QuickBooks Online for Photographers (#allthethings)
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QuickBooks Self-Employed (QBSE) is NOT for Photographers
At Bastian Accounting, we use QuickBooks Online for all our photographer clients. I receive many questions from Photographers asking WHY I chose QuickBooks Online, so I wanted to summarize all the features (many of you may not be aware of) below.
Don't use QuickBooks Self-Employed!
Before we dive in too deep, I want to be sure I am extra clear here.QuickBooks has many versions: QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Online, and QuickBooks Self-Employed. I have an entire blog post about this you can read here: QuickBooks Self-Employed (QBSE) is NOT for Photographers
Now, let me highlight why we love using QuickBooks Online for our photographer clients. HERE WE GO! 🥳️
👍Complete Financial Reports
Financial reports are gold. Looking at an up-to-date, accurate profit & loss can be helpful in so many ways. It shows you how you are doing, your profit (income minus expenses), and Revenue consistency from month to month. Knowing your net income can help you when tax planning and calculating your estimated tax payments. When PPP loans were announced, our clients were ready to go because they had all the financial reports needed to fill out needed applications.
👍Integrations
QuickBooks Online integrates with literally thousands of apps. You can sync your sales from 17Hats, Square, HoneyBook, or Dubsado (to name a few) right into QuickBooks Online. CRM's are great, but none of them have robust financial reports. You can sync your sales over from your CRM and connect your business bank account to download all your expenses right into bank feeds in QuickBooks Online and categorize them - easy peasy.
👍Direct Sync to Paypal & Amazon
You can directly sync your business Paypal account into QuickBooks Online for both expenses and income. You can link your Business Amazon account as well. QuickBooks Online will download your Amazon purchases with details right into QuickBooks Online so you can easily categorize the expenses to the appropriate account. With so many Photographers using Amazon and Paypal, this feature is a priceless time-saver.
👍Mobile App
Yup, QuickBooks Online also has a mobile app you can use in many ways. You can view invoices, send invoices, and check out reports. You can also use some of the features below, like taking payment with QuickBooks Payments right from your phone (you even get a chip card reader). The Mileage tracker works within the mobile app as well (check out more details below)
👍QuickBooks Payments
Many are unaware that QuickBooks Online has its own merchant service with more attractive fees. You can send invoices from QuickBooks Online and give clients the option to click a button and pay with ACH or credit card. You can set up Auto Debit with recurring transactions (see more below). QuickBooks Payments is one of my favorite features!
Learn More about QuickBooks Payments
⭐️ What is QuickBooks Payments? ← Click to watch
⭐️ Get My Discounted QuickBooks Payment Rates ← Click to watch
👍Recurring Transactions
With the use of QuickBooks Payments (see above), you can set up auto-debit for your clients and charge them on a schedule or for a set number of payments. Recurring transactions are a great way to streamline your business and save time processing or chasing payments.You can also send invoices for clients to pay on a schedule or create recurring expenses you know you have each month and have them automatically recorded on the books.
👍Track & File 1099's
Independent contractor payment tracking and filing is a huge pain point for Photographers. I have included links below if you want more on this topic. However, it's impressive that QuickBooks Online will let you track all contractor payments for the tax year.
But that's not all...
At year-end, you can electronically file your 1099s right inside the app, and each contractor you file for receives a paper copy of their 1099 in the mail along with an electronic version if you enter their email address. QuickBooks Online also electronically submits all reports to the IRS on your behalf in just a few clicks, and this daunting task is marked off your to-do list.
Learn More about Independent Contractors
⭐️ Independent Contractors 101 ← Click to watch
👍Mileage Tracker
QuickBooks Online has a mileage tracker built right in. You can use the mobile app with GPS to log your drive or manually enter them on the web or any device. Mileage is an often-overlooked tax deduction. The mileage rates go up every year. The 2021 rate is .56 per mile; that's $1.12 every two miles! Mileage adds up quickly!
👍Sales Tax Tracking & Reporting
One of my other favorite features is QuickBooks Online calculates and tracks sales tax for you! Regardless if you bill out of QBO or integrate with a CRM. QuickBooks Online sales tax tracking allows you to pull beautiful tax liability reports to make the sales tax filing process a cinch. It breaks out everything you need for filing (see sample report below -- isn't it pretty?)
Grab your FREE State by State Sales Tax Guide here!
👍Payroll
If you have employees, built-in payroll makes life so much more manageable If you are an S-Corporation (which most of my photography clients are), you have to be on the actual payroll inside your business to get the tax benefit. Having payroll built right into QuickBooks online is a dream. Not only does it streamline the process of running payroll, but it takes care of the bookkeeping of the payroll and applicable taxes at the same time. I love this and use it for myself and many of my clients.
👍Reconciling
Reconciling is where so many spreadsheet or CRM accounting and bookkeeping features go wrong! They don't provide a way for you to double-check entries to ensure all transactions have been accounted for and that none are missing. The monthly reconciliation process in QuickBooks Online is straightforward to do and assure you that you are reporting the right numbers at tax time and not under or overpaying taxes.
Learn more about reconciling your books here!
🎁Get my discount & get organized
I hope you're now ready to dive in and finally get your finances organized.You can use the link below to get 50% off your subscription for the first year!
⭐️50% off QuickBooks Online for 12 Months ← Click to watch
Have another question you’d like me to add to this list?
Click here to join my free Facebook Community Financially Focused Photographers
I go live in this community every week answering all your tax, bookkeeping, and tax questions. Be sure to follow me on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest.