How to Close Out Your Sales System
Most accounting systems, QuickBooks included, do not provide all the services needed for a contractor to operate efficiently. Most modern accounting systems worth their salt specialize in one thing – accounting. This is by design. In the age of cloud technology, plenty of valuable tools integrate seamlessly with cloud-based accounting software. The ideal sales system, or CRM, is a system that allows you to schedule customers with technicians, communicate with them, follow up with them, and retarget them and their neighbors. The system you choose must integrate with your accounting software. This ensures that all data will seamlessly transfer between the two systems. Unfortunately, most people don’t take the time to make sure the systems match, which leads to significant issues later down the road.
When you’re ready to start getting closed out, these are the main tasks to focus on:
- Errors in the integration
- Open invoices
- Unscheduled Jobs
- Recurring jobs/Service agreements
- Errors in the integration (again)
Errors in the integrations
Every system that integrates with QuickBooks Online will eventually have issues and errors. Each system has an integration section that details those errors for you to correct over time. When closing out a system, the first thing to check is to ensure that the cache is cleared and no errors actually exist. If they exist, take the time to correct the errors to ensure all details are in QuickBooks. If errors exist, you could be missing customers, invoices, payments, line items, or deposits, making your accounting incorrect in the long run and more difficult to close out in the short term. QuickBooks will usually error due to customer issues, invoice duplication, or missing payments, which over time will add up. As you become experienced, you will learn how to correct and prevent these issues. Of course, working with someone experienced in your system will expedite this for you.
Open Invoices
Next, you’ll want to review the open invoices in your dispatching system. Check for unpaid jobs and verify that they genuinely are unpaid. If paid, mark them paid, but double-check to ensure you didn’t already do this in QuickBooks. While some systems have a two-way integration, most better systems only have a one-way integration. This means that things done in QuickBooks don’t show in the dispatch software. If your system is like this, then make sure that you double-check QuickBooks. Otherwise, you may end up duplicating payments which will cause multiple issues later on.
You’ll also want to ensure that these jobs that are showing due in your dispatch system are unpaid. Depending on your software, different trigger points cause integrations data to move to QuickBooks. We want to ensure that those triggers have not occurred prematurely. If this happens, your Accounts Receivable (A/R) in QuickBooks will be incorrect and cause issues on future checks that you will perform.
The final thing to check at this step is for significantly past due invoices and create a collection plan or write off bad debt. This may be a step that you want to postpone in order to review a more accurate A/R report within QuickBooks, which is perfectly acceptable. However, creating a list for someone to call at this step would definitely not hurt and provide some multi-tasking time.
Unscheduled Jobs
After reviewing any unpaid invoices, go through and check your jobs in the system. Most systems will allow you to leave jobs unscheduled, which is fine as long as you’re waiting to schedule. However, any jobs that have been done or completed should be scheduled. A review of unscheduled jobs on a monthly basis will help you confirm that all work has been completed. This will also help you in future steps that we will discuss, such as checking for cancelled jobs. Ensuring all jobs are scheduled will further help you ensure your reporting is accurate and assist you in better tracking your business in the future. Unscheduled jobs that didn’t occur should be deleted or canceled in your system. Completed jobs should have an accurate schedule assigned to them, so job scheduling reports are also accurate. Most systems will have a report that you can run for unscheduled jobs. Generally, it is located in the dashboard or an easy-to-find report center in the system. As stated, each system is different, and it is challenging to generalize steps for you to take on this. However, a quick review of your system or discussion with the support team should provide insights into finding this area quickly.
Recurring Jobs/Service agreements
Most higher-end systems allow you to set up recurring services on an as-needed basis, depending on your industry. HVAC and plumbing industries commonly use these for check-ups or tune-ups on an annual or biannual basis. You should review these recurring jobs and service agreements monthly to ensure all upcoming appointments are scheduled, all agreements are accepted, and follow up on soon-to-expire contracts.
Service agreements are a great way to get constant or recurring income and create future clients by starting a relationship before they need extensive services. When doing service agreements, though, they must be managed and reviewed to ensure people are scheduled.Most systems remind you as it is approaching time to schedule a client. However, you still need to make sure to get them scheduled, and an extra call goes a long way to helping cement that relationship. Also, due to how some agreements are run, customers must accept them, so reviewing to ensure all agreements are accepted and following up on those that haven’t will help you verify and close more sales.
Otherwise, you may slip their mind and be no longer relevant. Finally, remember that these are typically yearly contracts and need to be renewed annually. A great practice is to solicit this renewal when scheduling the final visit of the current agreement. A review of soon-to-expire contracts or expired contracts and emailing, calling, or sending a postcard to them can help you keep a client and make another sale
Errors in the integration(Again)
At this point, the critical areas of your system should now be closed out. Before we conclude, though, we want to check the error or sync center one last time as you have probably made several changes that may have caused other errors. Once this is done, your system should be relatively accurate, and you can begin closing your books. Of course, this is only the first step, but ensuring that all sales information exists in your accounting platform is vital. If you are looking for more specifics on your particular system, please contact us. We can provide steps for multiple systems close-outs, including Housecall Pro, Jobber, Service Titan, Service M8, Customer Factor, Dispatch, and many more. Join us next week as we discuss closing out your QBO A/R.
