I’m new to this and want to know if I can use it only to monitor client profitability - do I have to submit invoices?
Can I just enter bank CSV info and tags to achieve this?
Also, do I need to set up a second account to manage accruals?
Hi @freefly
QuickFile is perfect for monitoring things such as your profit and finding out what’s still owed to you (and what you owe).
How you use it would depend on your business model. Generally speaking, the normal way would be to issue an invoice for each client, and raise a purchase invoice for each invoice you receive. However, this can be a bit more flexible depending on certain factors, for example:
- Are you VAT registered?
- Do you operate a shop (whether this is online or bricks and mortar)?
- Do you record sales, and issue invoices elsewhere or would you be using QuickFile to do this?
To measure individual client profitability, you could use project tags for your sales and purchase invoices which would allow a project specific Profit and Loss breakdown.
QuickFile operates on the accrual accounting basis, so all this is done for you based on what you enter. But if there are specifics that you need more help with, please ask away! 
Hope that helps.
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Thanks. To provide more info
- No VAT
- It’s a service business
- Invoices are issued elsewhere so I don’t need QuickFile for this
I have USD and GBP accounts. Can I manually enter the exchange rate?
If there’s no VAT, then you can simply tag “Money In” transactions as “Something else not on the list”, and tag them to 4000 General Sales, if you wish.
What some people find easier, is to raise a daily or weekly invoice. This would also allow you to assign them to specific clients if you wish.
There would no need to worry about the invoices if you wish, as they’re logged elsewhere. It would just be a case of making sure they are accurate. If you’re using QuickFile for tax returns etc., then you would need to ensure they tally up with the rest of your invoices too for accurate figures.
You can set the GBP/USD equivalent for certain things within QuickFile (for example, if a USD invoice is paid for in GBP), which would calculate the effect exchange rate for you.
You may find these articles helpful:
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The USD account receives and pays the invoices - how do I set the account to convert amounts into GBP? Can I manually enter the exchange rate to apply those issued by HMRC?
Can you direct me to a guide about how to manage accruals? I’m not clear on how it would work if I’m not sending invoices or doing my tax return on QF, I’m just using it as a monitoring tool.
Each bank accout set up in QuickFile can support one currency, so you’d have one of two ways to deal with it.
Raise an invoice for the USD amount (check out my link above for the process for this). This will use the exchange rate at the time of the invoice date (we store historical rates).
The two options you have then are:
- Set up a new bank account on QuickFile for USD and log and tag the payment as normal. To convert it to GBP, you’d have to create a money out transaction tagging it as a transfer to a GBP account. This will prompt you to enter the GBP value.
- In the invoice itself, click ‘Log Payment’, select your GBP bank account, and enter the equivalent value.
You’re not able to use your own exchange rates, but entering a GBP value will calculate the rate for you. Where we calculate this, we use xe.com exchange rates.
I’m not sure what you mean by accessing accruals - could you clarify this please, and I’ll certainly try to point you in the right direction?
I want to be able to ascertain monthly P&L - I think I need invoices so I can have the chart of accounts and balance reports?
Are the accruals established by the invoice dates I’ve entered? From what I’ve understood I would then adjust the dates on the reports to get a monthly view, is that right?
Accruals are made up of the figures from the invoice date, or journal date (depending on the nominal accounts affected).
With the Chart of Accounts (COA) and Balance Sheet reports, you would just adjust the date range that you wish to view (or just the 'effective date for the balance sheet). With the Profit and Loss (P&L) report, there are actually two versions -
- The standard P&L report, which shows you the figures between two dates entered
- The segmented P&L report which gives you a monthly/quarterly/annual breakdown. This is only available to Power Users (or those with L or XL accounts).
Hope that makes sense?
Yes that makes sense. However, I paid an invoice in March for services provided back in January - should I adjust the date of the invoice to January?
If you have an invoice issued to you by the supplier, then you should use the issue date they gave the invoice. Or if they have stated a tax point date, then use that one instead.