Tuesday, July 15, 2014

University of Phoenix and Intuit Partnership Provides Students Access to Professional Accounting Software / Students gain professional real-world experience through QuickBooks Online software integration into the University’s Accounting Classes

University of Phoenix, a subsidiary of Apollo Education Group, Inc. APOL -3.79% , and Intuit Inc. INTU +1.09% , the leader in online accounting software, today announced that Intuit’s QuickBooks® Online has been integrated into the University of Phoenix® School of Business’ accounting degree program to provide students with access to a real-world business application with direct relevance to many business environments. 
 
“University of Phoenix is focused on providing students with the right education and skills that employers are looking for in their workforce,” said University of Phoenix School of Business Executive Dean Ruth Veloria. “By providing our students with access to Intuit’s QuickBooks Online, students will be learning accounting skills on a platform that is widely used by businesses and accounting professionals worldwide, which can help make them more marketable in today’s competitive job market.” 

“This is an exciting opportunity for Intuit and University of Phoenix as both companies are focused on empowering up-and-coming entrepreneurs, small businesses, accountants and bookkeeping professionals,” said Jim McGinnis, vice president, Accountant & Advisor Group, Intuit. “With more than 1.7 million QuickBooks Online users worldwide, providing access to the leading online accounting software will help ensure that today’s students are prepared for a successful tomorrow.” 

QuickBooks Online will be incorporated into University of Phoenix School of Business Accounting courses ACC/290 and ACC/291 (Principles of Accounting I and II). These programs are the fundamental programs for all University of Phoenix School of Business accounting students. Students who complete these courses as part of their degree program will earn a certificate in bookkeeping, thus giving these students an opportunity to gain a job relevant credential even before they complete their degree program. In addition, University of Phoenix business students accessing the QuickBooks Online software will have the opportunity to become QuickBooks certified through Intuit at the completion of the course. 

For more information on University of Phoenix’s School of Business programs, visit www.phoenix.edu/business.
For more information on Intuit and the Intuit Education Program, visit www.intuit.com .
Posted on 7:15 AM | Categories:

QuickBooks In The Cloud Computing Era: How Mobile Does Your Manufacturing Operation Want

Adam Stern for Manufacturing Business Technology writes: Employee demand for anywhere/anytime access to data and applications from any device is fueling a trend by accounting firms — and their clients among small- to mid-size manufacturers — to move QuickBooks to the cloud. To increase productivity, the growing mobile workforce requires that these organizations enable remote use of multiple devices, including smartphones, tablets, iPads, PCs and laptops.

With a QuickBooks terminal server, the application is installed and run on the hosting provider's terminal servers. Users gain access to the application remotely via an online connection. This helps to create a collaborative environment where CPAs, bookkeepers and manufacturers can share and exchange information and files in real time. Changes are updated instantly and accessible to the other members, enabling CPAs to monitor the work done by bookkeepers and verify them when and where necessary. And now that enterprise ERP solutions can live and prosper in the cloud — and that CSPs can install, manage, update, protect and support ERP software for a low monthly fee  the question has shifted from “to migrate or not to migrate?” to “which cloud environment suits us best?”

While enabling a mobile workforce can raise concerns about security, data protection and integrity typically is greater with a hosted solution than with an in-house implementation. That’s because commercial hosting services maintain multiple levels of security, firewalls, encryption, backup power and hazard prevention.

To ensure that QuickBooks application and data can't be accessed by unauthorized parties, remote users are provided with access passwords. Most CSPs (cloud service providers) implement the latest security strategies and comply with industry standards to ensure security and reliability. A conscientious CSP takes into consideration authentication, data integrity, confidentiality and availability when designing the structure of its cloud environment, then builds it over secure servers located within authorized data centers. Consequently, accounting firms and CPAs needn’t worry about security when empowering mobile access to a QuickBooks terminal server.

With QuickBooks cloud hosting, mobile workers can access the application from anywhere, without any physical or device constraints. This increases database access speed, since there are no bandwidth restrictions. Users experience the very same QuickBooks functionality on the terminal server as they do on their desktops.

Beyond the seamless operational benefits of QuickBooks hosting for the manufacturer and its remote workers, several other advantages come into play. QuickBooks hosted in the cloud does not require hardware installation or configuration on the servers. Because servers are set up and monitored at the CSP’s remote location, the organization does not incur any capital or operational expenses. System scalability also reduces costs — accounting firms can scale up or down as needed. The “pay as you go” business model of QuickBooks terminal server hosting makes it especially useful at tax time. Rather than buying new hardware to accommodate the additional QuickBooks workload, the firm can simply scale up in January and scale down after April 15 (or the quarterly filing period, as the case may be).

QuickBooks hosting on terminal servers is tends to be extremely reliable, and the CSP’s expertise can further minimize downtime. Because users gain access to an application that is in all ways identical to its desktop counterpart, there is no additional learning curve.

As an accountant might say, it all adds up: QuickBooks terminal server hosting is a smart option for accounting firms and those manufacturers who want to increase the productivity and efficiency of their mobile workforce.

Adam Stern is founder and CEO of Infinitely Virtual (www.infinitelyvirtual.com), which offers cloud-based InfiniteERP. Twitter- @iv_cloudhosting.
Posted on 7:10 AM | Categories:

QuickBooks WooCommerce Integration / eCommerce Shopping Cart Integration for QuickBooks, Sage 50


CartSpan writes: OK, so you’ve setup your ‘free’ WooCommerce shop in record time within your WordPress environment and are quickly overwhelmed by orders; a business condition that creates both stress and excitement at the same time. 
 
While there are low-cost (and some free) tools that can be used to simply ‘get your orders into the accounting system’, a well-designed (and supported) commercial integration can actually help you sell more product and pay for itself in an extremely short period of time.

This has less to do with the order import side of the equation than with the practice of effective stock management between systems. If you have a significant number of products to manage and don’t update availability in WooCommerce in a timely manner, you are losing significant income opportunities.

Hard Benefits: CartSpan provides a deep integration with both QuickBooks and Sage 50 to provide you with near real-time updates of product availability in your store. So, as soon as you receive stock into the accounting system or accept a new order over the phone, CartSpan sees the new inventory and will pushes an updated quantity-available to WooCommerce. If you are a manufacturer, CartSpan offers a stock management feature that projects how many of an assembled item you can offer based upon supporting stock. See our blog post, Inventory Management for Assembled Product Types, for details on how this feature can increase your earnings.

Here is how CartSpan customer Elizabeth Dirks, Operations Manager of Hair & Compounds Inc., describes their WooCommerce integration experience:

“When roughing out the decision to redesign our website and online store, our customer service people had one request – Sage 50 integration! With some research we found CartSpan was one of the only solutions that had exactly the functionality we required. All we needed was inventory updates and order downloading. What made our simple requirements more complicated is that our inventory has hundreds of variations under a few master stock items. CartSpan’s configuration features allows us to easily handle inventory variations and keep each sub-stock item updated with latest prices and stock quantity. It also made what seemed a huge and daunting task of integrating with our established system very simple and quite easy.”

“CartSpan is a fantastic product for anyone in need of Sage 50 integration (or QuickBooks) with their online store and worth every penny to invest in this product.”

Soft Benefits: Don’t discount the ‘softer’ side of how a good integration can maximize the use your accounting system. If you are constantly changing, adjusting, or ‘tweaking’ your imports to reflect how you do business, you might ask yourself, Am I really saving that much time? CartSpan is built for QuickBooks and Sage 50 and maximizes integration opportunities to each. These finer points of integration can be found on our Product Features page for order imports as well as for inventory updates.

To ‘piggy-back’ on a well-known phrase, “CartSpan integrates your WooCommerce with QuickBooks…beautifully.
Posted on 6:58 AM | Categories: