Articles

How Growing Businesses Can Hack QuickBooks Reporting to Combine Multiple Entities by Debra Sears, CPA


Posted on January 30, 2020 by Debra Sears

QuickBooks has long been the go-to financial reporting and accounting solution for small-to-mid-size businesses. However, as these companies grow and take on more complex organizational structures, they may find it challenging to combine the financial data and analytics of multiple entities. Rather than continuing to operate with sub-par data or investing significant dollars into robust enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, businesses can simply upgrade their existing systems and implement a reporting app that combines QuickBooks data from multiple companies.

This QuickBooks hack enables companies to tie together a multitude of business processes and data from an equally diverse number of companies with an easy-to-use and affordable ERP-level of reporting functionality. With this option, businesses will have immediate access to combined group financials that are automatically updated via secure data sync every night or on-demand, as changes are posted to underlying QuickBooks company records. No longer will businesses have to waste time with periodic, manual Excel combinations.

In addition to offering businesses affordability, implementing reporting apps with QuickBooks or another ledger-accounting system also provides users with the ability to fully customize their financial reporting to their companies’ needs and goals. Businesses will always have the most current up-to-date data for regular reporting or for generating reports on-the-fly for impromptu board meetings or capital events.

It is important to note that reporting apps are not permanent solutions for the underlying deficiencies of running a multi-entity organization in a single-entity general ledger accounting system. Rather, they provide an effective and efficient stop-gap solution that buys a business time to investigate and implement a more comprehensive ERP system.

The advisors and CPAs with Berkowitz Pollack Brant’s Accounting Intelligence group bring together deep technology experience with hands-on professional counsel to help businesses around the world implement, manage and maximize the benefits of modern, back-office accounting systems.

About the Author: Debra Sears, CPA, is an associate director with Berkowitz Pollack Brant Advisors + CPAs, where she leads the firm’s Accounting Intelligence group and provides financial consulting and cloud accounting services to small and mid-size entrepreneurial businesses and high-net-worth families. She can be reached at the CPA firm’s Boca Raton, Fla., office at (561) 361-2000 or via email at info@bpbcpa.com.