Lizzy will report these intelligently, if you tell her you need them.  How do you do this?  In the Sales Tax setup of course!  If we go there ( Settings > General > Tax Rates ), you’ll notice in the upper section ( 3rd Column ) that there is ‘This is an exempt tax’ flag.  This flag allows us to create multiple ‘Exempt’ statuses within Lizzy, for just such a thing as reporting Wholesale vs. Farming vs. Out of State vs. whatever.

Then, when you use one of these taxes on an invoice – Lizzy will be able to distinguish it from just Exempt, which is exactly what you need when filling out your Tax Report.

Now slightly different are states like California where you prepay monthly and settle quarterly.  So using our 3rd quarter example, in August, you would write a check for $25000 for July.  In September, you would write a check for $22000 for August.  In October, you would do your sales tax for July – September and determine you owe the state $74000 in sales tax.  So you would write a check for $27000 ( $74000 – $25000 – $22000 ).

So now that we understand why we have to do this, and how we do it manually – lets see what we do in Lizzy.

First, if we don’t have a PrePaid sales tax account set up, we should do so.

Go to Accounting > Chart Of Accounts > View Accounts, and from there we will add our PrePaid Sales Tax account.  We suggest we make this an ‘Other Current Asset’ type of account, so lets make 140.00.000 or Master account, so it will be grouped on the Balance Sheet properly.  Account Type should be “Other Current Assets”.  Account Number – we suggest 142.00.000  - but choose another if you already have a 142.00.000 or want a different number ( or use a different numbering sequence ).  And as an account name – Prepaid Sales Tax will do ( or name it what you feel you’ll need it to say. ).  Please keep in mind, for the rest of this example, I will be using these accounts, so change them appropriately below.

Now we need to tell Lizzy that we have a prepaid sales tax account, so we head to Settings > General > Tax Rates, and right next to our Save button we have PrePaid Sales Tax Account.  Select your new account ( 142.00.000 ) and click Save.  You will get the following message: “Error: You must enter a name, select an account and select a tax vendor to continue.”  Please ignore this and click Close Window.  The error  is a guardrail so it doesn’t save a tax item without a name, account or vendor.  Since we just wanted to save the Prepaid account, we can ignore the error, and move on.

Now, Lizzy knows our prepaid sales tax account, and will use it on our tax reports.  At this point, we assume you already have a “Generic Tax Report” configured in your Tax Reports.  Handling prepaid sales tax assumes you using Lizzy’s Generic Tax report functionality.

So at this point – business goes on normally until its time to pay your sales tax.  If you do NOT do quarterly tax assessments, then skip to the next paragraph.  If you do quarterly taxes, and have already paid into the quarterly fund, you will need to move the money from whatever account you hit on your sales tax prepayment check to your new Prepaid Sales Tax account.  So do that through a GL Adjustment.  At this point, it should either be the first check in your quarter your about to write, or what you’ve paid so far for the quarter is in your Prepaid Sales Tax account.  Now, for the current assessment, we simply write a check to our Tax Vendor for our prepayment amount, and offset our new Prepaid Sales Tax account.

Now for our quarterly reconciling, or our monthly payment handling, we move to our tax report.  Going to Invoicing > Reports > Sales Tax Report, and setting our date range, and select our report to generate, then click Generate.  On this report you should have all the figures you need to fill out for your state filing report.  When we are ready to generate the check, we click “Pay Sales Tax from This Report” in the middle of the screen.  MONTHLY FILERS:  At this point, you may want to run this report for the current month, to get an idea of how much you need to prepay for this month.  So do that, and get your amount to prepay, and write it down.  Then regenerate your current payment month and click the Pay button.

On our payment form, you’ll see all the taxes you currently owe ( through your end date ) for the various tax vendors you have.  Check the pay button on the right for all the tax municipalities you will be paying right now.  Towards the bottom of the report, you’ll notice 2 lines that say “Estimated/PrePaid Last Month” and “Estimate to Prepay This Month“.  While the descriptions are mainly for the montly filers, these are the fields you quarterly filers will use as well.  By default, both of these lines should have your prepaid sales account in them ( because we told Lizzy what it was earlier ).  And because of that, Lizzy was nice enough to go gather how much we’ve prepaid already in to our sales tax, and filled that in.

QUARTERLY FILERS:  At this point – if you’ve checked all your tax items, the total to pay at the bottom should be what you now owe ( your prepaid amount has already been subtracted from the tax total for your check calculation. )  You may jump down to the paragraph following the Monthly filers.

MONTHLY FILERS: At this point, all you need to do is enter that number we wrote down earlier for the current prepayment and enter it the “Estimate to Prepay This Month” Amount column.  It should increase your check total.

ADJUSTMENTS:  If your paying late, or your state is nice enough that if you pay early or on time, you get to take a small deduction ( lets say .75% ( or 3/4 of 1 % ).  We can go to the Enter Adjustment Info line and enter a ( – ) negative amount to deduct, or a positive number if we owe a late fee, and then select what account we want this to hit.  ( The accounts only allow you to look at other income and other expense accounts ).

At this point – we should be ready to process our payment.  If we want Lizzy to write our check, she’s already to do it, so we just click “Process Payment(s)” and she’ll write our check.  If we want to pay later, and want a PO instead, we can simply click Create Payables, and Lizzy will go write payables up for our sales tax.

Either way, congratulations!  You’ve handled your Prepaid Sales Tax assessment properly.

The original Zebra printers that you purchased with TBA will also work just fine with the new processes. Another really nice feature with the new style labels is that they contain not only the part number in question but also the vendor and actual bin location the item was received into. So that when you scan an item at the counter Lizzy will be able to determine it came from up front instead of the back and adjust the inventory appropriately.

Master Model Numbers
Since Lizzy runs on the web and we manage all your data for you, we decided that it was crazy to have every dealership typing in the same model numbers over and over again. While it’s true that each of you will never enter a single model number more than once, it still required you to enter it that first time. Instead, in the next release of Lizzy, you will actually be able to take advantage of each others hard work. So that if any dealer anywhere in the world has entered a model number, you will be able to take advantage of it and visa versa.

We’re also hiring the staff to help out, so that when you do enter a model number, it will alert our internal staff so that they can look that model number up and add whatever additional information might be available for it such as year, engine info and so forth. The general idea being to allow less data entry and a more combined effort towards data collection, and all for free to our dealers.

Master Price System
This is actually something we’ve wanted to do for years but never had the means to do it. Price files come for free from most vendors and distributors but almost all of the business systems charge for these updates. We started the company wanting to provide them for free which is why Lizzy already has the ability to import those price files yourself, without having to pay a dime to us. However, we felt we could do better with Lizzy so we’ve now included in the next release, the ability to utilize a master price system where we import the price files for you and then give you access to the files. There are some needed requirements to gain access to them such as a valid dealer number for the vendor and such, but the overall process means instant access to price files with no importing of data and no constant updates needed. We update, and the entire thing is pushed out to all dealers instantly. Taking yet another task off your plate and doing it for free.

Enhanced Interface for Mobile Devices
Lizzy has had the ability to access 100% of her resources and processes on a mobile device, however, there were a few aspects that we didn’t really like the flow of. We have now enhanced the overall interface to allow it to more smoothly operate on these devices.

New Service Scheduler System
The next release of Lizzy is going to be sporting a new greatly enhanced service scheduling system where upon Mechanics vacation, doctor appointments, previously scheduled work and future scheduled items are all combined into a single, easily read and managed schedule. You even have the ability to classify mechanics and then have the schedule only show mechanics capable of doing certain types of work. Once a customer comes in, look them up on the schedule and create their entire service ticket with a single click.

Built in Service Scheduling Access
The same advanced service scheduler mentioned above can be accessed in-line now from within the job screen to allow the same level of detailed scheduling as you build up a job.

Enhanced Accounting Controls
We’ve changed the way you setup inventory items so that all accounting processes are driven off the manufacturer instead of each individual item number. This has made importing, using the master price system, and manual entry of items much more streamlined and eliminated the potential of having items in the system that don’t contain proper accounting mechanisms. It has also greatly enhanced the process an individual has to go through to add new items into the price list so that they have less to worry about.

Additional Industries Support
Previous versions of Lizzy had an Industries section in company settings where you could choose one or the other industry you work in, and it would cause the system to modify certain things like unit types and so forth that were available for use. The next version features a new master Industry and unit type process that allows you to select from a combination of industries and unit types that are now standardized across all dealerships. This provides more useful data both to you and your manufacturers for later retrieval and again, allows you to customize Lizzy so that she works just the way you need her to.

While this list is by no means complete, it should give you a brief over view of just a few of the new enhancements coming soon in the next version of Lizzy. We have tons more coming so stay tuned for what’s next that I’ll be posting in an upcoming entry.

–glenn hancock

click to watch video…

With the creation of Lizzy™, nizeX, Inc. has set the stage for the next evolutionary step towards a better business system. We’ve not just written a new software package that can manage your business, we’ve done something far greater. We’ve created a software package that opens up more doors for your business and your organizational abilities than you can imagine. Yes, it’s true, we do Invoicing and Inventory control, just like our competitors, or is it? Do we really do it like everyone else? Let’s take a look at not only some of the differences, but why these differences open up a whole new world to your business that the others don’t understand yet. The first thing you’ll notice with Lizzy™, is that she requires no specific software installation to get started. This means you can access her from literally anywhere in the world from almost any device and at any time. Do you work on the road, from a trade show, from a customer’s office? You can access your business system from anywhere now.

So while it might appear true that in the end we’re all just creating invoices, the real question is, but what else can I do? In the current version of Lizzy™, she creates an invoice. In a very near version she’ll be able to allow your customers to generate their own invoices from their homes. They’ll be able to check on their service tickets and orders without bothering you. The most beautiful part of this is that because she’s web based, they will be accessing your live data, not a copy of information that has been transferred from one system to another. Because Lizzy™ is completely integrated, we don’t make copies of anything. If you’re in the CRM system and want to view invoices for a specific customer, you’re basically asking the Invoicing module to show you the data. We’ve also added a lot of extra processes to the system to allow Lizzy™ to better track your inventory, better maintain your General Ledger, Checking Accounts, Payroll and pretty much everything else. We’ve even added the ability for Lizzy™ to manage all of your emails, allowing you to access and respond to emails from anywhere, using Lizzy’s™ email system. This will not only allow you to keep track of all employees’ emails, it will automatically link those emails to their respective customers and maintain a history of correspondence in one location instead of on 20 different computer email packages scattered around your office and home.

We’ve also designed Lizzy™ with the idea of growth from the start. In the past, one of the problems we always had with our older system was how to integrate needed changes into the system without breaking the older processes. Lizzy™ has been designed from the ground up with expansion in mind. We’ve laid out every single piece in a way that can be expanded upon without breaking any of the underlying code. Everything has been created as separate objects that can basically grow as needs are discovered or future ideas come to mind. Our goal with Lizzy™ is simple. We want to provide a system that can literally run every aspect of your business, not just figuratively.

The list of bullet points on our main website at nizeX.com are not just ideas, but things we’ve started with. We’ve redesigned the entire user interface to create a system more easily learned and navigated with built in video tutors at every step of the way. Instead of trying to design a whole bunch of new processes into the system at the beginning, we decided that we’d just design the regular needed functions better than anyone could have thought possible. The exciting part however is not in what we’ve accomplished today, but what is coming next.

Now that we’re reaching the end of Phase I and II ahead of schedule, we’ve already started laying out plans for the next release with even more features. When we say we have a CRM system built into Lizzy™, this is not just to say we have CRM. Our true goal, and one we’ve already reached in many different areas, is to give companies like Microsoft and Salesforce.com a run for their money. With Lizzy™, we’ve designed a system that is going to make you ask, “why isn’t everyone else doing it this way”.
At nizeX, Inc. we’re very excited to be involved with Lizzy™ today, but the future is what has us and our customers looking forward to tomorrow…..and our competitiors hoping tomorrow never comes….