Ask the Accountant…
Question: Is there a good way to keep track of documents related to purchase orders?
Answer: We certainly have a lot of paperwork attached to the orders in our industry! It is a challenge to keep a record of orders and the attending documentation. Keeping paper files can be cumbersome, but see if this cloud solution might work.
Recently, distributor Kris Wilson of Acme Business Source shared with me his “filing” system. He uses Dropbox and creates a folder for each order. In that, he has subfolders where customer documents and supplier documents are located so to keep customer invoices, tax exempt certificates, supplier invoices, art files and all else that might ever be needed.
For those not familiar, Dropbox is a file hosting service in the cloud. You may upload up to 2GB of data for free. There are very reasonable paid subscriptions as well for up to 1TB (1,000 GB) of data. It might be worth a look.
Please email your questions to Harriet at Ask The Accountant.
QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise can be modified to better serve ad specialty distributors. Harriet Gatter is a QuickBooks ProAdvisor, a former accounting professor and a former ad specialty distributor. She advises ad specialty distributors to use QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise, often in conjunction with other industry-specific software, to manage the complexities of the ad specialty business, with the results being time saved, errors eliminated and an overall accurate accounting of your business. Contact her at [email protected].
