You Don’t Need a Degree to Master Your Books, Just the Right Guidance
At Susan C. Lloyd, CPA, we don’t just help you manage your finances, we train you to feel confident using them. Our quickbooks training in Redding, CA helps business owners and in-house teams manage their books, payroll and reporting with ease.
Whether you’re a hands-on entrepreneur or supporting a growing staff, our bookkeeping training services in Redding CA, are tailored to your needs.
- CA License #96754
- QuickBooks Online & Desktop
- Serving Shasta County since 2007
Before QuickBooks training
Quickbooks Training Without Context Just Speeds Up Mistakes
It’s not the software that’s the hard part. QuickBooks is a relatively simple and straightforward tool. It is the knowledge of what to put where and why it is relevant to your tax return, reports, and understanding of your own business that makes traning with Susan so valuable.
- YouTube and general tutorials don’t teach accounting. You don't learn if a bill is an asset or an expense; you just learn how to enter the bill. You are taught how to do a P&L, but not if the numbers on it are significant and accurate. Errors lie between knowledge of the software and your understanding of the books.
- QuickBooks ProAdvisors are not accountants, they are just software certified. Your chart of accounts might not be familiar to the person training you. They may not understand why it's important to not classify a loan repayment as an expense, which is something that will cause issues at year-end.
- Learning by doing builds up errors without producing a warning. If a type of an expense is incorrectly classified, it will not show up. Bad bank reconciliation practices don't generate error messages. The books appear to be in order until April, when the CPA who prepares your return has six months of problems to unwind before filing.
Training with a CPA means you learn to do it the way a CPA expects it. That’s a different standard Professional Accountants Live By.
Years in accounting
Sessions Customized to your setup
& QBD
Both Platforms Covered
- Deductions not claimed at tax time due to transactions being in the wrong category throughout the year.
- P&L that is showing a profit when you're losing money, or showing loss when you're profitable, due to assets being expensed or loans being coded as income.
- Unreconciled bank accounts that add up over the course of the month and are only found when a bank loan application is made.
- Year-end cleanup that requires more CPA time than a year of training would have required.
Training Built on How Your Business Actually Works
Susan reviews your actual QuickBooks file, what is set up correctly and what isn’t, and teaches from your real data. That makes every session directly applicable to the books you are managing.
- Personalized one on one QuickBooks training: Based on your file, your industry, and your experience. Online (screen share) or in person (Redding).
- Setup and cleanup of the chart of accounts: Creating or changing categories to align with the way your business makes money and how it spends money. This will allow you to generate meaningful year-end reports.
- Bank and credit card reconciliation: The proper monthly procedure, what to do if it does not match, and how to avoid the pitfalls of errors adding up.
- Financial report training: What the P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow actually tell you, how to read them, and what to look for if something doesn't seem right.
- Staff training and internal control: Training your bookkeeper or office manager on your processes and then performing regular checks to make sure the books are on track.
- QuickBooks Online vs. Desktop tips: An easy-to-follow comparison of the pros and cons of both platforms, and how to transfer data between them if you are switching from one to the other.
- Reconciliations and error cleanups: If you have errors in your past entries, they’re miscategorized, and your file is a mess, Susan will work with you on it rather than start over.
- Year-end close training: What you can do this December and January to pass on a clean set of books to your CPA and how to do it in just minutes.
- Small business owners who prefer to work with their own books
- People who are assuming responsibility for a file that they did not create
- Companies that have had the "books person" replaced by a new hire and must get up to speed quickly
- Owners who desire a CPA to audit their business every three months but don't want to hire a CPA for the whole year
- Businesses making the transition from QuickBooks Desktop to Online
- Startups setting up QuickBooks for the first time and wanting to do it right
Do you want Susan to do the books for you rather than teaching you to do them? See full-service bookkeeping.
What the Training Covers
Each session is tailored to your specific QuickBooks file. These are the most common topics that are addressed. They are based on core accounting concepts, not software mechanics.
Learn the Fundamentals of Accounting
Most bookkeeping software training is focused only on the mechanics. Where to click, how to enter a transaction, which report to run, etc. Susan teaches the accounting principles behind those actions because there are repercussions of mistakes that don’t become apparent until April, and by then, it becomes a last minute scramble.
Generic QuickBooks training is based on fake companies and fake transactions. Susan works in your actual file, your actual chart of accounts, your real bank feeds, and any errors or gaps that exist right now. Each session is immediately applicable rather than having to translate it back to your situation.
Understanding that a loan repayment needs to be divided between balance sheet (principal) and expense (interest) is different from knowing how to enter the loan repayment into QuickBooks. Susan explains both, so when a new situation comes up, you don’t have to guess and hope it is right.
Each tax season, CPAs receive books written by a do-it-yourself kind of person. Payroll, unreconciled credit cards, and loan proceeds in revenue were miscategorized. Susan has seen it all and she teaches specifically how to avoid it. This is a training that is quite different from a ProAdvisor who has never prepared a tax return.
Questions are not limited to specific sessions. If there is something that arises between meetings, an unusual invoice from a vendor, a bank transaction that doesn’t seem to make sense, or something changed that you’re not sure how to deal with, you can contact Susan directly. No ticket queues and no call centers.
One-on-one sessions priced per hour Most initial setups or cleanups are 2-4 sessions depending on the state of the file.
Monthly or quarterly check-ins Read the books, look for mistakes, and answer questions that come up.
Training your in-house bookkeeper or office manager Cost varies according to the number and scope of sessions.
Describe your situation Susan will explain how the engagement would work and how much it would cost.
How Training Works from Start to Finish
You explain what you have, how you have set up the books, what you don’t understand, and what you would like to be able to do on your own. Susan determines the training content, number of sessions it will require and cost of the training.
Before the first training session, Susan will look at your actual QuickBooks file and discuss your chart of accounts, recent transactions, reconciliation status and any obvious problems. This means that the first session isn’t spent diagnosing the situation but rather on your specific situation.
Sessions are done through screen sharing or in-person at your Redding office. You drive. Susan tells the story and corrects where needed. Real transactions, real files, real questions. Each meeting has session notes available for reference after the meeting to assist you in having a written record of the procedures covered.
Most clients opt for quarterly or monthly check-ins after training, where they will get a quick look at the previous period’s books to identify any errors, ask questions that have come up, and ensure the file is in order before things get out of hand. Ownership of the books is retained. Susan keeps watch.
Common Questions About
Quickbooks Training with Susan
A QuickBooks ProAdvisor is trained on the software, how to use it, navigate it, and set it up. That’s valuable, but it’s not the whole picture. Adding the accounting layer is what makes the difference in learning from a licensed CPA. You’ll learn why some categories are there, what to do if they’re coded incorrectly, how it relates to your tax return, and what a clean set of books looks like when a CPA gets them. Susan has prepared hundreds of tax returns from QuickBooks and knows what goes wrong and why. What she teaches is influenced by that context.
Yes, and this is one of the most common starting points. Susan doesn’t just correct a file and send you home, but instead goes over the problem with you and explains what the problem was and how you can avoid it in the future. Depending on the extent of the problems, she may suggest a series of clean-up and training sessions. If you can’t practically repair the file, she can help you create a new file with a correct opening balance.
This depends on your workflow and what you're using. QuickBooks Online is more suited for remote access, bank feed automation, and multi-user collaboration. This is where Intuit is putting its future development dollars. QuickBooks Desktop is still more powerful for job costing and inventory-heavy businesses, and for those who prefer to have more control over their data without cloud access. The truth is that QBD will be phased out over time, but sometimes it's not easy to move and timing is crucial. Susan can discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each given your particular situation before you make your decision.
This depends on the starting point. The average business with a relatively clean file that only requires someone to explain the process of reconciliation and reporting may require 2-3 sessions. Four to six might be required for a file to be cleaned up, a chart of accounts rebuilt, and training on new workflows. Susan doesn’t give you an estimate that’s just going to schedule the most sessions. She gives you an honest estimate after looking at the initial file.
Yes, and this is frequently the best setup. Susan trains your employees on your file and workflows and then periodically reviews to ensure that the books are on track. The owner receives CPA-level oversight without having to do the day to day. This is typically the model for businesses with over a couple of employees.
Training is appropriate if you or your staff would like to take control of the books and you have the time to do it properly. It doesn’t make sense when the time spent on the expense exceeds the savings, or when people are constantly having to be retrained due to turnover. Also, it won’t help if the books are constantly getting behind even with everyone’s best efforts. The general rule of thumb is that if you are spending more than 4 hours per month doing bookkeeping and the books are not up to date, it is usually a better idea to outsource. Susan can provide you with a clear idea of the cost of each option to your business.
Books You Understand, Backed by a CPA
Book a free 15-minute consultation with Susan. Explain the current state of your QuickBooks, what is confusing you, and what you want to be able to do on your own. She will explain exactly what a training engagement would be like and how much it would cost.