Think Small: Getting Started As a Real-Estate Investor  – Some good tips from the free WSJ.

Although we have made good progress getting clients to use QuickBooks, it still amazes me how many of them persist in writing their checks by hand, missing out on the biggest time saving feature of using QuickBooks.

Hand-writing checks takes at least three times as much overall time as letting QB do them. You have to write out the check; then you write the check info in the check register and on the bill or invoice you paid. You then sometimes need to write the payee’s address on an envelope. After that’s all done, you still need to enter all of the check detail into QB in order to account for it.

Using QB to print checks, all you have to do is enter the info into the program once and it is posted to its proper account. The check has the payee’s address, to use with a window envelope, as well as a stub that can be stapled to the invoice for your records.

I have yet to meet a single person who has experienced the convenience and time savings of using QB to print out checks who would even consider going back to the old fashioned hand-writing method.