FAQ: “How would I account for PayPal (or other) fees in IAC-EZ?”

FAQ is a regular blog feature that answers frequently asked questions and makes them available as a growing list of tagged blogs.

You would make an outgoing entry in the amount of the fee. Allocate it to a category like “Merchant Processing Fees” (under Cost of Goods Sold).

You have a couple of choices about when to do this. You can do this per transaction, or monthly – whichever is best for you.

• To do it monthly, just download PayPal’s CSV file, sum up all of their fees for the month and then enter one entry at the end of the month!
• Or, you can enter it by transaction or by day.

Do you have a Question? Please email it to support@iacez.com.

FAQ: “Where can I see when I last imported my FreshBooks data?”

FAQ is a regular blog feature that answers frequently asked questions and makes them available as a growing list of tagged blogs.

It’s easy!

Select Invoices from the main menu and Freshbooks from the Invoices submenu.

Now look right above the “Refresh Data Now” link, you should see something like this:
“Your FreshBooks data was last imported at 2009-02-16 22:09:35 -0500″

EZ!

Do you have a Question? Please email it to support@iacez.com.

Giving back in March: The Multiple Sclerosis Foundation

Each month, IAC-EZ gives back by donating a portion of the proceeds to charity from each new client who signs up. Since March is national Multiple Sclerosis (MS) awareness and education month, it seems only fitting that our philanthropic efforts in March are pointed toward this worthwhile cause.

People who have MS have several areas of inflammation and scars on their brain and spinal cord and as a result, their day-to-day life is impacted in dramatically. The Multiple Sclerosis Foundation lists the following common symptoms: “fatigue, weakness, spasticity, balance problems, bladder and bowel problems, numbness, vision loss, tremor and vertigo”. People with MS may suffer from a few or several of these, and the symptoms may be periodic or constant, mild or severe.

Little is known about MS but between 350,000 and 500,000 people in the US have it. There are a number of organizations addressing Multiple Sclerosis – some do research and scientific studies to search for a cure while others work on improving the quality of life in MS patients. IAC-EZ is partnering with MSF – the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation, which is dedicated to improving the quality of life in MS patients.

MSF offers a variety of services to MS patients. For example, each year they give away grants:
There’s the Brighter Tomorrow grant, a grant that provides a patient with something that they want (which they might not be able to afford) in order to brighten their life. And, there’s the computer grant, a grant that gives individuals with MS a refurbished or rebuilt computer – an essential item because computers are often the “window to the world” for patients with limited mobility.

The funds raised from IAC-EZ will go toward some of the other day-to-day services MSF provides: For example, MSF pays for homecare or personal hygiene assistants to visit patients regularly and help them with the activities that most of us take for granted. And there’s the Yoga in Chairs program, and funds from IAC-EZ will allow people with MS to participate enjoy exercise through yoga and tai chi classes for free.

What’s more, 100% of the funds raised for MSF from March’s sign-ups will go towards helping the day-to-day needs of MS patients, not a penny is spent on administration, so if you’re signing up in March, you have the confidence that your contribution is being used in its entirety to directly impact an MS patient!

Visit their website- it gives a wealth of information about the disease and about their programs- and sign up to help your business’ bookkeeping become EZ, and to support a good cause!

Jessica Routier, IAC-EZ

FAQ: “Why can’t I connect a vendor to an expense imported from FreshBooks?”

FAQ is a regular blog feature that answers frequently asked question and makes them available as a growing list of tagged blogs.

We love our friends over at Freshbooks, but because they’re focused on doing what they do well and we’re focused on doing what we do well, the synched information between our companies is not completely aligned. It’s like driving in Europe – sometimes you’re on the right side of the road and sometimes you’re on the left side of the road. Normally it’s not a problem, except when you’re switching.

The issue is that FreshBooks does not have a vendor name linked to their transactions, only a client name. Permitting our users to enter a Vendor name would mean changing the transaction as imported from FreshBooks and that would involve changing the Freshbooks API which is something we cannot do.

The best way to make it work is this: If you need to link a transaction to a vendor and want it to be in FreshBooks, enter your expenses into IAC-EZ and then export them to FreshBooks and turn off the FreshBooks Expense import integration.

Our goal is to make your bookkeeping EZ and that includes seamless integration with partners. Although the above suggestion should work for most circumstances, we are including on a long-term solution in our roadmap.

Do you have a Question? Please email it to support@iacez.com.