The beginning of each year is always very busy for Shor Solutions as Ben Shor runs the year-end financial reports for many of his clients in order to check for bookkeeping errors the clients may have made. In addition, Ben Shor assists clients in preparing 1099s to send to all service providers that are not incorporated and were paid at least $600 in total for the year.  1099s must be sent out by January 31^st.

This past year Shor Solutions had its busiest year ever.  Ben Shor worked with 128 clients this past year – 56 new clients and 72 clients existing clients.

Ben Shor’s specialty is training individuals and small businesses to effectively use QuickBooks, once they are trained, many of them no longer need his services. However, some clients need help monthly or every few months to reconcile accounts and help them with bookkeeping issues.  Other clients only need support once a year to review financial reports for the previous year before they send to their accountants.  And some clients hire Shor Solutions to work with them to clean up their bookkeeping for the past year or more, and then they are taught how to use QuickBooks properly so that their bookkeeping  stays in good order.  Ben works with clients in their home or office, in his home office, or virtually using Zoom.

As Ben works primarily with QuickBooks, he adds that every year QuickBooks Online continues to improve, and he now recommends clients use the software instead of using one of the QuickBooks Desktop applications.  Most clients can use the least expensive online version of QuickBooks, which is called QuickBooks Online Simple Start, and costs $30 a month.  But for clients with a more complicated business, they will need to use QuickBooks Online Essentials, which costs $55 a month, or QuickBooks Online Plus, which costs $85 a month.  The price for the Pro Desktop version of QuickBooks was raised substantially this year so that it now costs $550 to purchase.  And you need to update your subscription every year so that you are able to continue downloading transactions into QuickBooks from your bank and credit card accounts.

Many clients, who have been using QuickBooks for years, are still using the desktop version.  They hadn’t wanted to convert to the online version because it was more expensive, and they would have to learn how to use the Online version, which is quite different from the Desktop version.  Now that QuickBooks requires you to update the Desktop version yearly so that you are able to continue downloading transactions, the cost of updating the Desktop version is almost $200 more than the cost of the Simple Start online subscription.  Because of this, and because the Online version works more efficiently than the Desktop version, Ben’s clients are now converting to an Online version. Here is a link to a comparison chart that lists many of the differences between QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online.

For individuals that have never used QuickBooks, and are ready to purchase it, Ben explains the differences between the Online and Desktop versions, and most of them choose to use the Online version.  Ben Shor is a QuickBooks ProAdvisor, and has passed the certification exams for both the online and desktop version of QuickBooks, teaches clients to effectively use either of these programs.  He has trained over 300 individuals to use QuickBooks effectively.

Up until a couple of years ago, Ben Shor would occasionally recommend that a client use Quicken to manage their business finances.  He stopped recommending Quicken a few years ago because Quicken does not do a good job creating rules for downloaded transactions.  With the price of QuickBooks escalating substantially this past year, he recommends clients with very simple bookkeeping needs to purchase Quicken and then he can train them to use Quicken.

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