September 1, 2016 Meeting Minutes

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Bulleted Points (full text below)

  • Melissa Barton ran the meeting on the Westside of Portland.
  • Kevin Minkoff was the speaker. His topic was “Advanced Reporting with QuickBooks Desktop”.
  • Highlights of the presentation included customizing QuickBooks reports to allow easy review of break-even for a business and separating expenses into direct expenses, sales/marketing and general and administrative. Kevin also mentioned use of Income Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (IBITDA) to compare results from year to year.
  • Don’t forget to use our All Star Accounting Professionals, Inc. business cards when encouraging a guest to join us.
  • We are only using one Facebook account currently which is open to members only.
  • The next meeting will be on the Eastside of Portland on October 6, 2016 from 11:30 AM – 1 PM.
  • The November meeting is a planning meeting.
  • December’s meeting will be a holiday luncheon.
  • No January meeting but resume again in February.

Full Text:

The September meeting started with introductions.  Melissa Barton ran the meeting.  Those new to the group were asked to give Renee Trump their business cards.  It was mentioned that our group has business cards as well that can be given to a guest.  The back of the All Star Accounting, Inc. business cards have a space to print the name of the referring member.  It was mentioned that one of our Facebook accounts has closed down.  The other Facebook account is open to members only. We can post our needs for help within our group on this account.

Kevin Minkoff of Kevin R. Minkoff, CPA, PC was our speaker this month.  His subject was “Advanced Reporting with QuickBooks Desktop”.  He mentioned that this title is used in the QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions software.  QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions runs about $3,000 but has a more robust search engine that QuickBooks Pro or QuickBooks Premier.  In his presentation, he separated expenses into three categories:  1) direct expenses  2)sales/marketing and 3) general and administrative.  He mentioned that every expense can have a fixed and variable component.  His goal was to use QuickBooks as a tool for the owner to see their break-even point.  Kevin mentioned that he includes marketing and general and administrative costs as variable costs under cost of goods sold.  You may also use classes to get break even for services versus products.

Kevin next brought up the acronym IBITDA, which stands for Income Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization.  This is a common measurement of a company’s operating performance. Kevin uses net ordinary income as IBITDA and also puts bad debts and depreciation below net ordinary income.  The purpose is for use in comparing operating results year by year.  You can also export the financial statements to excel to customize them more easily than within QuickBooks.

The next ASAP meeting will be on the Eastside of Portland on October 6 with Linda presenting.  The November meeting will be a planning meeting for the following year.  December’s meeting is a holiday luncheon.  No meeting will be held in January to allow for members to help close the books and prepare year-end reports for clients.  Anyone interested in presenting should communicate with Kim or Melissa.