QuickBooks Point of Sale End of Life by Intuit

Intuit has decided that the cost of running a point of sale software business is too expensive and complicated and will cease operations for the venerable point of sale software on October 3, 2023. The software will continue to work. It will not have support nor will it have any of the integrated services you may use currently including credit card payments thru Intuit, gift card services, consignment, integrated webgility ecommerce integration, and store exchange for multi-store among other functions. This means that if you use QBPOS, you will need a new credit card processor (at a minimum).

As your point of sale representative for many years, I would be happy to review your current setup and see if keeping point of sale makes sense for your business. It may be that you just need a new credit card processor. I’ll guide you in the right direction. If you need a new point of sale system, I can help with that as well. Our BTCRetailX point of sale is a full feature retail management system that has many of the same features you loved in QBPOS including in-depth reporting and integrated credit cards but with the added features of working as the store admin from anywhere in the world, as well as cloud backups and unlimited backoffice users.

Please send me a note to doug@mortonbusinessconsulting.com and I’ll reach out and talk about your options. If you decide to switch to BTCRetailX, I will provide a free transition of your product and customer database to the new system. I think you will like BTCRetailX a lot.

Sincerely

Doug Morton

MBC Consulting – Technology and Business Consulting

man and woman discussing and sharing ideas

MBC consults with businesses to provide software, hardware and support services for customer relationship management, databases, accounting and point of sale solutions.

MBC also works with emerging technology including blockchain and cryptocurrency payment integration for bitcoin and lightning network projects. We provide managed and self-managed solutions incorporating security, efficiency, and integrity.

Morton Business Consulting can provide business consulting to review processes, create plans of action (new business plans and reviews), and provide unbiased consulting to strengthen your business model and provide concrete solutions to help your company grow successfully. Doug has 20 years of consulting experience to help your business become efficient, increase productivity and grow your bottom line. Serving customers in South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina – our regional footprint understands business needs in your area!

MBC can help you save time and become more profitable.

Contact: 843-936-0632 | doug@mortonsc.com

Should you buy QuickBooks Point of Sale v19?

The short answer is Yes.

New QuickBooks Desktop Point of Sale offers more

It’s built for your retail business—online and in-store—with seamless ecommerce integration, contactless payments, multichannel inventory management, and a whole lot more.

Pricing for QBOS v19 is on sale in February. Sales prices are available for new customers of Intuit Payment Services (IPS) – the fastest, most accurate and efficient way of processing cards in QBOS. IPS offers competitive rates and no long-term contracts and dscounts on software. It’s a win-win-win.

Please call us at 843-936-0632 to arrange a purchase of the software or send us an email we will reach out to you. sales@mortonbusinessconsulting.com

Retirement and Taxation

In my business I interact with many small to medium business owners and their employees. Since I deal with accounting, I naturally get asked questions about personal finances and more specifically retirement planning. Just to be transparent, I am not a certified financial planner and what I share is not meant to be construed as advice. I read a lot and share what I learn and can offer the solutions to my clients. If it fits and works in a given situation, then we run with it and get the solution in place. If it is not a solution I can provide, I let you know and offer alternatives outside of my expertise. While a 100% tax-free retirement would be great, it is more realistic to be tax SMART and lower your tax burden as much as possible to provide more income in retirement.

Regarding retirement and taxation, I believe that the banking and investment world has sold the American employee the belief that a qualified retirement plan such as a standard tax-deductible IRA or 401(k) is in their best interest. The transition to pushing these products heavily in the 1980’s was portending the end of the pension era. Pensions were funded by the employer and managed by the employers fund management. With that management comes a lot of pressure to perform and pay the pensioners what they are promised in retirement. A vast majority of companies liked the concept of the 401(k) as it is funded by the employee (generally also contributed to or matched up to 3% by the employer) and directed by the employee on its management.

Employees liked the 401(k) because they were given matching funds by their employer to entice them to build their retirement. Who doesn’t want free money? The lure of tax-deferred growth was also sold as very beneficial. The retiree would pay taxes at an assumed lower rate since they were no longer working and Social Security benefits are provided tax-free.

The reality is different. Retirees are finding they no longer have itemized deductions they did when they were working. No mortgage interest write-off after paying off the house. No school loan interest write-off with the kids out of the nest. Just a standard deduction. The current 2020 tax rate for ‘married filed jointly’ for income less than $80,250 is 12% for a tax bill of up to $9,630. It jumps to 22% over $80,250 ($17,655 in income tax for $80,251 in income – yikes!) and goes up to 37%. The money you withdraw from the IRA and 401(K) is taxable income (not capital gains). Retirees are finding that if they want to live a lifestyle befitting a well-off retired person that they have to contend with a higher tax rate than expected which eats away at the nest egg. This forces some to reduce the lifestyle they were expecting if they want the money to last. If you have a 30 year retirement, it is said by Morningstar research that you should only withdraw 2.8% a year on a million dollar retirement fund (pre-tax) in order for it to stay funded (producing money for you) over that 30 year period. 2.8% on $1,000,000 is $28,000 – that’s pre-tax! A millionaire having to live on $28,000 a year. That’s sad. It also speaks volumes about our current retirement planning system. Oh yeah, remember when I said Social Security benefits are paid tax-free? Not so fast – if you are taking Social Security and you have a retirement distributions funded by an IRA or 401(k), you are eligible to be taxed on your Social Security payments through the Provisional Income model. The IRS adds 50% of your Social Security income to all of your annual IRA/401(k) distribution to set your Provisional Income and then tax it according to the income tax schedule. If that total is over $80,250 then expect to pay a minimum of 22% in tax or $17,655. So much for tax free Social Security benefits. Note – if all your income is just Social Security – it is tax-free in full.

What are your options, you ask? There are several good paths.

One is to fund a Roth IRA with after-tax dollars and also participate in a matching 401(k) up to the maximum. A Roth IRA is taxable now; and then generally tax-free upon withdrawal in retirement years. The 401(k) with the matching funds is a no-brainer for free money. If your employer offers a matching 401(k), take the money and match the contribution, but when you want to go over 3% (which you should as 3% is only covering the cost of inflation), put that money into a Roth IRA at up to $6,000 a year if less than 50 years old or $7,000 if over 50. Any money available after the additional $6,000 may go into a standard IRA for conversion into a Roth later on. This is a blended solution to provide tax-free growth benefits from the Roth IRA and matching contributions

Another path to Roth IRA is to convert funds from a qualified account, pay the taxes now, and convert the funds to a Roth IRA. It’s also good to do this in a down year for income. That means a 50 year old with $57,000 converted into a Roth IRA has about $50,000 (taking into account a 12% tax) that grows it to $225,000 (4x basis) over the course of 20 years can enjoy ALL of that money tax-free at retirement paying tax on just the original $57,000 basis (the amount he originally put into the account). In 2020, with the corona virus and economic hardships and job layoffs, a 12% tax rate is feasible for many. Conversions to Roth IRA’s are ideal during low income years. A $57,000 (or more) conversion for a business owner who has a loss in 2020 would hit the 12% tax rate. You do need to keep in mind the tax implication of converting too much each year in combination with your income could put you into a higher tax bracket for that year.

Another path to tax-free retirement funding is through an over-funded high cash value 10-pay whole life insurance policy through a non-participating mutual insurance company. You get many benefits with such a policy. You get a guaranteed death benefit. You get tax-free withdrawals in retirement. You get access to cash via loans where the interest charged can be offset by dividends provided by the policy. You get guaranteed growth of your basis as well as non-guaranteed growth by way of dividends and indexing.

As a member of the SMART Advisor Network, I am trained to providing solutions as listed above to you. I can help individuals (the employee or business owner) as well as companies create options to assist your employees plan for a smarter retirement. Click this link to fill out a contact form or watch a video on more of these concepts. I’ll get back with you ASAP!

Point of Sale, eCommerce and QuickBooks Online Integration Made Easy!

Oh yeah, who hasn’t pulled their hair out when trying to synchronize all the working pieces of their accounting software, point of sale software, shopping cart and middle-ware? If you can’t see me, I’m in the back office pulling out my hair. Ouch.

But there is a better way! MBC (that’s us at Morton Business Consulting) can make all the pieces work.

We offer two very distinct but very workable solutions:

QuickBooks Online with WooCommerce Shopping Cart and WooCommerce POS

This is the ultimate online solution. Use QuickBooks Online to manage your accounting and inventory control. Use WooCommerce to sell online via its shopping cart. Use WooCommerce POS to sell to your brick and mortar customers. All integrated!

QuickBooks desktop (Pro, Premier, Enterprise) with WooCommerce Shopping Cart and QuickBooks Point of Sale

This is a traditional way of doing things. Use QuickBooks desktop perform your accounting, use WooCommerce to sell online and use QuickBooks Point of Sale to manage your inventory and sell to your brick and mortar clients.

MBC can get all of this set up for you. Call us at 843-936-0632 or fill out the form and we will reach out to you.

CARES ACT 2020 and Tax Law

Hello

Hope you are well during the coronavirus quarantine. I wanted to provide some insight into the CARES Act of 2020 that pertains to tax law. This is a quick note to make sure you do not forget about your tax burden while secluded. The CARES act may provide up to a 5 year look back on your taxes to find any deductions or credits that may be applicable today. This has resulted in 100’s and 1000’s in refunded money back for some of our clients.

This service is a free 2nd opinion review of your last tax filing and profit/loss statement by a tax attorney. They provide guidance on where and how to save on your federal tax liability. Our typical client finds a 30% less tax burden after review.

If interested, submit a contact form to me and I’ll get it to our tax attorney group to reach out to you.

Breaking open the Silo that is your Business

An MBC consultation encompasses many facets of business and offers an outsiders point of view on your business infrastructure. This can provide many avenues of change and growth for your endeavors to build a growth oriented company. Silos in business are typically necessary. They provide department structure (sales, finance, installation, distribution). But the silo I am talking about is the core one that many business owners have put themselves in naturally by using the same methods they created when starting the business and have taught employees the same methods over the years. This can tend to stagnate a business’s growth over time due to having a perspective of this process worked then, it should work now.

The method needs to be refreshed from time to time to bring about the change needed to make a business grow again, or perhaps realigned to take away major pain points. When is a change needed? Can you look at your P&L from year to year and see income growth or do you see mainly growing expenses? Do your employees complain constantly about other departments not carrying their weight and following through? Have your customers let you know either vocally or thru their wallet that there is a problem? Are several people in the organization trained to provide the same function but none of them do it waiting for someone else to do it? Do you have the proper documentation and processes or are you winging it based on how it has always been done? Do you pull your hair out trying to increase sales of your sales team?

All of these can be signs of needing some outside perspective on the business.

Give MBC a call at 843-936-0632 or send an email to dougm@mortonbusinessconsulting.com to see how we can help you and your business grow.

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