In this minisode, I get into how to handle client banks that don’t integrate with Xero or Quickbooks. Learn when it makes sense to turn away a client, what to say to clients when this issue arises, and why we love Relay.
Welcome to another mini episode on the ambitious bookkeeper podcast I'm Serena Shoup and today I'm going to be answering a question from our audience about handling business banking with potential clients or clients of yours so if this is something that you've been wondering about how to handle then stay tuned All right in today's episode I have gotten a recording from someone in the audience about business banking so let's take a listen to it Hi Serena my name is Sarah I love your podcast my question is what if someone is using a bank that does not sync with either Xero or QuickBooks? Would you ask them to change banks or would you offer them bookkeeping by Excel spreadsheets? Or is there some kind of way around that? Or would you say that you're not a very good fit? Thank you all right Sarah thank you so much for sending this question in I have worked with clients who and currently work with a couple of clients who have banks that don't integrate with zero and then the rest of our clients that do so I'll let you know how we've approached this situation I don't necessarily turn away a client because their bank doesn't integrate unless they have a lot of transactions and aren't able to easily pull the information export and import ourselves in that case even in that case even after we've used that as a process where we're going into their bank account we must absolutely have access to be able to pull this information ourselves by the way or else it will never work but even in this case we still try to encourage the client to work with a bank that does integrate but there's also sometimes clients that maybe for whatever reason that's not an option so or maybe they don't want their banks integrated so as long as they're okay paying a little bit extra for us to have to do the legwork and absolutely give us access to be able to pull those exports and import them then that is something that we will do I still like to have the conversation with the client presenting them other options that will make things easier and more efficient for everybody and that option for us as relay which we are going to be airing a podcast this week on an interview with relay so you can learn more about that in the partner program they have and I will also link relay in the show notes or wherever you're watching this or listening so that you can get more information what we love about relay is it does have a direct feed with zero QuickBooks online and probably some other softwares we have a partner portal a lot like the QuickBooks online accountant portal and the Xero partner portal where we can see a list of all of our clients who bank with relay and easily toggle between the clients we can pull bank statements ourselves we can manage the integrations God forbid they break we can also manage the integration with hub dock so that the statements get automatically sent to hub dock every month and we can research transactions and see how things were paid for instance at year end when 10 99 season rolls around and we are looking to see how certain vendors were paid because if they're paid on a debit card or a credit card we don't have to issue a 10 99 but if they are paid via ACH or Zelle or something like that we do have to issue a 10 99 so really also makes it really easy to issue 10 90 nines to anyone that you're ACH ING through relay and you can ask for their W-9 through relay before you even pay them so it makes that whole process really efficient it's free for clients and for us as a partner you can have up to 20 different bank accounts there's so many amazing things about that banking platform you'll definitely have to tune into this episode this week to listen more about it or click the link and discover for yourself so I hope that was helpful sarah I always offer relay as a solution but I do not require it of clients but that's really up to you how you want to run your business if that is a deal breaker for you to work with a client where you have to go in and download statements and export and import into QuickBooks or zero I can understand that so that's something that you definitely have to ask yourself and how you want to handle that going forward or if you're okay logging in and grabbing that information for yourself and importing it like the olden days all right that's it for this week if you enjoy these little mini episodes I encourage you to head over to speakpipe.com/ambitiousbookkeeper to record your own question and have it aired right here and answered on the podcast all right we'll talk to you next week