VICTORY!!! I had caught up all my QuickBooks accounts except my business bank account.
Capital One Spark generates a QBO file but it CANNOT be read by QuickBooks. They don’t tell you this when you sign up, but if you sign up for Capital One Spark online they ARE NOT VERIFIABLE by QuickBooks. So even though you can generate a QBO file through the Spark system, it CANNOT be read in by QuickBooks. Utter nonsense.
I was facing hand-entering hundreds of records manually.
So I coded a script to read in the QBO file and output a generic IIF file, which could then be handled by QuickBooks. It was challenging, but it beats hand-entering all the data, and now I can use this script going forward!
It’s Friday Free Books Day! If you know of any free books, or are an author with one, link to it in the comments! Readers, please download these books to support the author community! Have a great weekend! What are you up to?
270 reviews! Murder Mystery set in the Chesapeake Bay! From local author Thomas Hollyday 🙂
152 reviews! Five Minute Meditation. Start your practice today! FREE!
82 reviews! Yoga for Stress Relief and Forgiveness. Even five minutes a day makes a difference. FREE!
84 reviews! Journaling Basics – Journal Writing for Beginners. The benefits of journaling are just incredible. And it’s free to get started.
FREE! Thinking about adding on? #Renovating? New kitchen? Dormer? Peek behind the curtain of the construction industry. If you’re a homeowner landlord house flipper or property manager contemplating major work this will save you thousands.
I have 101 reviews on my own murder mystery, Aspen Allegations, set here in Sutton 🙂
FREE! Lea loves her life as a selkie. A mermaid. Nothing could draw her to spend time on land. And then the storm of storms descends, threatening to rip apart life of a brave sailor …
Haunting at Spider Gate Cemetery – a free spooky short story set right here in Leicester – by local author @SMNevermore
Sometimes new writers try writing a book by having different chapters in different entire DOC files. This gets incredibly confusing quickly, because it means you are always opening up different DOC files to get to different sections of the story. Also, if you want to move a section from one chapter to another, it means you’re copying and pasting material between different physical files. Even doing simple things like continuity checks for names and places becomes really tricky.
Make it simple for yourself. Work in ONE FILE. Have all of
the book’s content in that one file. Give it a meaningful name like Cinderella-b1.docx
for version beta-1. When you make a bunch of changes to it, save a fresh
version to be Cinderella-b2.docx. That way you have the old versions in case
you need to go back to them, and it’s always clear where all your latest
information is.
Here’s how it’s easy to navigate that document.
First, start each new section on a new page. Type something
meaningful at the top of that page. Maybe it’s “Junior High Dance”. Just
something to help you remember what this section is about.
In Word (or your equivalent), highlight those words. Go to
your STYLE section and choose “Heading 1” if this is a main-level section. If
it’s a sub-section, choose “Heading 2”. Your chosen text should now change size
and font to match that chosen style. I’ll explain later how to change the look
and feel. For now, all that matters is that the words are tagged with that
style.
Here’s how I did that for this very section in my book.
Now, you want to turn on your navigation pane. The navigation pane lets you easily see all the sections in your book and rearrange them. To turn on the navigation pane, click on ‘View’. One of your options to check-on, in the Ruler and Gridlines area, is the Navigation pane.
Now every phrase you have tagged as a Heading 1 or Heading 2 will show up in a nicely organized list down your left-hand side, like this:
You can now easily hop from section to section just by clicking on the section you wish to read. Also, you can easily rearrange sections. Just drag sections in that left-hand list and they will move wherever you drag them to. It makes organizing a document, and moving around in it, very easy.
Any time a book or artwork is sold in Massachusetts, sales tax is owed. If your item is selling in a store, the store takes care of that. You simply get your share of the profits. The same is true with Amazon. But if you are at a library, or a festival, or somewhere else that a buyer is handing you cash, you are responsible for the sales tax for that transaction.
There is no minimum amount. Massachusetts wants their share no matter what. You get your Vendor ID for FREE online. Technically you are required to have that certificate with you at any event where you are selling. Some fairs require it to even give you a table. It’s good to print out a copy of the certificate and carry it with you and your supplies.
You then file your results once a year, also online. You generally do that around tax-time, which is when you’re figuring out all that financial stuff out. In Massachusetts it’s 6.25% of direct sales. So you just figure out how much you took in for your item sales, multiply by 6.25% in person, and pay that. It’s good to keep track of exactly how many books / art items you sell at each event, and the total income, just for general record-keeping reasons. I keep a file folder of them for each year.
Here are the links and details. I wrote this up for artists selling paintings, but it’s the exact same theory for authors.
Ask with any questions! If you’re confused, just start by getting a Massachusetts Vendor ID. Just focus on that one step. Let me know what help you need while working on that.
This is a fairly specific field, but making videos can be really useful for all sorts of reasons. Let me know if you’re interested in seeing this to offer feedback. I sell origami videos, although I really need to make a fresh version.
My videos were made over 10 years ago and camera technology has improved immensely!
Friday Free Books! All books are FREE! Are you an author with a free book? Post the link and I promise to download it to help your sales ranking! Are you a reader? Please download and enjoy these free books! You’ll learn something new and help an author’s rankings!
We live in a miraculous time where free books are joyfully waiting for you to read them – treasure the celebration!
101 reviews! Yoga-loving heroine and bass-playing ranger solve murder mysteries in the rural town of Sutton, Massachusetts. Who could these two be based on? FREE full length novel 🙂
81 reviews! Learn to bring stress relief into your life through simple, easy to learn yoga poses which you can do pretty much anywhere. Every day is a new opportunity to improve your world.
For my birthday I bought myself something I’ve always wanted – beading supplies to make lava rock chakra bracelets. So far I’ve made myself one with an owl, a Celtic heart, an elephant, and a shamrock. If you’d like one, they’re $10 each. I can also mix things up in a custom way. You can add essential oils to the lava rock if you want :). Lava! I love lava :).
