Two Kids: Can you give me any more color on how you have things set up on Quickbooks? I have input the account balances, but in the time I spent it was not obvious (or intuitive) in terms of how to set up categories of expenditures, fundraisers, as well as our budget. Any help would be much appreciated.
I use quickbooks as well, and I beleive that when you set up a "new" business you are able to input your account balances. As far as pulling up old income statements and/or balance sheets I dont know of a way to import that information. You may want to contact support at quickbooks and they will know of a way if there is one. 1-888-859-4056.
If you haven't set up Quickbooks yet (heck -- even if you have), I highly, highly recommend getting the free trial of Finance Manager (www.ptotoday.com/manager/finance.html
), our custom treasurer software for parent groups.
Couple of advantages:
1. It's designed exclusively for parent group leaders, so there's no wading through all the many (unhelpful for parent groups) bells and whistles of Quickbooks.
2. It's ASP-style, so multiple users can use/view your books -- all from home.
3. Transition made easy. Passing over the books becomes as simple as changing passwords and permissions for your treasury software. No worries about whether new treasurer has own copy of Quickbooks and/or if she can use it. All files backed up automatically, and -- over time -- you have a complete historical record of your finances for years.
I'm the new treasurer, and we just got a decent priced copy of Quickbooks 2005 of Ebay. I've used Quicken for years, have an MBA, and work in finance, but I'm still looking for a quick download on how to get our PTO's financial picture into Quickbooks.
I don't think we do anything particularly unusual.