3 Ways to Enhance Your Productivity in Quickbooks Online [2021 New Features]

Quickbooks Online has (finally) added some new features in 2021 for accountants and CEOs! These are Financial GPS' top picks on time saving and productivity boosting new features:

• Two Tab Dashboard

• Batch Invoicing Custom Fields

• Import Data from Google Sheets

Quickbooks Online Dashboard

Many people have requested QBO to add some type of customization feature on the dashboard page. So with all the feedback, QBO added a two tab feature in 2021: Getting Things Done and Business Overview.

Getting Things Done

If you’re a get-in and get-out type of person, then this new Quickbooks Online feature might be made just for you! Having a visual representation of various figures can help give a sense of the bigger picture. What’s included in this tab:

• Quick access to setup

• Banking

• Discover more

• New payroll health

• Various shortcut links

Business Overview

Having a customized dashboard for business owners is so useful. This tab not only provides intuitive data to maintain business cash flow, it is a great resource for awareness in overall performance. QBO also added widgets for displaying bank account balances, along with other graphs and charts. This tab includes insight categories such as:

• Cash flow

• Profit and loss statement (P&L)

• Invoicing

• Expenses

We unfortunately cannot customize these two tabs, however, we are able to adjust and pick date ranges for the information you'd like to see. It's just a simple click of the downward facing arrow beside the current date range to change the period. The Bank accounts tile will also change depending on which accounts are connected via the Banking tab at any given time.

Financial GPS Recommendations

For business owners, the most common and top 3 reports to analyze weekly are: Balance Sheet, Income Statement (P&L), and Cash Flow Statement. Running these reports weekly can help you dive into enough data to quickly determine whether or not the sales and revenue are on track or need to be addressed.

No one company is the same as another, therefore each one has its own different prioritized needs. With this said, our recommendation will be determined by what you as a business owner should be checking on a regular basis. Here’s a playlist that explains the important reports CEOs should understand, and you can go from there.

Create Custom Invoice Fields in Batch Mode

What Are Custom Fields in QBO and Why is it Important?

We already know that custom fields are a great tool, especially when it comes down to filtering specific information. Using custom fields also will make tracking and reporting a lot easier and can be used in a variety of ways, but now in 2021 - it is available in batch mode.

How to Create Custom Fields for Invoices Batch Mode

This one is simple, when in batch mode just go ahead and click on the drop down to chance the necessary field information. Here’s a video on how to create custom fields if that’s not done already.

Financial GPS Recommendations

Having the option to now add custom fields to the batch invoicing field, helps us save time on data entry and adding versatility to the invoicing functionality.

Import Data into QBO from Google Sheets

At Financial GPS, we are all about documentation! Having a paper trail of information may be cluttering if not organized properly, but you’re going to be giving yourself a pat on the back once you realize you needed something one day. Using a cloud software like Google Drive is something that is an everyday necessary tool.

Importance of Having Customer/Vendor Records in QBO

Quickbooks found that the majority of businesses have incorporated using Google Sheets as a spreadsheet program of choice. With this option, we can now go straight from Google Sheets to QBO with ease as a time saver!

Adding customer/vendor records is important because it helps us save time in the long run and be more productive in other aspects. Setting up customer and vendor records will take away the hassle of manually inputting the details for every bill or outgoing payments. With this done we’ll be able to:

• Expedite bill processing

• Track expenses by vendor

How to Import Google Sheets into QBO

We can import normally as we do with Excel, all the data Customers, Vendors, Chart of Accounts, Products, and Services will be transferred into QBO seamlessly.

Financial GPS Recommendations

Our comment on this new integration is that it’s a big win for those that use Google Sheets religiously. Now having the option of both Excel and Google Sheets, everyone can go on saving time and energy!

Final Thoughts

Tying everything together, we've went through how the two tab feature in the Dashboard helps give quick data insights for any busy business owner on the go. Being able to create custom fields in batch mode is a great icing on the cake when we notice something needs to be added, but in bulk! And the last point, this partnership that Quickbooks planned has blown all Google Sheets people's minds. These productivity and time saving features will be put to use in 2021 no doubt.