Episode 30: A Real QuickBooks Payments Story — Duplicate Charges, ACH Confusion, and Lessons Learned

In this episode of QuickBooks Mastery for Small Business Success, father-daughter team Erica Northrup and Lee Davis are joined by Jon Buschbaum of EnviroSpec Land Services, LLC for a real-world QuickBooks Payments story.

This conversation follows Episode 29, where Erica and Lee explained what happens when QuickBooks starts touching real money. In Episode 30, Jon shares what that looked like from the business owner’s side after an ACH payment situation created confusion, a duplicate charge, and a stressful customer service moment.

The main lesson is simple but important:

Record Payment is bookkeeping. Charge a New Payment is payment processing.

Jon was trying to do the right thing. He wanted QuickBooks to show that a customer had paid. But because QuickBooks interpreted the action differently, the customer was charged again.

This episode is not about blaming the business owner. It is about showing how easy it is for a payment workflow mistake to happen when QuickBooks is connected to invoices, ACH payments, bank feeds, and real customer money.

Erica, Lee, and Jon talk through what happened, how Lee helped clean it up, and what every business owner should ask before clicking anything related to payments inside QuickBooks.

Key Takeaways

• QuickBooks Payments can move real money, not just record information.
• Recording a payment and charging a new payment are not the same thing.
• ACH payments through a bank and QuickBooks Payments can create confusion if the workflow is not clear.
• Business owners need to slow down before clicking payment-related options inside QuickBooks.
• A payment mistake can affect customer trust, not just the books.
• Having QuickBooks training and support can prevent small misunderstandings from becoming bigger problems.

Questions to Reflect On

• Has this payment already happened, or am I asking QuickBooks to collect the money now?
• Do I understand whether I am recording a payment or initiating a new payment?
• Are my QuickBooks Payments, invoices, customer balances, and bank feeds set up correctly?
• Do I have someone I can ask before clicking something that affects real customer money?

Mentioned in This Episode

Free QuickBooks Clarity Scorecard

Download at: https://lee-davis-and-company.aweb.page/unlock-clarity-free-scorecard

Send Us Your Questions:

[email protected]

Guest: Jon Buschbaum

EnviroSpec Land Services, LLC

Website: envirespectlandservices.com

Timestamps

00:56 - Episode 30 begins: a real QuickBooks Payments story

02:36 - Why QuickBooks payment workflows matter

03:52 - Jon introduces EnviroSpec Land Services

11:53 - The ACH payment situation and where things went wrong

22:29 - Record Payment vs. QuickBooks Payment explained

25:17 - How the duplicate charge affected the customer

31:54 - Jon’s advice for business owners using QuickBooks Payments

37:47 - Final reminder: slow down before clicking

Call to Action

If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe and stay connected with us at leedavisandcompany.com.

Download our free QuickBooks Clarity Scorecard to see whether your QuickBooks setup is giving you the financial insight you need.

Have a QuickBooks question? Send it to [email protected] — your question may be featured in a future episode.

Welcome to QuickBooks mastery for small Business Success.

I'm Erica Northrup.

And I'm Lee Davis.

I handle the tech and he handles the numbers.

And together as a father daughter team, we bring decades of experience helping small to medium sized businesses thrive.

We know that as a business owner,.

Your time is best spent mastering your craft and growing your business, not getting lost in QuickBooks.

Managing finances can be confusing and you don't have hours to waste sorting through spreadsheets or fixing bookkeeping mistakes.

That's where we come in, helping you streamline QuickBooks so you can focus on building your business.

Each week we break it all down into simple, actionable steps so you can focus on growing your business, not fixing your books.

Let's embark on this journey together.

So welcome back to QuickBooks Members Mastery for Small Business Success.

I'm Erica Northrup, here with my papa, Lee Davis and our special guest that we'll get to in just a minute.

And this is episode 30, a Real QuickBooks payment story.

Duplicate charges, ACH confusion and lessons learned.

Today we're continuing the conversation we started last week in episode 29 where we talked about what happens when QuickBooks starts touching real money.

We covered QuickBooks payments, invoices, ACH payments, bank feedback and one very important distinction.

Record payment is bookkeeping charge.

A new payment is payment processing.

And today we're bringing that lesson into a real business story.

We are joined by John Buschbaum of Enviro Spec Land Services llc, who experienced firsthand how confusing this workflow can be when you are trying to record money that has already come in, but accidentally initiate a new payment through QuickBooks.

And I want to say this right at the beginning.

This episode is not about making anyone feel bad for making a mistake.

It is actually the opposite.

This is about showing how easy it is for a busy business owner.

And he is super busy, you guys.

He does it all to think they are doing the right thing, only to realize that QuickBooks interpreted that action very differently.

So today we're we're going to talk through what happened, what it felt like from John's side, how Papa helped walk through the issue, and what other business owners can learn from it.

So Papa, before we bring John into his own story, can you remind listeners why this QuickBooks payment workflow matters so much?

It matters primarily because a lot of businesses who use QuickBooks are paid through QuickBooks payments.

And usually the QuickBooks payment is initiated by the customer or in our case, the client.

But there is a screen in QuickBooks that will allow you to initiate a QuickBooks payment.

And so, as in, we looked at the last episode, there's a difference between recording a payment and initiating a payment.

Hmm.

So that's a very real issue that we wanted to talk about with our client, John.

Love that.

So this is really about the difference between what the business owner intends to do and what QuickBooks actually does based on the button they click.

Is that correct?

Yeah, that's correct.

Yeah.

That's so good.

Okay.

So, John, I just want to thank you so much for being here with us.

Before we get into the quickbook side of the story, I would love for you to introduce yourself and tell our listeners a little bit about EnviroSpec Land Services LLC.

So, yeah, John, can you tell us a little bit about you and your business and how you got started?

Absolutely, and thanks for having me.

I'm glad I could help out.

Enviro Spec Land Services was kind of years and years ago.

I actually had a logging company.

I actually logged team of draft horses.

Oh, that's cool.

Actually, how it all evolved to this is actually.

It's a story in itself.

But what had happened was it all went bad and I wound up having to file for a corporate bankruptcy was a hard thing to go through.

But on the upper lighter side, everything progressed to.

I started doing more.

I started working with an old surveyor who really encouraged me to get more licenses and everything.

And that's evolved into me having five professional disciplines.

Five professional licenses in the state of New Hampshire.

Wow.

Licensed land surveyor.

I'm a licensed professional forester.

I'm a certified wetland scientist.

I'm a certified septic designer, and I am a licensed septic evaluator.

And I'm also a farrier too.

So I'll just let that.

Wow.

That's.

Anyhow, that's kind of what we do.

We do pretty much anything with land that can be done.

We try to keep it.

I'm not a big corporate major issues thing.

We kind of try to help the little guys out and the people that just kind of want to subdivide the land for their children and stuff like that and just try to keep it simple.

But things are definitely getting not so simple anymore.

Things are getting complicated.

There are layers and layers that are adding to the business world these days.

That is.

That is for sure.

So what does a normal week look like for you as a business owner?

Well, it's a lot of work.

I probably work on the average of 12 to 15 hours a day.

I do.

I handle all aspects of all of this.

I have.

I Have an associate, Jason Lavertue, who is a wonderful, fantastic worker.

I also have a young lady, Vicki Air, who helps me with a lot of drafting and a lot of administrative work.

I work seven days a week.

I have no problem doing it.

I love what I do.

It's once again, it's just with all the complications of today's day and age and with all the integration of all this technology, it just keeps things very challenging.

But in a way it also keeps us learning, which is what I like about it the most.

That is awesome.

So as the business owner, you just kind of touch on this briefly, but it seems like you're wearing a lot of different hats between operations, customers scheduling, invoicing, payments.

Obviously we're going to get to the QuickBooks stuff.

But what are some of the sort of tasks, the different hats that you wear specifically inside of your business?

We wear a lot of hats.

We gotta be psychiatrists.

We kind of have to be.

We sometimes.

And as much as I hate to say that this, we kind of have to be in the adult daycare business.

Yeah, we do a lot of mediation.

We meet with landowners, try and work out landowners problems, property boundary problems, development issues and stuff like that.

Once again, it's a very diverse but interesting and challenging day to day operation of just going out there and trying to help people fix their land problems and just see what they can do.

Yeah.

So you're working mainly, as you said, with people that are not in the business industry, not the corporate side, but more of like me.

I'm a homeowner and I have land.

And so you would be someone that would come to my home and help me figure out where my boundaries are for my property.

Is that fair to say?

Oh, absolutely.

If you're interested in selling some of that land or giving your land to some of your children, we can show the best ways to do that.

Where the best areas are where you're dealing with wetlands, you know, and overall forestry.

You know, we, we do a lot of management plans.

So we, you know, large tracts of land.

It, you know, it's once again, it's a very, very broad but focused, you know, type of work that we do.

Yeah, that's really fascinating.

So can you tell us how you got connected with lee Davis Co. And your overall impression of working with us?

Love to know that.

Oh, Lee is my savior.

He has helped.

I actually was drawn into it.

I saw him in one of our monadnock Shopper news and I heard about him and I was having some issues with my accounting And I used to have the old versions of QuickBooks when they were on disk.

I had my old company, which was New England timber harvesting.

I ran QuickBooks and no problems and everything.

But now everything being subscription based, there's a lot more involved.

And so I had come to Lee and taken his class on the kind of initial thing with QuickBooks.

And, you know, basically, once again, he's my go to guy.

I can't say enough good about him.

He helps me out all the time.

And more than anything, he just gives me such a good feeling that my books are okay, you know, huge.

That's a.

That is huge.

Because when all the smoke clears and everything, it's like, oh, God, I lost money, or something like that.

I got Lee to just say, lee, help me.

Tell me if I need to go ballistic or not.

Just let me know.

And he just does a fantastic job.

Yeah.

Peace of mind, I think, is you can't put a price tag on peace of mind, especially as a business owner when you're wearing so many different hats and doing so many different types of things.

So I think that is huge.

So before the situation happened, how comfortable did you feel using QuickBooks for invoicing and payments?

Well, Lee has guided me through it and has given me kind of like a system to follow.

Now that's the real benefit of what Lee can do.

He can break things down for you and simplify as opposed to.

And I, you know, I don't say this in a negative way, but calling the QuickBooks helpline can be almost an event.

Absolutely.

Offer free help and all this and that, but I need a little more than that.

Sometimes.

I need my handheld with this accounting stuff.

I didn't even know what accrual and cash and all that other stuff was.

Right now I kind of do.

And just being able, I come to Lee once a month to have him look at everything.

It's peace of mind.

And it's very comforting to know that Lee's kind of got my back with this.

That is huge.

So, Papa, is this pretty typical of the clients you work with?

Business owners who are excellent at what they do, but QuickBooks is just one of the many things they are trying to manage.

Well, I would have to say that John is exceptional.

Clearly, I can see that one.

He has grown ever since he took our course.

And he really, he's, he works.

There are some people who want me to do it all for them, but John is a great client in that, you know, we're here to support him.

Yeah.

And he can do A lot of work himself.

Yeah, yeah, and he does.

Yeah.

You know, and I think that that's a.

That's a compliment to him.

And he's learned a lot about accounting and bookkeeping and just how QuickBooks functions so that he.

Basically, when he comes to me, it's easy to walk him through solving a problem.

Yeah, I love what he said about the system that you've given him a system, because I think that is what we do and that is what we're doing here on this podcast is really giving people a system to kind of walk through their QuickBooks and be able to manage things, even themselves.

So I love that.

I love.

You know, and that is a really good reminder that, you know, John wears a lot of different hats and he's super busy and things happen, and then, you know, he has.

He has something to tap into that that's us to help him through some of these issues that do pop up.

So, you know, with that context, let's talk about what actually happened.

So, John, let's walk through the payment situation from the beginning.

You know, what happened with the customer payment and what were you trying to do inside of QuickBooks?

Okay, so I have.

I do a lot, and I'm very old school.

I like checks.

Yeah, handheld checks.

Love cash, of course.

But I was.

I'd been talking to some people and I had.

Actually, I had one client that was going to pay me a retainer for some.

For a wetlands permit.

And he says, well, John, do you just want to do an ACH payment?

I thought, oh, sure, let's do that.

So he says, just send me a copy of your bank information.

So I did, and he deposited his money into my account.

And I thought, wow, this is pretty good.

So I called my bank and I said, I'd like to try ach.

There's no charge for it, and it's probably.

I can get my money a little quicker.

So the bank, they gave me a whole seminar on it.

They put me into it and everything like that.

And then, lo and behold, I didn't do it right because it is slightly complicated because the had me doing it their way when I should have gone to Lee and said, lee, I'd like to try this ACH stuff.

But, you know, I try not to bug them if I think I can handle something.

So I tried it and it absolutely bombed.

It caused my client to flip out because my QuickBooks started withdrawing more than that money.

And I ran to Peterborough and randomly and said, help, help.

And he did it.

He cleaned the whole thing.

Up.

That is awesome.

No more ach.

We're going back to Chad.

That's okay.

You know, I think sometimes it's good to stick with what you're familiar with and what you know and what works for you.

There's, you know, there's a saying.

If it's not broken, do you got to fix?

Bingo.

That is a.

That's a profound statement, Erica, because let me tell you, it applies a lot more than we think.

Yeah.

So at the point when you went into QuickBooks, had the money already been processed through the bank when you went?

Because it took it a day to process.

So showed up on my bank feed.

Yeah.

That's when I went in.

I reconciled the account that weekend, Monday morning, tried to take out another payment because I didn't do it right through QuickBooks.

I did it next.

Right, Absolutely.

And it would.

The lady freaked out.

She's like, why are you trying to take another payment from me?

You know, everything did not go in the right direction.

I'm old school.

Like, give me a break here.

Yeah.

So did it feel like a normal part of the process to go into QuickBooks and update the invoice?

Did that.

I'd be truthful with you.

I didn't.

I mean, Lee had to look at everything and then understand.

I had to go over there.

We had to meet with.

I mean, it was quite a process to try and figure out what went wrong.

Yeah.

And, you know, once again, it was me putting it in not the right way, because there's so many options.

Right.

You just.

And there's all kinds of these boxes to check off or to pick or to highlight or something.

And I just do it.

Right.

Because once again, I hadn't set it up.

Right.

Yeah.

No.

And I think what we see so often inside of QuickBooks is that's what it comes down to, is that you just simply don't have it set up right the right way the first time.

That then causes more mess and chaos, and then sometimes it takes more time to unravel things, to then go back in and try to fix things.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, Papa, when a payment has already come through the bank, what should the business owner usually be doing inside of QuickBooks?

Thank you.

In John's particular case, what he did was, on the surface, seem correct.

In other words, he looked at it and said, yeah, okay, I'm going to go in and check this box.

And he provided the ACH information, because from his side, what he saw was that he had had that, and that was the box to check.

And I think from QuickBooks side of things, once John clicked that button, of course they went through because John has payments.

I mean, he has opted to receive QuickBooks payments and that has to be signed up for and there's a lot of approval for that.

But when you realize that there's a problem, oftentimes the help desk, particularly designed for accountants, they don't have the complete and full information.

So when John called me and he said, lee, there's something wrong with QuickBooks and I've been, I've gotten two payments and, and the.

His customer was upset.

John didn't know what was going on.

And so when I made that initial call to QuickBooks because John wasn't with me initially, because I was going to try and problem solve it and save John a trip, but it turns out that they didn't have all the correct information either.

So because they were looking at some information that they didn't understand what was going on.

So anyway, I think that it became a confusing messed.

And so then I brought John in and we sat down with QuickBooks and we got to the bottom of it.

And, and clearly John, it wasn't, you know, he was doing what he thought was the correct data entry.

Absolutely.

That is so good and such a good reminder.

I mean, even if we're just kind of half doing things, sometimes our brains just do things.

I was reading this card I had written to Shiloh and I signed Love, Erica and Day, which I think what I was trying to write was dad.

And clearly I know how to spell dad.

And my brain just.

I don't know what I was thinking.

It's just so.

It's just like, it's easy to make mistakes and when something is not familiar to you whatsoever, it's really easy to make mistakes.

Absolutely.

And sometimes, I don't know, you tell me if you feel like this is correct, John.

I don't feel like sometimes QuickBooks is so intuitive, it is not so straightforward.

Would you say that that is correct?

That sometimes you'll look at something, something inside of QuickBooks and you think, well, that, that does not make sense to me.

But I feel like it would be, you need to do it this way and not that way.

Oh yeah, I'm.

And I'm going to take it even far and beyond the Beyond QuickBooks.

I mean, that is.

That's computer software today, right?

Yeah.

So true.

The software designer that developed some of the Carlson software, he summed it up beautifully.

He says software gives you way too many options.

Those options that get you.

And he you know, I used to be a bull in a china closet.

You know, just let me out, let me go, let me run, let me do this.

But in today's day and age, you have got to slow down.

You've got to be aware of every box, everything that the mouse can click, everything.

Because I think with these subscription based programs, this is what it's getting to.

There's so many options.

You've got to pay attention.

And the whole thing about making mistakes, Erica, I make mistakes every single day of my life.

If I didn't make any mistakes, I couldn't do what I do.

No, you gotta learn from those mistakes.

Yes.

That is how we learn.

I like you, John, absolutely.

Success has more in the equation, but one thing that is unconditional is failure.

Yeah.

You have to fail in order to succeed.

And you know, I brag about it and it's just, I enjoy failing because it gets me to knowing what the hell I need to do first.

Yeah.

Next time.

Yes.

I think a lot of people are just scared to do that.

And I don't.

They are so afraid to fail.

You know, that is why I love the statistic.

Michael Jordan, during his era, he had the most shots made, but he also had the most shots missed.

Yep, there you go.

You miss all the shots you don't take.

Oh, totally.

Yeah.

So I love that attitude of, okay, I am just, I'm gonna go for failure.

And if I'm not, if I don't fail 10 times a day, I haven't done my job.

And that's what I did.

I tried and you.

But I learned.

I learned not what not to do.

And sometimes you gotta learn what to do, but sometimes and a lot of times you gotta learn what not to do.

That is so true.

So, Erica, I think John would agree with me here that part of the frustration that he has experienced, which is not uncommon for a lot of people, is that QuickBooks does some things behind the scenes that John couldn't see.

And I, I think part of that is that in John's setup that he had somebody help him who didn't really understand the overall functionality of the QuickBooks system.

And so John, when he initially came to me after the training, he said, Lee, something, There's a few things that are not right.

And of course required kind of an overhaul of his QuickBooks.

Major overhaul, Lee.

And we'll be truthful here.

Yeah.

And he worked through that like a real trooper.

It was awesome.

And we uncovered because when John says, I don't know how this happened and sure enough, like I said, there are some features of QuickBooks that you won't know how it happens unless you understand how the products and services and we've had a podcast about products and services are set up.

And so with a few clicks and a lot of patience, I think that John clearly has grown and understands how to take care of his day to day work.

I love that.

So, Papa, can you just dive into this topic just a little bit and explain the difference again in simple terms between the two options that we were dealing with here inside of quickbook?

Well, I think it's pretty clear when John receives a payment, when he gets a check, he goes in.

He's great about creating.

John uses the estimate feature.

Yep.

And then he creates the, from the estimate, he goes in and creates the invoice.

And then he's generally very good about receiving payment.

Yeah.

Except when he made a slight right turn on the ach right and there he fell off the cliff instead of just receiving payment, which is again, the receipt payment is confusing with all the different options.

So it's not uncommon that you check that box and say, ah, that was a QuickBooks payment.

And indeed it was not simply a payment he got from the working with his customer.

Yeah.

And through the ACH system at the bank.

So very important difference between the bank ACH and a QuickBooks payment.

Yeah, absolutely.

So there's two choices.

You can have, you can go in and like he normally records his payment, you know, or you can request a QuickBooks payment.

And so really those are the two choices.

And one is on the top, which he uses all the time.

Yeah.

And then I noticed when I went in to look at it again, the second box was checked when we called QuickBooks and she said, Ah, yes, that was a QuickBooks payment.

Yeah.

So you know, the simple way to say this is record payment is bookkeeping charge.

A new payment is payment processing.

What it seems like to me is John thought he was doing one thing, but QuickBooks interpreted the action as something else.

Would that be fair to say and fair to assess there?

Yep, very.

So Papa, is this why you always say business owners need to understand the workflow before they click assessment?

Especially when QuickBooks is connected to payments.

Of course.

Yeah, of course.

I believe that.

You know, John self confessed that he should have talked with me before and I could have saved him an awful lot of work.

Yeah.

But I also think I saved John a little money because, you know, he doesn't really need to have a bank charge him for ACH because if he decides to do that.

He already pays for QuickBooks payments.

All right, so don't let a bank talk you into a service you don't really need.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, John, do you remember how you found out the customer had been charged twice?

Did they reach out?

I'm assuming they reached out to you.

Is that.

That kind of what happened?

Oh, we were there on.

After the weekend.

Once again, I reconciled my account on Sunday, and then Monday morning when we showed up at the.

We went there to work.

Yeah.

Oh, they're showing up.

Right.

John, why is your banks trying to take another payment?

And I'm like, what?

And I did everything and I called my bank and right then and there, because it's just like, oh, my God.

And luckily, my client is a very understanding lady.

Wonderful.

She did never at any point.

I mean, she was getting worried, but she's like, well, I don't have that money in that account.

Right.

Moving money around.

Nice.

And I'll pay for.

I said, I'll take care of whatever it is financially or whatever.

Yeah, that's.

That's what I called Lee.

That's awesome.

So help.

In that moment, what was your biggest concern?

Was it the customer relationship, the money, the fees, the cleanup, or all of it?

Money is.

Is.

Let's face it, money is very important.

It's what we do.

For the most part, I said to myself, that's fraudulent.

My account should not be.

It's just looking at me saying, my God, I. I would never try to do that.

I try to be honest.

I try to be.

Do the right thing and everything.

And this is making me look like, oh, so this guy's trying to nail out another few thousand bucks from me.

You know, I don't want that to happen at all.

Right.

No, absolutely not.

Well, it really seems like you did the right thing in the moment and that.

I mean, I think that's at the end of the day, taking care of the customer.

I think that's what it's all about and making things right.

And I. I love that attitude.

So, Papa, when something like this happens, what kinds of cleanup or follow up can be involved?

Well, I think when John.

I think the kind of service that we give, I know when there's something really emergent for a client.

And when John called me, I jumped right on this.

He left me a message.

I immediately got back to him, called QuickBooks initially.

Then I needed to have him come in.

We got on a conference call with QuickBooks, and so we got to the bottom of it.

But there was.

There's Always an aftermath when you deal with QuickBooks, because they have their own processes of how they're going to take back the money and how they run it through QuickBooks.

So it requires, as we've said, a cleanup in aisle seven.

And.

And we take care of all of that for our clients who we manage.

So my advice to John was, okay, this is going to come through.

I'll keep an eye on it.

You let me know.

Yeah.

And I'll go ahead and take care of the journal entries and we'll get the accounts to match for you.

Yeah.

So you can reconcile them.

And behind the scenes, John was happy as a lark.

Okay.

I took care of the journal entries and the work from that QuickBooks created.

And so that was the story.

Love.

That I know we've kind of touched on a little bit, but what would have helped prevent this before it happened, other than coming to us and making sure everything is set up?

But on the customer side, what can they do to make sure that things are set up the right way the first time?

From John's perspective, there's not much he could have done because, in fact, he had signed up for QuickBooks payments.

Yeah.

He had the information.

Yep.

And basically, I think John's only option was not to sign up for QuickBooks payments.

But I think it's a nice feature, and I think with some training that John has now, if he were to take another QuickBooks payment, I think he'd be fine.

That is so good.

You know, I think this is where working with Lee Davis and company can be so helpful.

It's not just about cleaning up QuickBooks after something goes wrong.

It is about helping business owners understand the workflow before they click the button, before the customer is affected, before a small misunderstanding turns into a bigger issue.

A lot of business owners do not need to be shamed for what they do not know.

They need someone who can explain what is happening behind the scenes in a way that actually makes sense.

So, Papa, would you say this is a good example of why training and setup matter just as much as the actual cleanup?

I would say that's probably true.

I would step back even a little bit further with John and say, you know, John has come to me.

I don't know how long I've worked with John.

Maybe three or four years.

A while I've been.

I sort of partnered with John.

I'm kind of a bridge between his accountant and him.

Yeah.

And QuickBooks.

So John would come to me with a particular problem, many than varied, and I would provide him some Advice and looking how to help him.

That is so good.

So, John, now that you've gone through this, and again, I love your attitude over failure.

That is a good reminder for me.

You never learn.

You'll never get to where you want to be if you're not willing to fail.

And that is so massive and such a good reminder.

I've been building this range hood, and that has been one lesson.

I've never done woodworking ever before.

I took it up about a year ago, and, you know, that has been one failure after a failure.

And it's taken me a long time to really complete and build this range hood, but we finally have it up.

It's up, and I am finishing the trim, and it's, wow, I built that.

But if I had been so afraid of failing, I never would have picked up my first power tool.

Even though it took me eight hours that day.

I watched, I don't know, probably 100 YouTube videos and all the things not to do, how.

How to be safe when using the table saw and the miter saw and all of it.

Right.

But it just.

It's a good reminder you'll never learn anything new.

You'll never have new experiences if you're always so afraid of failing.

So I would love to hear your advice to a business owner.

I would love for you to talk about what you learned and what you would tell another business owner using QuickBooks, using QuickBooks payments or ACH payments.

I know we're not now not a fan of it, but what would be your takeaways from this experience that you would love to pass on to the next entrepreneur?

Most importantly, I just think that if we're scared, if we're scared to fail, we shouldn't even be trying to run a business.

Because my opinion is what we really need to do is to feel a little more comfortable about failure, knowing there's hope, there's a solution.

And once again, I have you guys.

Just like Lee said, we've been working together for a few years.

If something comes up in my QuickBooks, which it does all the time, I don't sweat it.

It's just like, all right, well, I'll send this to Lee or I'll ask Lee, and, you know, maybe Lee could help me with this or I'll come over and see Lee.

But there's that.

You feel so much better.

That person is in place to help, to be there, and to help you work through this.

Once again, failure is success.

That's just going to take a little longer, you know, and if we just stay so scared of not doing the right thing or failing or everything like that, we're not going to get anywhere.

I remember the first time I shot a horse.

You know, I remember the first time I delineated a wetland.

I remember the first time I stamped my first surveying plan.

Yes.

You're almost shaking, thinking, oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

The most important thing is now is we have to slow down because there's so much more involved, there's so much more needed by us, so much more needed by everybody to make everything a better experience for the workplace and the business.

Love that.

That is so good.

Those are words that a business owner can definitely live by and further their business for sure.

Like, there is gold in that.

That was so absol.

Okay, so, Papa, what is the one question every business owner should ask before clicking record payment or charge a new payment?

I think the question that should be asked is, what are they trying to do?

What is exactly.

And if you can't, if you're not exactly clear on it, but you need to get that answer before you click.

And certainly with all the changes that have come at our clients over the last, maybe even year with QuickBooks, because there are been a lot of changes, and QuickBooks has gone through a couple of ownership changes since I've worked with them.

And everybody has to brace for it because, you know, QuickBooks is a company that provides software, and frankly, their training is not something that you can get on YouTube, so.

Yep.

So John's been fortunate that he sought out our training and has helped him along the way as there have been, you know, curveballs thrown at him.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, I think another way we can kind of sum that up is, has this payment already happened, or am I asking QuickBooks to collect the money now?

So did it already happen or am I collecting something new?

I think that's another way to kind of put that.

But, you know, if the money already came in, you record the payment.

If you're asking QuickBooks to collect the money, you are charging a new payment.

So good.

So, John, I want to thank you so much.

That was just so good.

Hearing from you, hearing your words of wisdom, just understanding what you went through from your side.

You know, I think this will be so invaluable for people to then make a decision about if they're going to use this feature or not.

Just having another side to look at what actually happened and what can happen, all of that.

So if people want to connect with you, you might have some things on the horizon.

Perhaps that I think would be really cool.

But if people want to connect with you and we will certainly put all of your information in the show notes.

But how can people find you in general?

What's a good way to connect with John?

The best way is just my website which is justin virespect landservices.com in VI respect is spelled e N V I R E S P E C T. And that name came from my old newsletter that I used to send out quarterly back in the late 90s.

Oh, cool.

Kind of reflecting on all the environmental issues along with our seasonal changes.

Yeah, yeah, that's where the name came from.

But that's the best way to do it is just find my website.

It's all the way to connect with John.

So, you know, thank you so much for being willing to come on and talk with us and us talk us through this.

So helpful.

I really appreciate it because I think this is the kind of conversation that helps other business owners and that is why we are here.

You know, it is easy to hear about a QuickBooks mistake and think that would never happen to me.

But when you hear the actual story, you realize how understandable it was.

You were trying to do the right thing.

You were trying to show that a customer had paid.

But because QuickBooks interpreted the action differently, it created a duplicate payment.

And that is the point of this episode.

Because business owners do not need to be afraid of QuickBooks.

People do not be afraid to fail.

But you do need to understand what QuickBooks is doing before you click.

So today we talked about the client side of a QuickBooks payment mistake.

We talked about ACH payments, invoice workflows, duplicate charges, customer frustration, and the importance of having guidance before small mistakes become bigger problems.

And once again, that phrase we want people to remember is say it with me.

Record payment is bookkeeping charge.

A new payment is payment processing.

If the money already came in, you are recording it.

If you are asking QuickBooks to collect the money, you're charging a new payment.

Papa, do you have any final thoughts before we close?

Sure.

You know, John summarized some of it, but I think it's clear.

Slow down before clicking.

I mean, sometimes people, including looking at the banking transactions, they're all about clicking.

Yeah, but understand when you click, you're creating a transaction within QuickBooks and always ask whether the payment already happened.

In this particular case, there were turned out to be multiple transactions when there really basically should have been one.

And don't be afraid to ask for help.

Training can prevent costly mistakes.

I can honestly tell you if I had a dollar bill for every time people said they wish they had known me before then I can tell you having been in business for us, it's been rewarding that way.

And QuickBooks is powerful when used correctly.

I think that is so true.

So so so true.

And if you are listening and want wondering whether your QuickBooks payments, invoices, bank feeds, customer balances or payment workflows are set up correctly, this is exactly why we created our free QuickBooks Clarity Scorecard.

It is designed to help you take a closer look at your QuickBooks file and see where things feel clear, where they may be confusing, and where you may need support before small issues become bigger problems.

You can download the QuickBooks Clarity Scorecard on our website at leedavisoncompany.com we will also include a link to it in our show notes.

You can check it out there as well.

And if you have a QuickBooks question or a business challenge you would like us to talk about on this podcast, send it to supporteadavis and company.com John, thank you again for being here.

And Papa, thank you as always.

You are fabulous.

You bring the fire every week and it is is so good.

So next week we will continue helping you simplify QuickBooks, understand your numbers and help you make better decisions in your business.

We will see you next week.

Have a great week.

Bye for now.

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