Virtual Assistants & Quickbooks

[Dustin DuFault]

Hello All! I need some advice from folks that have been working with a virtual assistant. I am in the process of selecting one to handle my accounting -- both for my real estate, which I currently have setup in Quickbooks desktop, and I am happy with, and a new non-real estate business. I have my hands full and have wanted the time sink that is bookkeeping off of my plate for a while now!

But: here's the thing. All the virtual assistants I am encountering are pushing the new online web platforms as their go-to choice for working with me.... and I'm not so sure. Mostly Quickbooks Online - and some also support Xero. I signed up for a trial with Xero and my initial impression is that that it seems nice, but it's a totally new platform I would need to learn and I would need to adapt all the Quick Books tricks you kind folks have taught me to their system. I also have some time in using Quickbooks online because my church has that and I have been doing our finances lately. I have to say I am less than impressed with it... all of my workflows would be broken. There are no batch entries, the keyboard shortcuts I’m used to fly through screens don’t work, and the page load times just seem inefficient.

I was just wondering of those on BP that have hired a virtual assistant are switching over to the cloud accounting systems? If so do you like it? If not how are you sharing your Quickbooks file with your Virtual Assistant and you happy doing that?

[Gita Faust]

Lately, we are getting a lot of calls - that assistants, bookkeepers after they quit working for one reason or another, they will not give access to the client.

IMPORTANT - make sure you have admin access to either QuickBooks (Desktop) Pro, Premier, Enterprise and QuickBooks Online. So here is what you do:

- Using QuickBooks Desktop 

--- Give them user access as an Accountant or a user

--- Make sure you make a backup every day and have it offsite for future restore. Keep the backup and restore it every week or two to double check. 

--- Make sure the file resides on your computer - You are the BUSINESS OWNER. You are in CONTROL.

- Using QuickBooks Online - give them user access as an Accountant or a user.

USER ACCESS for QuickBooks Online and you have to pay per file:

Plus, 1-5 Users

Plus, 6-10 Users

Plus, 11-25 Users