I recently got this question about a new QuickBooks add-on, though I rarely use it:
I have a new client that owns three companies that they run through QuickBooks. They have a main project management company, which is the main contracting company. They also have a company that purchases materials. It sells these materials to the main project management company. Then they have a seperate company for labor. It bills this labor to the main project management company.
This makes them create invoices in the material and labor companies. It then bills these costs, for the same exact amounts, which they must enter in the project management company. Do you have a QuickBooks add-on that would eliminate this double entry.
I repled that a certain QuickBooks add-on would be ideal for this exact purpose.
The first QuickBooks add-on I would get would be a gun. I would use this gun on the person who created this structure, for a business (business group) that is still so small that it uses QuickBooks. This structure is a total waste. Therefore, using a gun (or more patience and persuasion than I often have) would be the ideal way to end this duplicate data entry. No other QuickBooks add-on would save as much and be so appreciated (depending on how many time you have to fire the gun).
Even affilaited separate companies should deal with each other at arm's length, so each company TRIES to make a profit. This can be in the form of a higher price or a commission, so they try to cover the wasted extra bookkeeping. Of course, this might relate to one of the companies paying all the bookkeeping or other overhead for the group. The only reason I can imagine, for this waste, is a mistaken belief that this will insulate the compnaies in the event of a lawsuit against one of them. However, if owner's do not deal with a company in an arm's length manner (as in this case), it is rather easy for claimants to pierce the corporate veil (ignore the separation).
If you cannot get rid of the structure, I would TALK to the people at Method Integration. They are in the business of helping people collect data from web entries and import it into QuickBooks. They probably can customize something that both companies can share, to minimize duplicate data entry (after they stop laughing and shaking their heads).
