Billing Manager Blog

We apologize to those of you who have been unable to connect to a number of Intuit websites, including QuickBooks Online and Billing Manager, that became unavailable at about 7 p.m. Tuesday, Pacific time.

Our first priority is to restore these websites and give you full and complete access to our sites and your data as soon as possible. We are also investigating the cause of the problem and will take measures prevent a recurrence. We appreciate your patience and will provide more information as it becomes available.

The digest: Many small businesses have a hard time affording health insurance for their employees.  It is expensive.  The new reform attempts to lower these costs through state-run insurance exchanges…where small businesses  pool together to purchase coverage. Between now and 2014 when the exchanges will be in place, there will be tax incentives for small businesses to start offering coverage.  It’s only play or pay for bigger businesses. By 2014, businesses with more than 50 employees will be forced to offer insurance or pay a fine.

Only time will tell what the impact is to small business.  With the credits and exchanges we can expect more small businesses to offer health insurance, but how many will depend on the depth of the savings from the exchanges.  We can also expect sole proprietors to have an easier time getting health insurance, which could indirectly encourage more entrepreneurship.  And for our larger small businesses (those with 50+ employees) the fear is that there will be an adverse impact on hiring given incentives to stay below 5o employees and 80k salaries.

Current state: The smallest businesses aren’t providing their employees with health insurance

Lots of small businesses aren’t offering health insurance…
Only 49 percent of firms with 3 to 9 workers offered any type of health insurance to their employees in 2008. In contrast, 99 percent of firms with more than 200 workers offered health insurance.

Those that do offer insurance are paying more…
Small businesses (less than 100 employees) pay up to 18 percent more per worker than large firms for the same health insurance policy.

And things aren’t looking up.
Between  2002 to 2008, businesses with 3 to 9 employees offering health insurance to their workers declined from 58 to 49 percent.

The reform’s intent is to lower costs for the smallest businesses with credits and exchanges and make insurance mandatory for bigger businesses

How small businesses will buy insurance:

• By no later than 2014, states will have to set up Small Business Health Options Programs, or “SHOP Exchanges.”
• A SHOP exchange will pool small businesses (less than 100 employees)  together  to buy insurance.
• The impact?  These are expected to have a small positive effect  (between 1-4%) on the premium cost and amount  of coverage offered.

Starting now until 2014, businesses with less than 25 employees will get a tax credit.

• If you have 10 or less employees that you are paying less than $25K a year, you will be eligible for a tax credit of 35% of health insurance costs
• If you have between 11 and 25 workers with an average wage up to $50K, you are eligible for partial credits.
• You don’t get a tax credit if you have more than 25 employees.
• Any employee who earns more than $80K/year will be excluded from the credit
• In 2014, if you have 10 or less employees, earning less than $25K, you could earn a 50% credit.

It is pay or play…for bigger businesses

• By 2014 if you have more than 50 employees, you will have to either offer insurance or pay $750 per employee.
• This coverage will have to meet minimum benefits and services, as well as handle 60% of costs.
• In 2011, employers will have to provide coverage for dependents of employees until the age of 26. (Now it is typically age 19 or the end of college)

If you are a freelancer/one person shop, coverage expansion will help you:

• By 2014 insurers won’t be able to set rates to exclude coverage based on pre-existing conditions, and can vary premiums only by geographic location, age, and tobacco use.
• Going into effect right now is a ban on lifetime limits on coverage, and on “rescission” (canceling policies already issued) except in cases of fraud.

Other stuff small businesses need to know:

• Part-time employees will be counted toward the 50-employee minimum (pro-rated)
• You will have to report the value of an employee’s health care plan on W-2 forms
• If you earn (as an individual) more than $200,000 a year, or are a couple earning $250,000 or more, there will be  a  3.8% surcharge on investment income to help pay for the bill
• This SHOP exchange will handle individuals as well.  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) expects the number of people getting insurance through the new marketplace to start around 8 million in 2014 and to grow to 24 million in 2019.

Questions? Have a point of view on this? Please leave it in the comments.

The information cited here is the WhiteHouse.gov report, with recent updates included from CNN.com. http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cea/Health-Care-Reform-and-Small-Businesses
http://www.CNN.com

You’ve seen a number of posts and comments in this blog where we have encouraged upgrading from Internet Explorer 6 to a more up-to-date browser.  We told you that Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox are faster and more secure. We also hinted that some new features and improvements are coming, which make Billing Manager faster and easier to use, but are not compatible with IE6.

These posts were no accident.

We are currently working on some features that will makes Billing Manager  will not work with IE6.  Its time to upgrade to get the most out of the Billing Manager.  You will also benefit with other web sites you use, many are discontinuing IE6 support as well.

If it were me, I would first download Firefox and start using it.  You can install Firefox without changing your Internet Explorer version.   Then, when you are comfortable with Firefox, upgrade Internet Explorer. You will end up with 2 excellent browsers on your system. This is only a suggestion, its OK to just upgrade Internet Explorer.

If you are using a Macintosh, then you are already covered.  The new features work fine with Safari and Firefox.

Hey Billing Manager users, we have some fun webinars coming up.  These two are our favorites!

Online tools for strong offline relationships with John Jantsch
Wednesday, February 24 at 10:00am PST

Learn how to leverage social media and other Web tools to build stronger relationships with local customers, suppliers and prospects. John will cover how to create local communities with online groups, and how to access local bloggers and media to raise your brand awareness. He’ll also advise on how to use online communities to create offline events, mine social media platforms for local leads and how to enhance local search engine placement for your business.

Register here

Turn Clicks into Conversations and Relationships with Brent Leary
Wednesday, March 10 at 10:00am PST

Learn the tools and techniques needed to turn content into conversations, conversations into exchanges, and exchanges into long-lasting customer relationships. Brent will teach social listening, automating content creation and distribution, and steps for enhancing the customer experience with your company by facilitating opportunities for customers to connect with each other.

Register here

Find more free webinar events

If you go, share your thoughts or learnings with other Billing Manager  users. Leave them in the comments.

Rushing to finish 1099-MISCs and W-2s for contractors and employees?

Information you should know: The deadline to send independent contractors and employees their 1099-MISCs and W-2s is Feb 1st.

For you do-it-yourselfers, we know it can be a headache to gather all the payments, worker info, and do the calculations between year end and the deadline  (QuickBooks definitely helps with some of this remember). But, the 1099-MISC is especially troublesome if you’re filing manually because the IRS requires using a special paper form with red-boxes, which can only be ordered in packets of 25 or more – not very practical for those of you with just a few contractors!

We’re happy to share an easier way to finish these forms quickly and easily. A new service from our friends in TurboTax called Quick Employer Forms provides step-by-step guidance to prepare 1099-MISC, W-2 forms and e-file for only $2.95 each.

Bonus: If you finish your forms before 6:00AM PST on Jan 28, they will even mail them to your contractors and employees by the deadline. We hope you like it!

Check it out.