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The kids are back in school, reviewing old material and learning new content. It’s the perfect time to assess your own knowledge of Peachtree’s accounting tools. Are you wasting time trying to puzzle out features on your own?

If you’re just starting with Peachtree, it’s a good idea to consult with us as you go through the initial setup and data population procedures. Even businesses that have been using Peachtree for awhile can benefit from some expert help in using Peachtree to its fullest.

Peachtree’s simple, intuitive design lets you dive in and start generating forms and reports quickly. But you’ll save time and probably even learn things you didn’t know about the program’s broad capabilities if you explore the in-depth guidance offered.

Read the complete article with in-depth analysis and complete listing of features by clicking here!

Take a Vacation From Long-Term Financial Concerns: Use Peachtree’s Budgeting Tools

As summer winds down and vacation time for your kids dwindles, you’re probably making plans for next year’s adventures. You may be relaxed from your time off and full of ideas about what—and what not—to do next summer, based on how this year’s time off went.

Peachtree’s budgeting tools can provide the same combination of relaxation and anticipation in your professional life. Rather than wondering whether you’re making enough money every month to meet expenses (and how that will play out long-term), you’ll be able to track cash flow, spot problems ahead of time, and tweak your financial blueprint. And the knowledge that budgeting affords you will help you plan for future years.

Numerous options

Budgets are not available in Peachtree First Accounting. Peachtree Complete and Pro offer limitations (a single budget) that Peachtree Premium doesn’t have.

To get started (with Premium and sample data as our example), click Maintain | Budgets. A large grid-like screen opens, looking something like this:

Peachtree Premium’s budget grid works similarly to a typical spreadsheet.

First, enter a name for your budget in the Budget Name field. Write a description if you’d like. Tab to the first Type drop-down list. You’ll have several options here, including Income Statement Accounts, Balance Sheet Accounts, and Accounts Receivable. Select Income Statement Accounts to make your budget as comprehensive as possible.

You can further filter the content for your budget in the Segment fields. You can pare down your budget by selecting Departments, GL Accounts, or Wildcards (All is, of course, another option). If you’ve opted to pull out a subset, pull down the list next to Equal to:, and choose an entry there (the Equal To: list will change to reflect your choice).

To Show Inactive, check that box, and then select a fiscal year for your budget. Click Save on the toolbar.

And Now he Hard Part…

If you’ve never created a budget before, you may have some work ahead of you. You’ll need to enter numbers in all applicable cells in the grid. Consult your accounting professional if you’re taking this on. You’ll be able to edit the budget as the year goes along, but it’s important to be realistic about your prospects from the start.

If you’ve been using Peachtree faithfully for more than a year, you’ll have a much easier time of it. You can pull in actual data from your Peachtree file to fill in the cells.

Click on Autofill in the toolbar, and you’ll see this dialog box:

If you have an existing budget from a prior year, or have been using Peachtree for more than a year, you can automate much of the budget process.

Click the first button to select it, and click Next. To move fiscal year 2010’s data into FY2011, select This Year in the first drop-down list. The dates in the next two fields should change to match it. If your fiscal years start on January 1, select that date in the drop-down list below; otherwise, select the appropriate date. It should look like this:

It’s easy to set up a transfer of Peachtree data from the current year into next year’s budget.

Click Finish. Your prior year’s data now displays as budget totals for next year. Of course, you’ll be missing the last few months of 2010 when you run this example. You can either extrapolate or wait until closer to year’s end to run a complete budget.

You can also copy one budget to another. Open the desired budget, click Autofill, and select Copy amounts from the open budget.

More Useful Tools

The toolbar gives you access to other tools that further extend the usefulness of your budgets. You can use these tools to help you:

• export your budget to Excel for additional massaging
• attach related documents to your budget
• take notes
• or run reports.

The latter is critical. Peachtree Accounting helps you keep an eagle eye on how you’re adhering to your budget. You should run these reports often to evaluate your current situation and plan for future budgets.

Peachtree provides numerous tools to help you work with your budgets.

Be Budget Smart

You can’t successfully run a business without a carefully crafted budget any more than you can erect a building without a blueprint. Before getting started with the budgeting process, give us a call and we’ll help you make the right moves.

Peachtree automatically assigns sequential invoice numbers at the time the invoices are printed. For this reason, there is typically no need to manually enter a number into the “Invoice No.” field on the Sales/Invoicing screen. One exception is in an event  where you have to manually create an invoice outside of Peachtree and need to record the transaction without printing the invoice.

To change your invoice number format:

Go to Reports & Forms > Invoices and Packing Slips…

Click Preview and Print then enter your newly-formatted invoice number into the field labeled “Number the first invoice“:

For example, let’s say Peachtree assigned invoice numbers 100, 101, 102 to our last three invoices. We want to change the format to ABC###, where “ABC001” is the next invoice number. We simply enter “ABC001” into the “Number the first invoice” field. Peachtree will now number our next three invoices with ABC001, ABC002, ABC003.

Peachtree will continue to use your format to number invoices sequentially, so unless you change your invoice number format, you will not need to manually enter a number again.

Customize Your Customer Management

There are enough new features in the 2010 Peachtree line to warrant an upgrade, especially if you’re a version or two behind. One of these is the new Customer Management Center, available in Peachtree Complete and higher. This screen offers an easy way to manage all of your customer information in one place.To get there, click on Customers & Sales in the Navigation Bar, and then click on the Customer Management tab. Four mini-spreadsheets open, displaying, for example, Sales Invoices, Receipts, and Credit Memos (a fourth lists totals). To see it in action, click the arrow next to Customer ID, and select a customer from the drop-down list. You can change the date range to get another view by clicking the arrow in the box next to Date Range.

Click Customize this page in the narrow horizontal gray band near the top of the screen. This window opens:

Customizing the Customer Management Center is easy. You simply select entries from the left side and click Add, or choose from the list on the left and click Remove to delete.

To add items from the left to your customer display, you simply select them and click Add. If you want to remove any of them, highlight them and click Remove. Then click OK. When you return to the main screen, you’ll find your newly configured layout in place.

Complete Customization

You’ll find additional customization all through Peachtree, things like custom fields and customizable forms and reports. But to get the most out of Peachtree’s modification tools, it’s a good idea to have us help you. We can help you implement the changes that make the most sense to your business, and make Peachtree your own, saving you a lot of time and effort.

An Illuminating Page

If you’re using Peachtree Complete or higher, Business Status page becomes a great asset to your company. This page lays out the key numbers related to your business, in graph and report form, like Customers Who Owe Money and Aged Payables. This maybe where you want to start every business day, as it allows you to easily see changes and progress.

Like the Shortcuts pane, this feature is customizable. Simply click the Business Status button in the Navigation Bar. Then click the Customize this page link, which is located in the thin gray horizontal bar at the top right of the screen.

You’ll see a window like this:

Peachtree’s Business Status page displays key financial data that the program tracks. You can modify the layout and content of this page to better meet your needs.

There are eight blocks of data that can be displayed on the Business Status page. You can add and delete these by checking and unchecking boxes, and change their order by clicking Move Up and Move Down. (Displaying the maximum number of reports and graphs may cause the page to display more slowly.)

You can also customize the critical Account Balances report, as shown here:

You can customize the Account Balances report on the Business Status page to include or exclude specific accounts, and to alter other elements on the display.

Now that you have suffered through winter, you know that March signals the beginning of spring cleaning. Peachtree’s interface has always been understandable and easily applied, but a little tweaking can make your daily accounting tasks easier and faster. Read part one of the series…

Savvy Shortcuts

Peachtree software uses a standard Windows menu system that can get you where you’re going quickly. There are better options, though. For example, the Navigation Bar, located on the left side of the screen, divides the program’s tasks by category, like Customers & Sales.

But you may want to break it down further by individual tasks themselves. That’s where Shortcuts, located directly below the category links, come in. Peachtree installs a default set, but they are highly customizable.

To get started, click the Customize link next to Shortcuts. This window opens:

To add a Shortcut, click Add a Shortcut. A menu opens outlining the primary functions in the program, like Reports and Inventory & Services. Scroll over one, and a sub-menu pops out containing a list of tasks in that area, like Bills – Enter Bill. Click on the one(s) you want, and you’ll be returned to the main window.

Here, you can modify your list in a number of ways, by clicking on icons to rename or delete your Shortcuts, move them up or down, and insert spaces between them. When you’re done, click OK and choose to save the new configuration if you’ve changed it.

Check out Part II and Part III of this three-part series.