QB online for HOA

A large number, if not most, of us agree that the QB online product is pretty atrocious. I am definitely one of them and will continue to discourage its use generally. However, I'm considering recommending it for my HOA because it would make certain things easier I think. This is an organization that will likely write two or three checks in a year, so not much use there. Reports needed would be a simple Balance Sheet (only asset will be cash), and a simple income statement. The feature that will be needed most is invoicing and collection of HOA dues. What opinions do any of you have on that feature? It would be good if we could rely on it for automated collection and deposit into our checking account. Does it work well enough for that?

I recently started doing electronic billing through the regular QB program and I'm not real happy with it so will probably abandon it all together. I can't rely on it and I don't have confidence in the fact that the e-mailed invoice has actually been received - there were two very weird instances involving a couple of clients that got mixed up even though the e-mail addresses were correct. It's not worth the anxiety.

The feature that will be needed most is invoicing and collection of HOA dues. What opinions do any of you have on that feature? It would be good if we could rely on it for automated collection and deposit into our checking account. Does it work well enough for that?

I have a client who uses QBO to do their books, and they use that feature a lot. There's been some problems with linking the payments received to their corresponding deposits, but I'm not sure whether that's because of my client or QBO -- my gut reaction is that it's my client.

Thanks Missing-D. Any other comments on the invoicing feature of QBO?

I use QBO for all of my regular monthly bookkeeping clients, and overall I think it's great for relatively simple accounting needs. I used to be a desktop only user and strongly resisted moving to QBO, but once I took some time to understand the program and the efficient improvements for both the accountant and the client, I can't imagine going back. The time savings on data entry is worth it enough.

The caveat is that my clients are almost all service-based, so I'm not trying to shoehorn complicated inventory needs into the simple inventory capabilities of the software. Clients love it, can invoice and estimate on the go, can receive ACH payments for free, etc.

Seems like your needs for the HOA would be fairly simple accounting and invoicing. I think QBO would be a good fit. Invoicing creation and delivery via email is seamless and easy. Can create recurring invoices every month for each customer so you don't have to constantly bill the same thing. And can set it to accept ACH payments, so homeowners can pay by e-check easily, eliminating the checks, bank trips, etc. Worth playing around on the 30 day free trial at least.

A large number, if not most, of us agree that the QB online product is pretty atrocious.

Maybe when it was first introduced, which by now is quite a few years ago. It has gone through some major overhauls, and if you use the Windows app instead of a web browser to access, I'd agree with CMBTax that it deserves some consideration as a solution and probably will work just fine.

I agree with CMB and Makbo. The accessibility of the product is a big plus. For clients with simple needs, it allows for seamless collaboration to keep them straight in down time. On top of that, my firm has 70+ QBO clients without pushing people to it. As has been discussed here before, the marketing dollars are pushing the consumers to QBO. We can't fight a tidal wave, might as well hop on for a ride.

I haven't experienced any invoicing glitches as mentioned above. I have a entity setup with less than a dozen recurring, fixed-fee, monthly invoices. The accounting is completely automated. All clients get a bill 5 days before the beginning of the month, due on receipt. The email has QB payments links. They pay by their preferred electronic method. Everything is automated. At the end of the month I run the banking update and all revenue side transactions are matched against the automatically posted recurring transactions/payments. I spend 15 minutes per month in the QBO file.

There is a new desktop app that actually makes this a whole lot better. Watch the 3 min demo. I used it a couple days ago, and while I haven't yet figured out how to do everything he talks about, it is much much better. Which wouldn't have taken much, granted! lol QuickBooks Online Accountant App - Intuit

There is a new desktop app that actually makes this a whole lot better. see also post #5

New question about QB Online. Regarding the bank - it looks like when I enter the bank information so we can receive payments, the program is going to want to download activity from the bank as well. I don't want it to do that, is it possible to just set it up to receive and deposit payments? I get to one point in setting that up and it looks like the point of no return and pushing the go button means the program is in charge.

I know you don't have to sync with the bank since I've got several clients who don't. That's a separate thing.