The P&P Q&A: Part 2

Do you work with QuickBooks clients?

We will still work with QuickBooks clients…with a caveat or two.

The caveat to that is whether their books are in good shape, whether QuickBooks is the right thing for their unique situation.

Let’s say a client comes to me in QuickBooks Online. If their QuickBooks Online is garbage, and their process would make more sense in Xero, we're going to move them there.

If their QuickBooks Online is in good shape, but their process would be better in Xero, we're going to move them there.

If they have a good set of books, or a set of books that you can reasonably clean, and QuickBooks Online makes the most sense for them, we're going to leave them there.

I have a couple clients on QuickBooks right now for different reasons, but the majority are on Xero, because it’s just the better system. We had more on QuickBooks that we converted to Xero for free because it just enhances our system and their experience that much.

Most clients don’t really care which system they’re on, and even when they do, I usually push back a bit, because—to use an analogy I’ve used before—why would you hire someone to do a job, then argue about which tools they want to use?

I'm not going to hire a gardener to do my landscaping, then tell them which gardening tools to use. Why would I know which tools are best? I’m not a gardener…and my clients aren’t accountants.

I am the expert. I know what tools there are. I have tried both of these “gardening tools,” and I've decided that this one is the one that allows me to do my job—that I'm an expert at—better. So that’s the one I will use.

Most of my clients will just follow my lead. But there are a couple notable exceptions.

I have one client with a very strong preference for QuickBooks over Xero, but her situation is really unique. Her reasons are actually almost personal, so with that, I just knew that I would be accommodating what she wanted. It was a deal breaker for her.

However, I did charge her more to keep her on QuickBooks, because it meant we were going to work with a harder system.

That’s one client we kept on QuickBooks. The other one was because they have a different kind of invoicing. First, they have historic invoicing, and their history matters to them. They have open invoices they're trained on, and they're continuing to actually create their invoices in QuickBooks Online.

It's in good shape. They're not a mess on that side. They also have bills that sync with Expensify. I actually helped them implement the Expensify piece, which could work in Xero as well, but they have multiple card users and they have billable expenses to their clients.

With all of those things combined, it made sense for them to stay in QuickBooks. Plus, my client is actually proficient in QuickBooks, so he actually goes in and runs reports himself, so nothing was messy or too difficult for us to work with.

I found QuickBooks so challenging when trying to learn bookkeeping on my own. Xero is better on the eyes.

This isn’t really a question—I just liked the point. Quickbooks is very hard on the eyes, and in my opinion, that makes it hard on the brain.

Between all the clicking and the scrolling and trying to keep track of how many places things go, it gets a little overwhelming.

When you create an invoice, it goes multiple places. Then you've got the payment, and you have to unmatch all of these different intricate pieces, and it just becomes a confetti bomb.

You did one thing, and then POP! Confetti spills everywhere, and now you have to trace through a thousand things to figure it out.

It's easier to find things in Xero. There's a million ways to get to the same place. And it's just a smart software.

What offers do you have, and what order should I do them in?

BABS (Become a Bookkeeper) is my first program that teaches the skill of bookkeeping. It's a self-paced course, and I do recommend starting there if you have little to no experience or have some significant knowledge gaps.

I usually tell people that if they can’t rate themselves at least an 8 out of 10 in their bookkeeping skills, they want to go through Become a Bookkeeper first.

If you continue on with like me and my coaching after that, I have two other offers. One is Life by the Books, or LIBBY. That program is for people who already have solid bookkeeping skills, but they want to turn it into their business.

LIBBY teaches you the soft skills: how to get clients, how to decide what you want that to look like, how much money you want to make, how to set prices, how many clients you want, etcetera.

Systems, communication, hiring, marketing—that’s all in LIBBY.

LIBBY does have a course component, but it also has a monthly component where you have access to me and the other LIBBY members who are in there, as well as access to my third offer, Tech Talks.

Tech Talks are included for Life by the Books active members, but you can also purchase access separately.

Once you take Become a Bookkeeper, you can sign up for LIBBY for more support on the business growth, or you could sign up for standalone Tech Talks.

Some people will skip Life by the Books. I don't recommend it, but Tech Talks has a lower barrier, and it gives you the chance to get support and ask questions about technical bookkeeping things you aren’t sure about.

One thing to keep in mind is that Become a Bookkeeper is currently closed—but it is reopening very soon. If you want to get into Become a Bookkeeper and save some money on it, I highly encourage you to join the BABs waitlist.

If you get on the waitlist, you’ll be notified shortly before Become a Bookkeeper doors reopen, and you’ll get access to the pre-sale, where you’ll be able to get into Become a Bookkeeper at a special price before it goes up to its full cost!

Thanks for Asking!

Thank you for all your amazing questions—I haven’t had such an engaged audience on a live in a while!

To hear the rest of the questions asked and answered, listen to Episodes 217 and 218 of the Profits and Prosecco podcast—and to listen to the live that inspired them, listen to Episode 216!

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Join the BABs waitlist: https://www.katieferro.com/become 

Want a peek behind the curtain into LIBBY, my program all about what it really takes to have a simple and scalable (and successful) bookkeeping business? Get access to my free, on-demand four-part series, 6 Secrets to a Simple, Scalable Bookkeeping Business: www.katieferro.com/6-secrets

Learn how to take your bookkeeping skills and turn them into a business that allows you to replace (or surpass) your corporate salary, be present for your life, and profoundly impact your clients without selling your life in the process by joining Life by the Books (LIBBY).  

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Website: https://www.katieferro.com/

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