QuickBooks Online » reporting

Trends: “Small Businesses more Profitable after 2009 Recession?”

btubbs22 — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 23:30:05 +0000

As consumers and businesses pulled the purse strings tighter during the trying economic conditions of 2009, conventional wisdom says small businesses everywhere felt the effects on their bottom line. In fact, our own data tells us that small businesses did take a revenue hit.

Looking broadly across all QuickBooks Online industries, 2009 small business revenue was down by more than 10%.

However, there’s a twist. It seems the tough times have caused businesses to become wiser about managing their expenses. Looking at the same broad data set across all industries, 2009 expenses declined by 12%, leading to a 2% increase in profit margin over the same period in 2008.

Effectively, small businesses were more profitable overall due to their ability to contain spending in the face of declining revenue.

How did your small business fair during the trying economic conditions of 2009? Does this analysis hold true? What actions did you take to remain profitable? Please post your comments below.

For QuickBooks Online users: To explore how your business compares to your specific industry, visit Trends from the Company Snapshot page under Reports.

Trends uses aggregated and anonymized QuickBooks Online data to compile stats across over 100 industries to gain insights into the health of small businesses. (Image from the Trends Application in the Intuit Workplace App Center http://workplace.intuit.com/AppCenter/)

Year end guide from QuickBooks (for the hard stuff)

QBO Bermster — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 04:09:39 +0000

The end of the year means a lot of things. Taking down Holiday decorations, renewing a gym membership…and taxes. We just told you about the Turbo Tax (we do it for you) option. But…you can (and probably should) be aware of what has to be done and by when.

Check out the End of the Year guide to help you through these sticky questions. And if you have gone through this, or have questions, please leave them in the comments.

You have to be logged into QuickBooks Online to see this!

Actionable money insights for your business

supadhyayula — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:19:20 +0000

A critical priority for QuickBooks Online product development is to provide actionable “money insights” for small business owners. The idea of “money insights” is a theme across a lot of the work we’re doing in the product development and engineering teams.

We began this journey by helping answer some basic questions for small business owners:

What is my income?
What are my expenses?
Who owes me?
Who do I owe?

We received some good feedback about the pie charts in the Company Snapshot report and we’d like to learn more about the insights that matter to you the most.

Are there insights that can help you manage your expenses better? Would you like us to integrate with other solutions that you currently use?
Are there specific insights around cash coming into your business or cash going out that can help drive better decisions and improve your cash position?

Below are two screen shots of some of our money insights available in the Company Snapshot section of our Reports in QuickBooks Online.

Please continue providing your invaluable feedback. Our engineers would love to hear from you directly on how we can innovate and help you save time, save money, and make more money.

Suchi Upadhyayula

About Me: I’m part of the QuickBooks Online product engineering team and am a self-professed web-junkie (love the internet). You can generally find me on a mad dash to the local Starbucks to feed my mid-afternoon caffeine addiction.

New Reports Feature: Company Snapshot

Will Hambly — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:23:53 +0000

QuickBooks Online has an extensive set of reports ranging from traditional financial statements like the Income Statement and Balance Sheet to detailed transaction-level reporting. These reports are primarily designed to help businesses and their accountants with tax preparation, reporting, and audits. One of the newest features we’ve added to QuickBooks Online is the Company Snapshot, which uses the same financial data that these reports offer but displays it in a more intuitive visual layout. The goal of the Company Snapshot is to help business owners get a quick view of their businesses finances in a way that helps them save time and make business decisions.

The Company Snapshot displays your company’s revenues and expenses in year over year comparisons, breaks down data in a pie chart format, and even pulls data from your accounts receivables to show which customers owe you the most. One of my favorite parts of the Company Snapshot is the monthly expense comparison shown below, which displays each month’s expenses with a year-over-year comparison. This chart is a great way to understand how your company’s total costs are trending overtime and judge your success in keeping expenses down. This is actually similar to what I used to do in Excel to understand expense trending, but now have no need for it because I can see it in the reports section.

The Company Snapshot isn’t a replacement for financial statements—it’s a different view of the same data, making it easy to make monthly and yearly comparisons. Let us know what you think or if there is any other data you’d like to see in this graphical format.

The Company Snapshot displays your company’s revenues and expenses in year over year comparisons, breaks down data in a pie chart format, and even pulls data from your accounts receivables to show which customers owe you the most. One of my favorite parts of the Company Snapshot is the monthly expense comparison shown below, which displays each month’s expenses with a year-over-year comparison. This chart is a great way to understand how your company’s total costs are trending overtime and judge your success in keeping expenses down. This is actually similar to what I used to do in Excel to understand expense trending over time, but now have no need for it because I can see it in the reports section.

Will Hambly

About Me: I am on the QuickBooks Online product marketing team and like to drink good coffee, go running, and play guitar.