go human

Want to gain control of and track your finances? Get out of or learn how to reduce your debt? Save money for your own, your child's education, or your grand kids? Realizing that you need to get your ducks in a row if you want to retire in X years?

This personalized, one-on-one, in person, three (3) hour class or private lesson at your home, business, the library or a quiet coffee shop for either the Quicken Basic (usually given with tax software), Deluxe, Premier, or Home and Business (I use a current version of the latter to manage my finances) editions for Windows, Quicken Online (I also use this as it just came out and have made product suggestions for it, one of which was later implemented), or Quicken for Mac is taught by a highly rated Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor. QuickBooks (not Quick Books) is the next step up from Quicken or Money. Rates are at the end of this ad.

If you don't have Quicken currently, you can use my Intuit Affiliate status to order or download it at a discount.

Quicken allows you to keep track of your income, spending, investments including your 401(k)s, or brokerage investment accounts such as IRAs and 529s, property, loans, credit cards, and other debt. You can also keep track of your small business with the right software, your home inventory, keep track of your medical bills and insurance payments, or your rental properties. Find out how to identify how much you are spending each day so you can determine how much is necessary and redirect your spending.

Learn how to use Quicken and the Internet to set up and download your online banking information from over 5300 banks including PayPal, brokerages, and other financial institutions, credit card, investment, property, and loan statements. Assign those transactions to the proper financial category and tax line so you will be ready next year. Or use the ability to scan in and attach related documents to particular accounts or projects to transactions, so you have everything you need in one place for easy reference at tax time.

Use the classes feature to keep track of how much each person, client or project, or asset is bringing in or money is being spent on. Common problems with online updates. Schedule your bills so you can avoid potential late fees (and yes, I'll give you a lecture about automatic withdrawals), your various financial centers and planners, account reconciliation, transactions, financial alerts, transaction categories, budgeting including tracking what you planned to save that month versus what you actually have so you can have some additional choices, taxes including tax deduction review, asset and liability accounts, reports and graphs, securing your accounts, and backing up your data.

Or would you prefer to sit in the dark?

This class is for any version of Quicken. However, I stress 2006 and higher as Intuit is currently only supporting those versions.

It is offered by reservation for a three hour block of time from 10 AM to 1 PM, 2 PM to 5 PM, and 6 PM to 9 PM or in a shorter version (less hours) if you have previously worked with other financial management software if you are willing to pay a slightly higher hourly fee.

Let me come to your residence or meet you halfway at the library or coffee/tea shop and show you how to set up your financial accounts, track cash transactions, enable your accounts for online access so you can really know how much you are worth and what you have to do to achieve your goals, plan a budget, download transactions and allocate them into their proper expenses categories so you know how much you really are spending.

You've hired an attorney to write your will, an accountant to do your taxes, an insurance broker to get the best insurance for your home or apartment or car, and other professional consultants like a career coach to help you manage or run your life. Shouldn’t you hire someone to teach you how to effectively use the software programs that are out there that can tell you how well you are (or aren't) doing financially?

Or you can wait for something to happen while your neighbors plan for their retirement and know to the penny how much they can spend each month and count dollars instead of sheep.

I am a member of the Better Business Bureau, the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program, the Intuit (the folks who make TurboTax, Quicken, and QuickBooks to name a few products) Accountant's Inner Circle which advises the company on ways to improve their products (I recently found a bug in one of their products and suggested a way to fix it) and make them more consumer friendly (gasp!), and Biznik - the local 11,350 member social business networking group with many events and classes

I have taught "Ten Things You Need to Do to Set Up Your Start Up's Books Correctly" at the Renton Almost Free Biz School and accounting and bookkeeping fundamentals at the Six Hour Start Up Conference. I also was the subject of an article Spotlight on a QuickBooks Instructor: Teaching Small Businesses to Fish on the TeachStreet Blog. TeachStreet is a web site that brings together local teachers and inquiring students.

I am available evenings and weekends if you work during the day and I am willing to travel throughout Western Washington State to bring my classroom to you because that is what customer service is all about.

I have a Bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa, completed two years of law school, was the former operations and office manager with a "cents" of humor for a non smoking professional services (architectural) firm that did around 2 million a year in business, had 15-18 employees, and a 22-30% profit margin.

During my two and half years with the professional services firm, I was invited to speak about my experiences with QuickBooks and office management issues at my professional association's national convention. Previously, I was a career temporary (administrative assistant) for seven years, securities arbitrator, real estate agent, VISTA volunteer for Solid Ground (formerly Fremont Public Association), and patient financial and collections representative for the UW Medical Center.

All you have to gain is your self-confidence and self-respect by learning how to make your financial management software program work for you, instead of the other way around. My goal is to teach you how to make your own financial bread for yourself.

And as for the question you've been wondering while you were reading this, because I come to you, I charge $120 if you want to hire me on an hourly basis to train how to do or solve a specific problem or issue with your data file.

You can save $65 by enrolling in a three hour block of time for $295 (I find that most people need that amount of time to begin to basically learn the program or have their Quicken data file set up or checked) and $90 an hour thereafter on the same day so you can count dollars instead of sheep and learn how to fish (or make Tofu if you are a vegan) for yourself., the freedom to sleep at night, and to sit and keep track of your future retirement in the light.

I also offer unlimited training for $1,195 for one year (that's less than $100 a month) plus mileage for up to two adults in a household.

Payment is expected by check, cash, Revolution Money Exchange (Steve Chase of AOL's latest venture: it's free to send and receive money), Google Checkout, PayPal, MasterCard , Visa, or your first born (just kidding) at the time of service. I am available evenings and weekends if you work during the day and I am willing to travel throughout I am willing to travel outside the Greater Seattle area and throughout Western Washington on a case by case basis. I may be willing to barter.

QuickBooks, Quicken and QuickBooks ProAdvisor are registered trademarks and/or registered service marks of Intuit, Inc. Used with permission.