Accounting and Bookkeeping Role

Accounting and Bookkeeping Role

The accounting or bookkeeping role consists of creating invoices, sending invoices out to customers, entering payments, tracking overdue accounts, and handling the accounting program. SME is not an accounting program since it does not handle accounts payable and general ledger, however it does handle Accounts Receivable functions such as invoicing, payments and recurring invoicing. High 5 Software's SQLink program provides a robust synchronization with QuickBooks (QB).

The following are the tasks performed by the accounting or bookkeeping role:

• Creating Invoices: Orders (service orders and install orders) should be invoiced as soon as possible. The most common procedure is to close and order and then have accounting review the order and convert it to an invoice. However SME6.2 offers additional invoicing methods.
  • Converting Closed Orders to Invoices: The technician, dispatcher or project manager should close all completed orders. The accounting should review all closed orders and convert them to invoices.
    • To see a list of closed but not invoiced orders, go to the Service and/or Install module and select Search>Search Closed Orders. Select each closed order, review it and then convert it to an invoice by selecting Actions>Generate Invoice (if the invoice will have multiple invoices with progress invoicing) or Generate Final Invoice (if there will only be one invoice for the order).
    • If the order needs to be edited prior to invoicing, re-open the order by selecting Actions>Reopen Order, make the changes and then generate the Invoice.
    • Pre-SME6.2: If the order needs to be edited after it has already been invoiced, select Actions>Uninvoice for Editing.
    • SME6.2 and Later: If the order needs to be edited after it has already been invoiced, select Edit and make the changes.
    • Pre-SME6.2 version: Once the Invoice is generated, jump to the invoice by selecting Actions>Jump to Invoice
    • SME6.2 and later: Once the Invoice is generated, go to the History tab to see the Invoice and double click to jump to the Invoice.
  • Progress Invoice: New for SME6.2! With progress invoicing, you do not have to wait for the order to be completed to invoice. You can generate multiple, "progress" or partial invoices. You can generate progress invoices based on dollar amount, percentage amount, or based on items with a partial invoice. You can also generate a full invoice which copies all the items to the invoice and then allows adding additional items on the invoice.
• Sending Invoices to Customers: Once the invoice is created it should be immediately sent to the customer. Go to the desired invoice and then select to print or email the invoice. You can also use a Fax type printer to automatically fax to the customer, this works just like a printer but instead of printing a copy it sends it as a fax, which saves paper.
• Batch Print Invoices: You can print out all invoices in a batch. Select Utilities>SMP Utilities>System>Batch Print Invoices. This will look through all invoices selected to print and then allow you to clear the batch print flag when completed. Note: You system administrator will have to setup the Invoice Report for batch printing.
• Receiving Payments: You can easily enter payments as they are received. There are a couple ways to enter payments depending on which way you prefer:
  • From Invoices: Select the invoice that the payment is for. Then select the Payments tab and select Enter Payment or select Actions>Enter Payment. Then enter the payment information as save. If you double click on the invoice in the payments it will jump back to the invoice where you can print for your records.
  • From Payments module: You can select New Payment from the payment module and then select the customer who provided the payment. This will generate a list of open invoices requiring payments. From there you can enter the payment information, select the invoices to pay, and then save to apply the payments. Se the Payments section help for details on applying to multiple invoices.
  • New for SME6.2: Select the menu New Item and select Payment and follow the method directly above.
• Tracking Overdue Accounts: Sometimes customers don't pay invoices on time and you need to remind them to pay. There are a few ways to find customers behind in their payments. Also for customers consistently late on payments or with a very large balance, you can setup a notification so to notify and warn anyone creating a new order that the customer is behind in the account. See the Notifications section for more information. Here are various ways to see customers behind in payments:
  • Look at all open Invoices: Just select F5 to see all open invoices. You can sort by due date to see invoices that are behind in payments.
  • Search Customer Balance Information: You can do a search of all customers and sort by balance or aging information to see the customers behind in payments. Go to the Search or View section to see how to find the customer.
  • Run a Report: SME has a number of reports to track customers behind in payments. All the following reports can be found in Doc Center>Reports>Customer or Invoice section
    • Standard Aging Report by Date Range: Provides a list of all customers with open invoices or balances and how late the invoices are based on 30, 60, or 90 days beyond the due date.
    • Standard Accursed Balance Report: This is also an aging type report by customer. Used for companies on an Accrual based accounting method.
    • Standard Customer Statement: Creates statements for customers with separate pages per customer so it can be printed and sent to customers.
    • Standard Past Due Notice: Creates separate pages per customer with the past due amounts so these can be sent to customers.
• Managing Recurring Invoices: Recurring invoice are regularly scheduled invoices for ongoing services. For example, a security company would have monthly recurring invoices for the security system monitoring service. Managing recurring invoices involves first creating the recurring invoice, then setting your startup preferences to automatically generate the recurring invoices, and then managing the invoices.
  • Creating Recurring Invoices: Go to the recurring invoices module in the Receivables section. Select New Recurring Invoice and select the customer. Then add the services requested and performed. Usually recurring invoices involve only a service item, however you can also add material and labor items to the recurring invoice. Then you select the start date and recurrance frequency and end date. Once you complete all this, the recurring invoice is set to generate on the Next Invoice Date.
  • Set your Preferences: If you are managing the recurring invoices, you want these to be automatically generated. To do this, set your startup preferences by selecting the preference icon near the top left. Select the On Startup tab. Select "Generate Recurring Invoices". When you login to SME, it will see if any recurring invoices need to be generated and it will create all the invoices required.
  • Manage Invoices: Once the recurring invoice is generated, it creates an open invoice. Once this is created, you can manage it like any other customer invoice by printing, emailing, or faxing to your customer. In addition, if you are using batch printing, these invoices will automatically be flagged to be batch printed.
• Integration with Accounting Systems: SQLink product from High 5 Software provides a synchronization with QuickBooks (QB). This is a very robust and complete two-way sync between SME and QB. See the SQLink help for more information. If you are not using SQLink or have another accounting program besides QB, then you will have to manually enter information into your accounting system. SME also provides exporting utilities to export invoices. Another approach is to create a program the pulls information out of SME for your accounting system. Please contact High 5 Software if you would like to have a synchronization program built for you between SME and your accounting program.
• Sales Tax: You can create sales tax reports to handle the payment of sales taxes to the taxing authorities. These reports are located in Doc Center>Reports>Invoice section. Some typical sales tax reports are as follows:
  • Standard Accrued Sales Tax Report: This is for companies using an accrual basis for accounting.
  • Standard Cash Sales Tax Report: This is for companies using a cash basis.
  • Standard Cash Sales Tax By Codes; A cash report sorted by the tax codes.
  • Standard Sales Tax Liability - Cash or Accrual: Reports for either cahs or accrual basis companies.