The suggestion box at Intuit must have been filled with ideas and suggestions for ways to enhance items and inventory management in QuickBooks. Believe me - they listened!

New Feature: Store manufacturers part number within your item. QuickBooks 2006 now has a special field right within the item for you to record and store the manufacturers part number for your inventory items. This will allow you to communicate with your vendors better and control your inventory more accurately. (Pro and above)

New Feature: Large Bill of Material Management. You now have the ability to create, edit, view and print large bills of material, which makes it easier to track inventory that consists of parts, assemblies and sub-assemblies. (Premier and Enterprise only)

New Feature: Labor and other expenses can now be included in bills of material. This new capability allows you to more accurately track your cost of goods sold, better set prices to reflect true costs, and better manage resources (people and equipment). (Premier and Enterprise only)

Bonus - even more new features in QuickBooks 2006...

New Feature: Backorder Functionality on Sales Orders. This feature makes it easier for you to know if an order has been completely filled or not so you can manage open orders more effectively. (Premier and Enterprise only)

New Feature: Available to Promise. You'll now see on each line of a sales order how many items are on-hand, committed, on a pending build or on order via a purchase order. This will take a lot of the guesswork out of the "when can I have it" question your sales department hears all the time! (Premier and Enterprise only)

I outlined a number of other new features in my last issue - simplified home page (this feature really rocks!), more e-mail addresses, multiple shipping addresses, improved search and filtering of customer information and completely redesigned customer center to name a few.

For more details and insight on the entire QuickBooks 2006 product line, click here.

News of Note: QuickBooks Premier 2006 Gets 5 Stars from the Editors of PC Magazine! Read the entire review here.

Order QuickBooks via my web site, and reap the following rewards:

• Savings up to 20%!
• Free shipping!
• 30 days free support directly from Intuit!
• 3 free learning guides directly from me!
• Free QuickBooks consultation time! (for Premier and Enterprise purchases)

Not sure which version of QuickBooks is right for your business? Eliminate the uncertainty right now and review the product comparison table.

QuickBooks Workshop: "Save Time and Boost Your Bottom Line"

• QuickBooks 2006 update - see the new features of 2006 live
• Critical QuickBooks Reports - understand how these reports can be used to help monitor the health of your business
• Timesaving Tips - see how to use Reminders, To Do Notes, Customer Notes, and other tips to help you spend less time working on your books
• Understanding Jobs and Job Costing - get the help you've been looking for to better track jobs, projects and job profitability

When: Saturday, January 28, 2006 from 9am until 1pm.
Where: Lakeland Community College - Room T129
Cost: $79

For more information or to register, please call Lakeland Community College Community Learning at (440) 525-7116. Ask for course (CRN) # 80687

Workshop: "Simplify Your Business Bookkeeping"

Do you have friends who still track their business finances with crude spreadsheets or even worse, with paper and pencil? Tell them to stop the madness and join me for: "Simplify Your Business Bookkeeping?"

When: Tuesday, January 10, 2006. Continental breakfast at 8am. Workshop runs from 8:30 until 10am.
Where: Radisson Hotel, Eastlake, Ohio
Cost: FREE
What's in Store: There has never been a better time to banish paper and spreadsheet based accounting and simplify business bookkeeping. I'll be discussing:

• Why it's not as hard to automate as you might think
• How you can be better prepared to provide what your accountant needs by using accounting software
• One click access to critical business reports
• How easy it is to track money in and out of your business
• The ease of writing checks and tracking credit card purchases
• Software currently used by over 100,000 small businesses

For more information or to register, please e-mail, call me at (440) 527-5696 or register online. Registration deadline is January 6, 2006.

Web Workshops: Here's the new lineup of classes starting in January:

• QuickBooks 2006: A Free Guided Tour
• QuickBooks ENTERPRISE 2006: A Free Guided Tour
• Zooming Through QuickBooks - Shortcuts and Timesavers
• QuickBooks: Running Reports
• QuickBooks: Paying Bills and Tracking Credit Cards

You'll find all the details for these web workshops at my web site.

Question #1: What if I don't want QuickBooks to use today's date when entering transactions - can I change that?

A: If you click on Edit > Preferences > then the General icon/picture, you'll see an option under "My Preferences" that talks about the "Default date to use with new transactions". You can choose from either "use today's date as the default" or "use the last entered date as the default". This second option hopefully answers this question.

Question #2: Please explain what "Undeposited Funds is all about. Thank you.

A: The undeposited funds concept takes a while to get used to, but it really is a great tool within QuickBooks.

Think of the bank statement you receive each month, and specifically the listing of the deposits. All you see on the bank statement is the total of the cash and checks deposited. So if your deposit had 10 checks that totalled up to be $1,000, you wouldn't see each check in the deposit listed individually on the statement, just the total.

The undeposited funds account in QuickBooks is doing the same thing for you - when you record each customer payment transaction via the "Receive Payments" screen, each of these checks goes into the undeposited funds account. Then, when you have entered all the checks for the day, you "Make Deposit" in QuickBooks. By doing this, you empty the contents of the undeposited funds account, and move the total of the deposit into your bank register. This ensures your bank register only has one total for the deposit (instead of individual checks), just like your bank statement does. From there, it makes reconciling your deposits a breeze!!

Did you know that Google can search for so much more than articles or links? Here's some other things that are just a click away:

• Find a map: Enter "map location" (where location is a city and/or state - don't use the " ") for your choice of maps. For example, map Cleveland would give you a map of Cleveland, Ohio.
• Get a stock price: Enter a symbol for a company or mutual fund on the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, or American Stock Exchange for a current quote
• Track your FedEx, UPS or Postal Service packages: enter your tracking number to find out where it's at!

No need to jump all over the Internet now that you know this!

Like to save $1000 or more per employee in time and payroll processing costs per year? I thought so.

Even better, what if the cost of setting up your employees to track time via their cell phone or BlackBerry is as little as $15 per month? Would you be interested?

It's true - if you work in a service business, for a contracting or construction company, or professional services firm where employees are out of the office frequently, you'll want to investigate the power of the WorkTrack service from Aligo.

Designed to work on either the Nextel or Sprint networks, WorkTrack takes the hassle out of time collection. But it does so much more too!

For your own personalized demo of WorkTrack, call Tom Young at (415) 593-7157 or complete the on-line form (Please be sure to type in "Scott Gregory" in the comment box to ensure you get the quickest attention to your inquiry!)

It's never been easier to quickly and securely connect to your office computer from ANY other location in the world that has Internet access. Using GoToMyPC, you can save countless hours (and reduce your stress levels immensely too!). Take a free test drive today:

The "QuickBooks: News You Can Use" newsletter is written and distributed monthly by Scott Gregory. Scott is a Certified QuickBooks Advisor, CPA and Microsoft Certified Professional.

Scott is also the president of Bond Technology, a firm that specializes in helping small businesses use QuickBooks effectively and profitably. Feel free to drop Scott an e-mail if you'd like to learn more about the services his company can provide.

QuickBooks is a registered trademark of Intuit. Bond Technology and The QuickBooks Cafe' are not affiliated with Intuit in any way.

Please forward this newsletter to those friends and associates that have an interest in QuickBooks software.

The Internet community is constantly evolving, so exercise diligence in your research as you would any other purchase. Bond Technology, Ltd. is not responsible for any third party links or the misuse of those links. They are presented solely for informational purposes.

This newsletter is issued free of charge. Please take a look at the products and services offered in the newsletter to help defray the costs of publication. This publication Copyright 2001-2005 Bond Technology, Ltd. All rights reserved.

Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or service marks of their respective owners.

E-mail: newsletter@bondtechltd.com

Phone: 440-527-5696

Web: http://www.BondTechLtd.com