Why use an automated upload of MINDBODY sales to Xero or QuickBooks Online instead of manually entering sales report summaries?
We get this question quite often. Sometimes we are told by book keepers or accountants that “integrations uploading sales always seem to cause too many problems” or “it takes more time to reconcile the uploaded sales than it does to manually enter the sales summary”.
In some instances manually entering sales summaries is just fine. However in our many years of experience we have identified a few areas where automated data upload has shown its advantages.
Firstly, for our clients in the UK, compliance with HMRC making tax digital is a big one. Connecting electronic systems together to bring your sales invoices into a compliant accounting package is a big plus. With Xero and QuickBooks Online being compliant packages for HMRC making tax digital it makes sense that using a package like QSSConnect or QSSLink to bring your MINDBODY sales across to them is a straight forward proposition.
For those outside the UK there are still lots of positives in automating the process. One of the main things we see is the ability to identify issues with the way transactions are being processed by studio staff in the MINDBODY system. MINDBODY is a large and flexible system for managing the front of house operations and can be configured and used in many ways by studio staff to process sales, class bookings and memberships. For accountants and book keepers following logical accounting processes is second nature, but for lots of studio staff, their focus is on their role in the business, whether that is a fitness professional, yoga teacher or hair professional, and accounting is not necessarily top of mind when processing transactions. We have seen a number of “unusual” transactions that have shown up in the accounting system after the integration of QSSConnect or QSSLink but that were missed previously in the manual data entry systems from the summary reports.
So let’s look at some specific examples that have been picked up with the automated processes of QSSLink and QSSConnect.
Accounts receivable and bad debt write-offs. We see a lot of interesting treatments of the bad debts in MINDBODY which often don’t turn up on the standard sales reports used by the book keeper to enter into the accounts manually, but which often come through in some way to the accounting system when using QSSLink or QSSConnect. If a sale was paid on account in MINDBODY and then not paid for several months (or years sometimes) the studio owner or manager might decide to write this off in MINDBODY but does not remember to tell their accountant or book keeper what they are doing in MINDBODY or how they did this. We have seen in some instances that to do this they create a transaction of some sort in MINDBODY to remove the amount outstanding. They may backdate the transaction (sometimes back to the date of the original transaction) as “paid” or they may discount the debt to $0.00 in some way or “pay it” to an unused payment method at balance value or by applying a discount to the original transaction and then paying it. In a manual situation these are sales that had previously been taken up as genuine sales in earlier summary reports used to enter the sales manually into the accounting system (along with any sales taxes applied). When they are backdated in some way or written off as paid with a discount, they can avoid appearing on the current sales summary reports. This can cause a discrepancy from the earlier entered sales for that period – which are now changed if you were to re-run those earlier sales reports you had used at the time. In the automated scenario with QSSLink or QSSConnect the back dated sales can upload into the period it happened if the sales are backdated (keeping accounts accurate) or alerts will generate if the book keeper or accountant has locked that accounting time period in the accounting system, and because of the locking, the transaction will be prevented from uploading in that situation. From there the accountant and studio owner/manager can discuss the transaction(s) to determine the best course of action to ensure data integrity of the accounts.
There are a few ways to deal with bad debt write-offs between MINDBODY and the accounting system in the automated scenario and your QSS account manager is happy to discuss this further with you, your book keeper or accountant to determine the available options for your situation given the nature of the data presenting.
Gift certificates/gift cards are another area that can be a challenge to manage. If there are Gift card issues, they generally start to show themselves in the accounting system once linked to MINDBODY with QSSConnect or QSSLink. Some of the scenarios that often come up are centered around promotional gift cards that are given away or gift cards that are sold at a discount. Sometimes there are specific processes that can be put in place for the staff to follow in MINDBODY in this area, but it is not uncommon that we find this situation has been overlooked until QSSConnect or QSSLink are implemented and the gift card issues come to light.
We have also had a client book keeper discover that petty cash was being used by the studio and taken out from the MINDBODY POS system, and while it was coming through as unusual looking transactions from QSSConnect, it had not been showing up on the manual sales reports being used prior to QSSConnect as being related to petty cash. It was also not previously being accounted for correctly in the accounting system as it was not being reported to the book keeper as it was reducing sales and hidden in the summary report rather than being identified as a petty cash withdrawal to cover incidental expenses in the studio.
These are just a few of the examples of where you can benefit from automating the data upload process between MINDBODY and your accounting system. Combining the above benefits with rules you can setup in the accounting systems for reconciling, our accounting and book keeping clients generally find the whole process of using QSSLink and QSSConnect to be a positive experience.
No Comments