Look, Ma! No filing cabinet!

By David Ringstrom, CPA

Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting can turn the tide of paperwork for you and your clients with its innovative document linking feature. This functionality strongly distinguishes Small Business Accounting from its competitors — and can bring your dreams of a paperless office closer to reality. Many of your supporting documents are already in an electronic format, such as client proposals or invoices that vendors e-mail you. Read on to see how to save time and keep key information at your fingertips by linking vital documents

 

Link your lists

 

As you work in Small Business Accounting, you may have seen, but not yet tried, the Add Links feature. You can link records to these types of list records:

 

·         Customer

·         Vendor

·         Employee

 

Caution: You cannot link documents to the chart of accounts or inventory items.

 

Linking documents to list items can provide a wealth of information at your fingertips. For instance, many businesses run a credit check on prospective customers. Typically you’ll procure the credit report online, so you can then associate the resulting document with your customer’s record in Small Business Accounting. In other cases, you may wish to store driving directions, collection letters, or general correspondence. Frequently linked documents for vendors may include proposals, engagement letters, contract documents, or other correspondence. You can also link a wealth of information to employee records, including resumes, performance reports, electronic copies of income tax or immigration documents, just to name a few.

 

Adding a link involves only a few steps:

 

1. Choose Customers, Customer Lists, and then Customers. Or, choose Vendors, Vendor Lists, and then Vendors. I’ll let you guess how to open the employee list.
2. Double-click on a customer, vendor, or employee from the respective list.
3. When the record appears, click Add Links in the Memo section, as shown in Figure 1.
4. When the Select File To Link To window appears, browse for the file you wish to link, and then click Open.
5. Going forward you can double-click on the link to open the document.

 

Link removal: Eliminate a link by clicking on the right-side of the link, and then pressing Backspace.

 

Figure 1: The Add Links button enables you to link documents to a customer, vendor, or employee record.

 

Expert tip: Link to multiple documents in a single step by holding down the Ctrl key while you click on two or more file names.

 

The Add Links field allows you to link to numerous documents. As you add documents, keep in mind that in some cases you’ll need to scroll through the Add Links field. This is necessary when the scroll arrows appear at the right-hand side of the links field.

 

Good news: Links that you create within Small Business Accounting point to the original documents, so if you make changes, your accounting records remain up to date.

 

Bad news:  Links that you create within Small Business Accounting point to the original documents, so be careful when  deleting, renaming, or moving files, otherwise your accounting records could point to non-existent documents.

 

Transaction Links

 

Although linking to list records is helpful, you’ll probably spend much more time linking supporting documents to individual transactions. As shown in Table 1, you can link documents to most Small Business Accounting transactions. This functionality enables you to associate supporting documentation directly to the transactions themselves, as illustrated in Figure 2.  Linking to transactions works just like linking to list items, so just look for the Add Links button at the bottom of your transaction screens. Keep in mind, though, that a few transaction types do not allow document links:

 

·         General journal entries

·         Customer payments

·         Checks

·         Deposits

·         Transfer funds

·         Inventory adjustments

 

Table 1: Many transaction types support document linking

 

Transaction Type	Suggested document link
Customer quotes	Original proposal to customer
Sales orders	Customer’s purchase order
Cash sale	Scanned copy of customer’s check
Customer Invoice	Job site pictures
Customer credit memo	Picture of damaged product
Vendor purchase orders	Original job estimate
Item receipt	Picture of high value item
Vendor bills	Electronic copy of invoice
Cash Purchase	Picture of high value item
Vendor credit memo	Picture of damaged product being returned
Time entry	Supporting documents or narrative
Credit card charge	E-mail copy of online purchase receipt

Figure 2: Source documents can be linked directly to accounting transactions.

 

Archiving e-mail messages

In addition to the aforementioned electronic documents, it’s also easy to link e-mail to a list or transaction record. For instance, Microsoft Office Outlook enables you to save individual e-mails in several formats:

 

·         Text (*.TXT)

·         Outlook Message Format (*.MSG)

·         HTML (*.HTML)

 

To link an Outlook e-mail to a customer record, follow these steps:

 

1. Locate the e-mail message in Outlook.
2. Choose File, and then Save As.
3. Specify a location for the e-mail message, and choose a format, as shown in Figure 3. Text is an ideal format because it’s universally readable.
4. Return to Small Business Accounting, and then choose Customers, Customer Lists, and then Customers.
5. Click the Add Links button, browse to the file containing the saved e-mail, and then click Open.

 

Figure 3: You can save individual e-mail messages in a format for linking.

 

E-mail is such a prevalent method of communication that you’ll probably have dozens of ideas for linking messages to accounting records or transactions. However, if you need a nudge to get started, here are some common uses:

 

·         Link a customer’s approval for a project or change order with either the original quote or sales order.

·         Associate justification for extra billable time on projects with time entries.

·         Store a customer’s promise to pay an overdue invoice by a certain date with the original invoice.

·         Tie vendor price or policy change notifications to their respective records. Try this with customers, too!

 

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