January’s tough. The holidays are over. Tax forms are starting to trickle in. You probably have many things on your to-do list that you didn’t get done in December because you were so busy. Now you don’t know when you’ll have time to catch up because the new month and new year bring their own set of fresh responsibilities.

You probably did the accounting work that you had to in December, but you may not feel like you’re starting with a clean slate this month.

QuickBooks makes cleaning up your finances much easier than doing your accounting manually. There’s no comparison. If you already use QuickBooks, consider taking these five suggestions to jump-start 2024. If you’re not using it, we can help you decide if it’s right for you and get you set up.

Out With the Old

We’ve discussed some of these QuickBooks tools over the last few years, so we won’t cover them at length. We want to remind you that time spent on these QuickBooks tasks can help you wrap up 2023 and usher in 2024.

1. Check if you need to deposit payments

Before you try to determine who owes you money, make sure that you don’t have funds sitting in QuickBooks that should be deposited in a bank account. Click Record Deposits on the homepage. The Payments to Deposit window will open, displaying a list of payments received that haven’t yet been deposited in your bank account. Select the ones you want to deposit and click OK to open the Make Deposits window. Select the correct Deposit To account and specify if you want cash back at the bottom of the screen. Save the transaction.

2. Run these five critical reports

It’s easy for you, customers, and vendors to miss invoices and bills in December. So start 2024 by finding out where you stand on both. These five critical A/R and A/P reports will quickly tell you a lot. While running reports, check your inventory status if you sell products.

Open the Reports menu to find and create these:

1. A/R Aging Detail. Which of your customers are behind in paying invoices and statements you’ve sent? How much do they owe, and how late are they?

2. Open Invoices. Just what it sounds like: a list of open invoices and statements and their due dates

3. A/P Aging Detail. Which of your bills are due and overdue?

4. Unpaid Bills Detail. How much do you owe each vendor? Are any payments overdue?

5. Inventory Stock Status by Item. This report shows a lot of detail about your stock status, with columns for reorder point, on hand, on PO, sales/week, etc.

TIP: QuickBooks has a special report for collections. Open the Reports menu and click Customers & Receivables | Collections Report. This shows which customers are overdue, how much they owe, and their phone numbers. 

3. Send statements

Sometimes your customers forget to pay their bills. Or your invoices got caught up in the end-of-year paper blizzard. Or someone didn’t get an invoice. You could send another invoice. It might be more effective, though, to send statements. These forms display lists of financial activity between you and the customers over a specified period of time. Open the Customers menu and select Create Statements. This window is self-explanatory, but let us know if you want help.

4. Check your purchase order status

Are any of your vendors behind in filling purchase orders? You don’t want to run out of inventory because an expected shipment didn’t arrive. Run the Open Purchase Orders Detail report. Follow up on any back orders that haven’t been filled yet and ensure delivery dates have been met.

5. Consider setting up online financial connections

If you’re already well-acquainted with the Bank Feeds Center in QuickBooks, you know how online financial connections provide real-time information about your bank accounts. You can download transactions into QuickBooks, so you know which ones have cleared daily.

We’ve said this numerous times before, but creating a QuickBooks Payments account and accepting customer credit card and bank payments helps you get paid faster. We can help you set up and navigate this tool. You can start by completing an application.

Make It a Good Year

We hope 2024 will be a productive, profitable year for you. QuickBooks Desktop can help in many ways – as long as you’re diligent about updating it regularly and understanding how it works. We’re here to help if you want to expand your use of the software or if you need to learn how unfamiliar features work.