Beware Chemical Bank Bill Pay Policies!

Deliver By and Send On dates!

Old Northwest Bank customers were spoiled with their progressive adaptation of banking technologies. I loved the bill pay service that NW Bank offered. You simply setup your payees and told the bank how much and when to send a paper check in the mail. The funds cleared when your payee actually cashed the check.

Now Chemical Bank takes the funds out of your account on the "send on date" that the transaction is processed. Say they need a week to process a check. This means the funds are withdrawn from your account the day they process, "send on date", not the day the check mailed, "deliver by date" or is cashed by your payee. This can result in overdrafts. Chemical bank is holding your money hostage and messing with your cash flow!

Chemical bank also only allows transaction downloads from their ePersonal accounts in Quicken format. All of my accounts, business and personal, were converted to ePersonal and I had to go through a big deal to fill out a form to have my business account converted to eBusiness so that I could download my transactions in QuickBooks Web Connect format. I've spoken to them about this, they don't seem to understand that Quicken and QuickBooks are two different programs.

I brought NW Bank a lot of customers (my clients), and now we will be shopping for a new bank.

NW Bank to Chemical Bank

Mark your calendars!
Download transactions before Friday, November 7th at 5 pm

This is a reminder to everyone who uses Northwestern Bank in Northwest Michigan, if you use their transaction download feature, Friday Nov. 7th before 5 pm. will be the last time you will be able to download transactions from www.nwbank.com. Monday, Nov. 10th starts with new Chemical Bank accounts.

Start making a list now of all the automated bill paying you have setup. After Nov. 10th you'll have to update each one with your new account number and possibly a new bank routing number as well.

Minimum wage increase 9/1/2014

Here's the Michigan Minimum Wage Poster for download.

If you aren't already paying your employees at least $8.15 per hour, you will need to give them a raise Sept. 1st. $3.10 for tipped employees and $7.25 for minors 16 - 17 years old.

QuickBooks 2014 R6 Has Bugs!

QuickBooks 2014 R6 Has Bugs! We only have a few clients on 2014 now, and have not seen any of the bugs reported in this article. It's always a good idea to keep a close eye on any new release.

QuickBooks Online App Warning

An App You Use with QuickBooks Needs To Be Updated!

I've long felt that it's dangerous to base your software on the "shoulders" of another, yet that's the common practice in so many Add-on applications. You have no control over if/when the other company will be making a change that will "break" your application.

I've been advising my clients that QuickBooks Online is not yet ready for "Prime-Time", and I'm still not convinced that accounting "In the Cloud" is the safest thing to do with your financial data.

I'm still exploring options, but in the meantime, if you are still using QuickBooks 2011 AND processing payroll yourself, you have until May 31st. to upgrade the software. I'm happy to report that QuickBooks Pro/Premier 2014 will not require most businesses to upgrade their hardware this time. I believe we've finally tipped the scales where we can run our hardware until it wears out and aren't forced to upgrade hardware with our software every 3 years.

I need more clients like this!

Why the first person I hired was a bookkeeper

Protect your Assets...

I've been in business for over 21 years now. All too often small business owners are too willing to turn over the "Keys to the Kingdom" by delegating too much of the financial management of their businesses. This is one of "THE" most important aspects of being in business that you must embrace and educate yourself in.

You do need to understand your financial statements and how the cash flows through your business. You do need to delegate the mundane tasks, and separate duties never allowing anyone of your employees full access to the accounting. YOU do need to review your own bank statements. You need to remain in control of the check signing authority. You can set aside sums of cash for petty cash expenses for your office, hold an employee responsible for reporting all expenses to you.

Cover your assets my friends, don't become another "news item" where the headline reads "Bookkeeper Embezzles"...