loss Detail.. Scroll until you see
the Referral list..

:shock: :? 8) :x
:roll: :wink: :mrgreen: :|

 

[Brian R]

oK,
Easier in service monster

 

[Brian R]

Are we hijacking?

The cool thing about service monster is the scheduling too.
You can be scheduling on a computer in one part of town and your secretary will be scheduleing at the office and they both link up so that it doesn't overlap.

 

[Blue Monarch]

Yep, classes are the way to go. You can really track a lot after turning them on.

 

[hogjowl]

The dude already HAS Quick Books, and two people have offered ways for him to do what he wants in QB's. So, you Service Monster shills please start your own thread.

 

[Brian R]

yes dear
Just getting some options out there.

I still use Quick Books for financials.

 

[Blue Monarch]

I picked up on the classes thing from Howard Partridge. Makes life a lot easier.

 

[Brian R]

How do you track referral and advertising? I'm sure you have to set up a field of some sort. I just can't seem to figure it out. Your help would be most appreciated.

Tom.. Click on Invoice..

On your invoice window click in the left pane under item..
click on the drop down arrow..
click add new.. A small window opens..
Under Item name/Number type-Referrals or whatever..
fill in the description.. Rate.. Account then click OK

To see all of them or track them after the invoice is complete:

Click on Reports then Company & Financial..
then Profit & Loss Detail.. Scroll until you see
the Referral list..

:shock: :? 8) :x
:roll: :wink: :mrgreen: :|

Are you talking about the customer message?

 

[Bill Soukoreff]

Classes is the right way to do it, not items. Items should be kept for your tax related lines.

 

[Becker]

I always did mine this way.

When i designed the invoice, i added a field only I see.

In fact I added a few fields.

One being source.
I then enter a code like.
YP yellow page
VP Valpak
VL Van lettering
F1 Flyer 1

etc


All this is search able , and comes up in graphs, reports etc.

 

[Blue Monarch]

That would work for tracking sales.

The plus side to classes is you easily track expenses as well. A report on class shows what you spent on a campaign and the sales generated.

So when I purchase some postcards and stamps I'll put them under a certain class. When the sales come in from them, I use the same class. Works really well and you can really see what's paying off marketing wise without much hassle.

 

[charles]

We use Quickbooks Customer Manager program with Quickbooks Pro.
With Customer Manager you can keep track of Contact information,
Contact history, To-dos, Notes & Appointments.
It also tells us when its time to send 6-9 & 12 month reminders.
Plus it syncs with Quickbooks and Office Outlook.

 

[Becker]

I'll have to do some looking...

My system has worked well, but seems like I could fine tune it.

But when I do say a flier 1.. I know what it cost me, and I can compare that to sales.

Sounds like I have some learning to do..

 

[SuperFly]

[quote="Tom Meyer":21j10ptw]How do you track referral and advertising? I'm sure you have to set up a field of some sort. I just can't seem to figure it out. Your help would be most appreciated.

Tom.. Click on Invoice..

On your invoice window click in the left pane under item..
click on the drop down arrow..
click add new.. A small window opens..
Under Item name/Number type-Referrals or whatever..
fill in the description.. Rate.. Account then click OK

To see all of them or track them after the invoice is complete:

Click on Reports then Company & Financial..
then Profit & Loss Detail.. Scroll until you see
the Referral list..

:shock: :? 8) :x
:roll: :wink: :mrgreen: :|

Are you talking about the customer message?[/quote:21j10ptw]

No cust. mess is at the bottom.. The left pane on your invoice/work order..
They can be customized so yours might not say item it might have
whatever you put there..

click in the left pane.. Drop down arrow appears.. click on it then
click (Add New)... Whatever you want..

Click on Reports then Profit and Loss Detail..
Scroll down and view all your Referrals/sources etc. etc......
And thats where your daily/weekly/monthly/yearly route should be showing up..
Income.. Chem costs.. Fuel.. All the good stuff........ 8)
Adjust by changing the dates above.. Should read: - Dates.... From.... To....Sort By...

 

[Brian R]

Oh I see what you are saying.
That is where I put what I am doing IE Carpet Cleaning, Tile and Grout cleaning etc.

I would think that in the edit customer field would be the place to track what kind of customer they are.

Click on Edit customer
Then additional info

There are fields for customer type, sales rep, and a custom fields area where you can list the source of the customer.

The type would be the type of the customer...not of the invoice.

What do you think?

 

[Bill Soukoreff]

That is NOT the way to do it!!!!

Just go to Preferences, Accounting, and turn on Classes. That is the RIGHT way. What don't you understand about that?

Then on a sales receipt or invoice, in the upper left hand corner, to the right of Customer Job, you see a box named Class. Add whatever new classes you want.

Then, in the main part of the invoice, you will see Item, Description, Qty, Rate, Class (again), Amount,Tax.

Now you set a class for a referral, let say a from a carpet retailer using the upper class menu.

However,the next time you clean you may now want to enter a class of "repeat customer" using the class in the actual invoice section.

So you can later track where the referral came from initially, even though later on in future invoices or sales receipts it is now classed a repeat customer.

Plus, you can track expenses as noted above for each class.

See why it's better to do it the right way?

 

[Blue Monarch]

I do sub-classes as well. For example, I have Yelllow Pages:Repeat and Yellow Pages:Referral type classes. I like to easily see where the biz started from.

That may be wrong, but I started, and so far, I like it.

P.S.
Yellow Pages aren't doing squat for me.

 

[Brian R]

Damn Bill, where were you 6 months ago on this subject.
I did what you said. You seemed pretty excited about it so I did it right away as to not have you over use your exclamation points.
Thanks, :wink:

 

[Becker]

No cust. mess is at the bottom.. The left pane on your invoice/work order..
They can be customized so yours might not say item it might have
whatever you put there..

click in the left pane.. Drop down arrow appears.. click on it then
click (Add New)... Whatever you want..

That would work, if all you did was one service.

I'm playing around with classes.

My system has worked well, and will keep using it for some tracking.

But it looks like classes are the way to go.

BTW, mine were turned off.

 

[Brian R]

Yea, mine were off too. I turned it on but hell I'm not using the program for invoicing anymore.
Been using QB for 2 years and never knew about them.
Pays to take the classes I guess.

 

[Becker]

I turned it on but hell I'm not using the program for invoicing anymore.

What do you use?

Nearly all my jobs are paid when complete, or at least an invoice is left behind.

But I still enter all invoices into QB for tracking, customer notes for repeat clients, etc.

 

[Brian R]

I turned it on but hell I'm not using the program for invoicing anymore.

What do you use?

Nearly all my jobs are paid when complete, or at least an invoice is left behind.

But I still enter all invoices into QB for tracking, customer notes for repeat clients, etc.

I'm using Service Monster...there is a thread in the clean room somewhere.
Geared towards Carpet Cleaners.
I love it.

 

[Becker]

Seems like a lot of work, using 2 programs to run the business.

I'll look at SM, but if it does not handle bill paying I'd not be interested.


Just checked out the website,
The video reminded me to much of the change bank commercial from SNL.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/4253/saturday-night-live-first-citywide-change-bank-2
Fireplace in the back ground.

For a software company the website sucks.

 

[Brian R]

Phil Hartman was my hero.

I use QB for financials and SM for customer tracking, relations, Invoicing and prospecting. I'm thinking of using them for printing as well. Prices are great and they say the quality is top notch...we'll see.
I can export between the two but don't see the need to.

 

[B&BGaryC]

How do you track referral and advertising? I'm sure you have to set up a field of some sort. I just can't seem to figure it out. Your help would be most appreciated.

upgrade to customer manager. Fifty bucks with shipping

 

[Bill Soukoreff]

Damn Bill, where were you 6 months ago on this subject.
I did what you said. You seemed pretty excited about it so I did it right away as to not have you over use your exclamation points.
Thanks, :wink:

Wait till you see I can do with semi-colons.

I just hate when someone posts bad advice about something as important as this. It sucks to GO BACK and re-do dumb things.

I like having to use just one program. I write up my invoices on the job and receive payment at the job (residential) and so I just use sales receipts in QB not invoices.

With classes it has enough to manage my customer lists for a simple business.