The stereotype is well-established. Accountants are often portrayed in the media with glasses, a pocket calculator, and the personality of a rock. Prior to studying accounting, people warned me of it being the most boring profession there is. While I admit that doing accounting will never be on par with a trip to Disneyland, I’ve learned that accounting can be fun because of the people and the technology.
I work with people more than numbers. My days are full of meetings and phone calls. The joy of accounting comes from advising people and improving their lives financially; I have those opportunities every day. Plus, I’ve worked with many in the profession who are fun and interesting people. From trampoline dodgeball, go-cart racing, and a Mini-Masters golf tournament, I’ve been part of a lot of fun activities with other CPAs.
Technology can make accounting fun (or at least less boring). Many will agree that mind-numbing data entry and bank reconciliations are tedious tasks; few enjoy them. I have helped friends move from traditional manual accounting systems to bank-connected online accounting software, greatly reducing the amount of time they spend doing their accounting. Their feedback included:
“This is as fun as accounting can be,” and
“I’m actually looking forward to doing my accounting.”
Accounting software has become more beautiful and fun. QuickBooks Online has a nice new look and simplified interface. FreshBooks proclaims “Yo!” on its website and has some creative instructional videos that are actually fun to watch. Xero touts itself as “beautiful software” and claims accounting can be fun (even addictive).
Do you want to make your accounting more fun? Let me know. I’ll have fun helping you.
Maybe your idea of “fun” is letting someone else handle the accounting. I understand. I have friends who would rather poke out their eyes than be the banker in a game of Monopoly. In that case, I can help you too.
A couple months ago, FreshBooks added an awesome feature to its online billing and accounting software: attaching expense receipts to invoices. I am a big fan of the integrated document management, which makes digital documents always available for quick and easy retrieval. Plus, receipts can be attached in several file formats from whatever device is convenient. Check out this video from FreshBooks showing users taking pictures of receipts with smartphones and tablets.
Since it looks so easy in the video, I tested attaching receipts from each of my devices.
On my desktop computer, I clicked on the “attach image of receipt” link while adding a new expense. A “choose file” button appeared below the link, and after I clicked on it, a file explorer window opened. I navigated to the file’s location on my computer and double-clicked it. That was easy enough to meet my expectations.
After tapping my finger on the “attach image of receipt” and “choose file” buttons on my tablet (a 10.1″ Samsung Galaxy Tab 2), it prompted me to select an action from several options as shown in the screenshot below. I chose the camera function. After I took a picture of the receipt, it was automatically uploaded and attached to the expense in FreshBooks. I don’t think it can get any easier than that!
My smartphone, which runs on Android, is capable of doing the same thing as my tablet. However, I can’t quickly launch FreshBooks, enter the details for a new expense and attach a receipt with my smartphone’s small screen and cellular connection. My solution is to use Evernote, one of my favorite mobile apps for taking digital notes. The Evernote widget includes a camera button for quickly uploading pictures. I uploaded a picture of the receipt with the Evernote app on my smartphone, and when I was later on my desktop computer, I downloaded the image from Evernote’s web application. I then went to FreshBooks, added a new expense and attached the receipt image.
If you have questions or are seeking the help of a FreshBooks Certified Beancounter and CPA in Las Vegas, please feel free to contact me.
Out of curiosity, I occasionally enter my name in Google to see how I am doing in my goal to dominate the first page of Google search results. Today, I decided to take a different approach and see how Google autocompletes searches for my name. According to Google, its algorithm predicts queries based on other users’ search activities. These searches provide some insight into what phrases people have used to search for me and other lucky guys out there that share my name.
When I enter “Dustin Wheeler” in the search box, Google suggests the following:
The first one listed is Dustin Wheeler, CPA. Yes, that’s me! The next two are not me (though “Dustin Wheeler Chevrolet” has a nice ring to it – it’s a dealership in Hinton, Oklahoma).
Next, I went through the alphabet adding a letter after my name to see how Google autocompletes it. Here is the letter L:
Las Vegas is one of the few cities that comes up. People could have searched for me using the city where I live to narrow the search results.
Moving on to Q…
Yes, I am a member of the QuickBooks ProAdvisor program.
Another fun activity is entering a company or product followed by the word “is.” Searches for “Google is” and “Facebook is” produces some really funny autocomplete suggestions, though they are mostly negative in nature. Google’s algorithm has some kind words for FreshBooks, however.
Hopefully, Google’s autocomplete will say the same about me someday.
Like peanut butter and jelly, I’m adding Chrometa and FreshBooks to my list of things that go together. Both perform time and billing functions, but have unique strengths in each area:
FreshBooks has an easy user interface for online invoicing and accounts receivable management (including tracking when customers have viewed and paid invoices).
Setting up the integration was very easy. It was so easy, in fact, I intuitively figured it out without having to search for help. In Chrometa, go to Account, then Integrations. Enter your FreshBooks URL in the input box as shown below.
Chrometa exports invoices to FreshBooks, but not time entries. A user integrating the two programs will have to use Chrometa for timekeeping and creating invoices. The user would then use FreshBooks for sending the invoices to customers.
In Chrometa, click on the Time button. Assign time to a project (in my example, the client is “Test Client” and the project is “Tax Return”).
Click on the Invoices button, then New Invoice. Select the client and project name. Enter the start and end dates for the time you want to invoice for. There is also a cool feature here to round time to the nearest minute, six minutes, fifteen minutes, or hour. In my example, 14 minutes and 42 seconds rounds up nicely to an even 15 minutes.
Then, click on the Get Time button. Click on Save to generate an invoice.
Click on the Invoices tab. Click on the drop-down arrow in the Action column and select Export To FreshBooks.
Now, log in to your FreshBooks account. Under “Recent Activity” on the home page, the newly imported invoice should be listed. Click on the link for the new invoice to view it.
With the invoice open in FreshBooks, I can edit it and choose among several options for sending:
*Obviously, this invoice is completely fictional. I do not prepare tax returns for $100/hour, nor does it typically take 15 minutes. The name “Test Client” is completely made up, and any similarity to a real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Accountants are often portrayed in the media with glasses, a pocket calculator, and the personality of a rock. Prior to studying accounting, people warned me of it being the most boring profession there is. While I admit that doing accounting will never be on par with a trip to Disneyland, I’ve learned that accounting can be fun because of the people and the technology.
I work with people more than numbers. My days are full of meetings and phone calls. The joy of accounting comes from advising people and improving their lives financially; I have those opportunities every day. Plus, I’ve worked with many in the profession who are fun and interesting people. From trampoline dodgeball, go-cart racing, and a Mini-Masters golf tournament, I’ve been part of a lot of fun activities with other CPAs.
Technology can make accounting fun (or at least less boring). Many will agree that mind-numbing data entry and bank reconciliations are tedious tasks; few enjoy them. I have helped friends move from traditional manual accounting systems to bank-connected online accounting software, greatly reducing the amount of time they spend doing their accounting. Their feedback included:
My smartphone, which runs on Android, is capable of doing the same thing as my tablet. However, I can’t quickly launch FreshBooks, enter the details for a new expense and attach a receipt with my smartphone’s small screen and cellular connection. My solution is to use 
