Help! I Am Drowning In Apps – Where The Heck Do I Begin?

A few years back, when the app was an exciting new development, this was a standing joke. It seemed that whenever you mentioned something you wanted to do, from finding out when the next bus would be coming along to discovering a new chicken recipe, someone would answer, “There’s an app for that!”

It’s no longer a joke, because there are so many apps out there now that you could drown in them! Some are purely for fun, some are not much use for anything, but there are tons of apps that can absolutely and completely change the way that your bookkeeping business runs and more importantly, change the bookkeeping services you provide to your clients.

If you are new to the QuickBooks Online and cloud accounting world, you may be overwhelmed by the variety of apps available. Here are our 3 recommendations of where to start.

QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online (QBO) is the hub of everything.  The information will either start there, or end up there, so having a strong understanding of how the program works is fundamental.  If you are coming from traditional desktop software, like QuickBooks Desktop, or Sage 50, it is a completely different animal.  You will need to pretty much throw out the window the way “you’ve always done it”, and start thinking differently. Yes, debits and credits are the same, and you could certainly do everything exactly the same way you did it before, but you will then find QBO clunky and not very efficient.  You also would miss out on all the POWER behind the program.  So, the first step is to approach QBO with an open mind and a new way of looking at things.

Start Small

If you’ve visited Intuit’s App Center, you would probably quickly need a bottle of wine and some Advil because it’s overwhelming.  There are over a thousand apps to choose from that can all send or receive data to QBO.  So our recommendation is to start small.  Start with some basic apps that will allow you to get your feet wet and understand how the app process works.  Our starter pack includes the following: HubDoc, Plooto and Wagepoint.  Testing the waters with these three apps will give you a good indication as to how powerful this cloud accounting stuff can be.

Jump In

Now that you know where to start, you actually have to start ☺  We started with our own company files and connected the apps to our books.  You know your business better than any other business, so you will learn to understand all of the idiosyncrasies of QBO and the apps, as well as be able to quickly identify what works and doesn’t work.

Most app developers offer free training in the form of tutorial videos to help you get started.

Kninja members, of course, have access to learning tools in the LEARN track which will take you deeper than most of the app developers’ own materials, and provide you with comparison charts of how the various apps differ from their counterparts. If you’re having trouble deciding which apps to purchase and how to best use them, this is the place to get help.

One thing you can count on is that the proliferation of apps and other technology will only continue, and at an ever faster rate. Keeping up with technology is a challenge, but as a forward thinking bookkeeper you must embrace it, not only to meet the increasing demands of clients, but also to run your own business efficiently and profitably.

This blog is for you and we hope you will enjoy the content.

We will be providing you with more information to help you Learn, Build and Manage your Firm in future posts, so stay tuned.

Please let us know if there are any specific topics you would like us to address in the future.