QuickBooks Financial Software is a much more powerful tool than many of the other options for managing your personal finances. However, many people are not utilizing QuickBooks because they are unfamiliar with it and find it somewhat intimidating. While it is possible to use QuickBooks in a number of different ways to keep up with your personal bookkeeping, there three key advantages to the program, which include managing cash flow, automating income and bills as well as family financial reporting.
Managing Cash Flow
One of the greatest advantages to using QuickBooks financial software is the ability to manage your cash flow. When you enter your financial data regularly for all of your accounts, you are able to keep a close watch over your cash flow situation.
You can do this by not only entering the transactions that have posted to your account, but also those that you know will be taking place soon as well. Items like your auto loan payments and your mortgage payments occur every month and rarely fluctuate in amount. For these reoccurring payments, all you have to do is memorize those transactions in QuickBooks.
Automating Income and Bills
Whenever possible, you should automate your income and bills. Then, will a bill arrives, all you have to do is enter it into QuickBooks with memorized transactions. You will only have to change the date and the amount and the transaction will post automatically to the bank account or credit card.
Family Financial Reporting
Finally, you can use QuickBooks financial software to manage your personal finances with financial reporting. Begin by reconciling your QuickBooks accounts to make sure you have accurate financial reports. Be sure you do this for all of your accounts and not just your bank account. Reconcile your loans, credit cards and all other accounts that have statements that have a date and balance that start and end on specific dates.
While there are several different reports that you can use to keep up with your family finances, profit and loss is perhaps one of the most useful reports. You can look at it in several different ways, such as comparing it to prior reports. When you run monthly and year-to-date comparisons, you will be able to quickly find any concerns or issues with your familys financial situation. This is just one more of the reasons that QuickBooks financial software is the ideal tool for managing your personal finances.