QuickBooks is one of the most popular accounting tools for small and medium businesses, but the truth is that most users only scratch the surface of its capabilities. Many of the features built into QuickBooks can save you time, improve your financial accuracy, and give you insights that directly impact profitability — but only if you know how to use them.
Here are five underutilized QuickBooks features that could make a big difference for your business.
1. Burden Rates in Project Costing
Most businesses track direct costs like materials and labor, but they forget to include overhead expenses (admin salaries, benefits, office costs) when calculating project profitability. QuickBooks Online lets you create burden rates to automatically factor these indirect costs into your projects.Why it matters: You’ll know the true cost of every project and avoid underbidding.
2. Custom Workflows
QuickBooks Online Advanced includes workflow automations that most businesses never touch. You can set up workflows to:
- Automatically send reminders for overdue invoices.
- Route bills for approval before payment.
- Alert you when a customer hits their credit limit. Why it matters: Workflows take repetitive follow-ups off your plate and reduce missed approvals or overdue accounts.
3. Bank Rules for Auto-Cagegorization
QuickBooks can learn how to categorize transactions for you. With bank rules, you can teach QuickBooks to automatically assign categories based on payee or keywords in the transaction.Why it matters: Once set up, this feature can save hours every month by reducing manual data entry.
4. Projects and Profitability Tracking
The Projects feature in QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced is a powerful but often overlooked tool. You can assign transactions to a project, track costs versus income, and see whether a job is actually profitable.Why it matters: It’s the closest thing to job costing without needing a separate software.
5. Recurring Transactions
Are you still manually creating the same invoices or bills each month? With recurring transactions, QuickBooks will generate them for you on a schedule — fully automated.Why it matters: This reduces repetitive work and helps ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
Are You Using QuickBooks to Its Full Potential?
If you’re paying for a QuickBooks subscription, you should be squeezing every ounce of value out of it. Most businesses don’t realize how much time and frustration they can save by using these features correctly.
If you want to get more from QuickBooks — or even discover features you didn’t know existed — let’s talk. We help small businesses set up and optimize QuickBooks so it actually works for them.
