Collaborate electronically with your clients with Microsoft Office Accounting 2007

By By David H. Ringstrom, CPA

Microsoft Office Accounting 2007 (born Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting) enables you to work smarter and more efficiently with your clients. A powerful new Accountant Transfer Export Wizard means that you can now serve your clients on your schedule — without derailing their day-to-day operations.

 

Looking Back, Moving Forward

 

Remember when accountants had to walk to their client’s office uphill both ways in the snow — just to enter monthly journal entries? Sometimes the accountant might need a couple of days to complete the monthly review. Some accountants would then take the accounting data back to their office, while admonishing their client not to enter any new transactions until the books returned. Fortunately, those days are now a distant memory with Microsoft Office Accounting 2007.

 

Office Accounting incorporates a new Accountant Transfer Export Wizard that makes it easy for your clients to share their books with you for review. You, in turn, can take your time to make adjustments and pore over the books since your client can continue to enter new day-to-day transactions. Your clients can also send their books to you for payroll runs. You then send back to your clients a file that contains your changes, which they import into their live data.

 

Establishing Boundaries

 

Obviously you want to know that your clients aren’t changing the very data you’re reviewing. To ensure this, Office Accounting establishes a temporary cutoff date.

Let’s say that today is January 10, 2007 and your client is ready for you to start closing out the previous year: The cutoff date would be 12/31/2006. This cutoff date in turn places the following temporary restrictions on your client’s accounting records:

 

• No transactions can be entered on or before the cutoff date, including:

 

• invoices
• vendor bills
• item receipts
• journal entries
• payroll
• memorized documents
• bank reconciliations

 

Your client is free to enter transactions as usual from that point forward.

 

• No changes to sales tax can be made, including:

 

• tax vendors
• tax groups
• tax code rates
• tax payment terms

 

• Certain company settings cannot be modified:

 

• Company preferences cannot be changed
• The fiscal year cannot be changed
• Online banking cannot be set up

 

Keep in mind that all of these restrictions are temporary. Your client regains full access to all features and transactions as soon as your changes are imported or your client cancels the accountant transfer.

 

Sending the Books to You

 

Your clients will follow these steps to send their books to you:

 

1. Choose File, Accountant Transfer, and then Send Books.
2. Choose Disk or Local Storage on the Introduction screen, and then click Next.

 

Coming soon: A new Office Live service will let you opt for a secure online transfer of data files from and to your clients.  This will be the easiest, most secure and fastest way for you and your clients to share and synchronize data with Office Accounting.

 

3. Specify a date on the Select Cutoff Date screen. To do so, click the arrow at the right of the date field, choose a date, and then click Next.
4. Use the Payroll screen to indicate whether you or your client will be running payroll, and then click Next.
5. The Location screen designates a file name and location. You cannot change the file name, because Office Accounting combines the company’s name with the current date and a file extension of .ATE. Click the Browse button to specify a location of your choice, and then click Next once you’ve done so.

 

Expert tip: If you don’t setup the file sharing service through Office Live, another easy, albeit slower way to transfer accounting data is via a USB flash drive. These devices cost as little as a few dollars for a 128 MB drive. When you plug the device into any PC’s USB port, a drive letter such as E: is assigned automatically. You can then save any documents you want to transport to the device. These drives are much easier to use than burning CDs or other methods. And these devices have no moving parts, so you can safely ship them in an overnight envelope if needed.  Though convenient, email is not a very secure way to share accounting data with clients and is not recommended.

 

6. The Password screen enables your client to password-protect the export file. This field is optional, and clicking Next moves the Wizard to the next screen.
7. The Backup Location screen prompts your client to specify a location and optional password for a backup of their Office Accounting data. Click Export to begin the Accounting Transfer Export process.

 

Be patient: The export may take a minute or two because Office Accounting must first create a backup, and then generate the export file.

 

8. When the Completion screen shown in Figure 1 appears, your client can click the helpful hyperlink to the .ATE file. This link opens the folder that contains the file so that your client can easily send the file to you via e-mail, CD, flash drive, or other media.

 

Figure 1: The final screen of the Accountant Export provides a hyperlink to the export file.

 

9. Click the Finish button to close the Accountant Transfer Export Wizard.

 

Once the Accountant Transfer Export has been created, the title bar of Office Accounting includes the phrase “Books Sent to Accountant,” so your clients will always know when their books are out to you for review.

 

Introducing the Accountant View

 

You’ll use the new Accountant View to receive the Accountant Transfer Export file from your clients and then do your work. Follow these steps to launch the Accountant View:

 

1. Click Start.
2. Choose All Programs.
3. Choose Microsoft Office.
4. Choose Microsoft Office Accounting 2007 Tools.
5. Choose Accountant View. At this point the Accountant View appears, as shown in Figure 2.

 

Figure 2: The Accountant View enables you to access data from multiple clients.

 

Timesavers: Simplify future access by right-clicking on Accountant View when you get to step 5 above, and then choosing Pin to Start Menu. You can also place an icon on your desktop. To do so, right-click on Accountant View, choose Send To, and then Desktop (Create Shortcut).

 

The Accountant View enables you to initiate multiple tasks from a single screen:

 

·         Process payroll for your clients

·         Receive Accountant Transfer Export files from your clients

·         Create a new company

·         Open a company saved on your hard drive

·         Delete a company

·         Print reports

·         Create journal entries in your clients’ books

·         Set closing dates for your clients’ books

·         Send the changes you make in a set of books back to your client

 

Receiving the Books from your Clients

 

It’s easy to receive a set of books from your clients:

 

1. In the Accountant View screen, choose Receive Client’s Books.
2. On the Introduction screen choose Next to accept the default of Disk or Local Storage, assuming you haven’t activated an online service with your client.
3. Click the Browse button on the Select Import File screen, specify the .ATE file that your client sent you, and then click Next.
4. Enter a password if needed on the Provide Password screen, and then click Next.
5. Click the Browse button on the Select Company screen, and then either specify an existing .SBC file, or type the name of your choice if you haven’t received a .ATE file from this client previously. Once you’ve done so, click Next.
6. Click Yes if the Create New Company? prompt appears.
7. If necessary, the Accountant Transfer Import Wizard creates a new Office Accounting company, and then imports the Accountant Transfer Export file provided by your client.
8. When the import finishes, the Review Company Data screen, shown in Figure 3, lists the restrictions that you have to work within. Click the Finish button to close the Wizard.

 

Figure 3: Note that you can work prior to or on the cutoff date, but not thereafter.

 

You’re now ready to work — access to journal entries and reports are just a click away. To send your changes back to your client, select their company name from the list, and then choose Send Books to Client. If you’ve read along this far, you’ll have no problem walking through the steps involved in creating the .ATI file that you’ll send back to your client.

 

Importing or Canceling Your Changes

 

When your client receives the .ATI file from you, ask them to perform these steps:

 

1. Choose File, Accountant Transfer, and then Receive Books.
2. Click Next to accept the default choice of Disk or Local Storage.
3. On the Select Import screen, click Browse, select the .ATI file that contains your work, and then click Next.
4. On the Provide Password screen, enter a password if needed, and then click Next.
5. Specify a backup location and optional password on the Backup File Location screen, and then click Import.

 

At this point your changes are merged with the live data file, and the restrictions on editing previous transactions, maintaining preferences, and so on are removed.

 

Alternative: If your client needs to restore full functionality to Office Accounting without first importing your changes, tell them to choose File, Accountant Transfer, and then Cancel. If they click Yes to the warning prompt that appears, all restrictions are removed from their company. They will then need to send you another Accountant Transfer Export if they still need your assistance. You’ll have redo any changes that you’ve already made in your copy in the new .ATE file that your client sends.

 

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Microsoft.