QuickBooks Desktop Pro Manual – TeachUcomp, Inc. – Start using QuickBooks

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
As an additional benefit, QuickBooks Pro, Premier, and Enterprise Solutions share a common look and feel. QuickBooks Premier and QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions are also available . 8/26/ · Add your customers and vendors. Set up QuickBooks Desktop Payroll. Add your employees. Set up the items you buy and sell. Set up your other accounts (bank accounts, . Full classroom instruction manual. pages and individual topics. Includes practice exercises and keyboard shortcuts. You will learn how to set up a QuickBooks company file, .
 
 

 

Quickbooks desktop manual pdf –

 

Writing a Check for Inventory Items 4. Printing Checks 5. Transferring Funds 6. Reconciling Accounts 7. Voiding Checks. Paying Sales Tax 1. Sales Tax Reports 2. Using the Sales Tax Payable Register 3. Paying Your Tax Agencies. Reporting 1. Graph and Report Preferences 2.

Using QuickReports 3. Using QuickZoom 4. Preset Reports 5. Modifying a Report 6. Rearranging and Resizing Report Columns 7. Memorizing a Report 8. Memorized Report Groups 9. Printing Reports Batch Printing Forms Exporting Reports to Excel Comment on a Report Process Multiple Reports Scheduled Reports.

Customizing Forms 1. Creating New Form Templates 2. Performing Basic Customization 3. Performing Additional Customization 4. The Layout Designer 5. Changing the Grid and Margins in the Layout Designer 6. Selecting Objects in the Layout Designer 7. Moving and Resizing Objects in the Layout Designer 8. Formatting Objects in the Layout Designer 9. Copying Objects and Formatting in the Layout Designer Adding and Removing Objects in the Layout Designer Aligning and Stacking Objects in the Layout Designer Resizing Columns in the Layout Designer.

Estimating 1. Creating a Job 2. Creating an Estimate 3. Duplicating Estimates 4. Invoicing From Estimates 5. Updating Job Statuses 6. Inactivating Estimates 7. Making Purchases for a Job 8. Invoicing for Job Costs 9. Using Job Reports. Time Tracking 1. Tracking Time and Printing a Blank Timesheet 2. Weekly Timesheets 3. Invoicing from Time Data 5.

Using Time Reports 6. Tracking Vehicle Mileage 7. Charging Customers for Mileage. Payroll 1. The Payroll Process 2. Creating Payroll Items 3.

Setting Employee Defaults 4. Setting Up Employee Payroll Information 5. Creating Payroll Schedules 6. Creating Scheduled Paychecks 7. Creating Unscheduled Paychecks 8. Creating Termination Paychecks 9. Voiding Paychecks Tracking Your Tax Liabilities Paying Your Payroll Tax Liabilities QuickBooks Payroll prices are not eligible for this discount. For further details about QuickBooks Payroll prices see here. Your account will automatically be charged on a monthly basis until you cancel.

You may cancel at any time. There is no limit on the number of subscriptions ordered under this offer. This offer cannot be combined with any other QuickBooks Online promotion or offers. During the free trial, you may pay any number of employees using QuickBooks Payroll free of charge. To continue using QuickBooks after your day trial, you’ll be asked to present a valid credit card for authorisation and you’ll be charged monthly at the then-current fee for the service s you’ve selected.

Pricing, terms and conditions, including service options, are subject to change. You’ll also find useful resources in the QuickBooks Community. Devices sold separately; data plan required. QuickBooks Payroll cannot be used on the mobile apps. Not all features are available on the mobile apps and mobile browser. QuickBooks Online mobile access is included with your QuickBooks Online subscription at no additional cost. Product registration required. Cloud storage : Data access is subject to Internet or cellular provider network availability and occasional downtime due to events beyond our control.

Get paid faster : Based on customer data for invoices paid online versus offline from Jan Dec Optional fee-based service. PayPal is an optional fee-based service. Any information provided is general only and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Tax deductions : Tax deductions not guaranteed due to being subject to user data entry errors. Mileage calculation provided by the Australia Taxation Office – 78 cents per kilometre from 1 July for the income year.

Run business more easily : Based on a survey of small businesses using QuickBooks Online conducted in September Multiple account discount offer is valid only if you are signing up for more than one QuickBooks Online subscription with each order. View terms and conditions for multiple accounts pricing here. To inquire further about the multiple account offer, please call Annual Billing: You may pay for your QuickBooks Online subscription on an annual, upfront basis to enjoy a discount on the current fees.

If you use QuickBooks Payroll powered by KeyPay, your payroll costs will still be charged monthly to your nominated payment method in accordance with your usage as set out here. If you cancel your QuickBooks Online subscription within the pre-paid 12 month period, you will not be eligible for a refund, but will retain full access to your QuickBooks Online subscription for the remainder of the month period.

Unless cancelled by you prior, your annual subscription will auto-renew on the 12 month anniversary of your sign-up date using the billing details you have given us. Discounts, prices, terms and conditions are subject to change. Nearly 8 million customers : Based on number of global QuickBooks subscribers as of July Please review them carefully. When youre working in QuickBooks, youll spend most of your time using a form, a list, or a register.

Since these are so basic to QuickBooks, were going to spend a few minutes introducing them. Heres an example of the form you use when you want to record a bill from one of your vendors. The form is intuitiveyou already know how to fill out a form.

But after you provide the information on a QuickBooks form, QuickBooks does the accounting for you in the background. For example, when you record a bill using the Enter Bills window QuickBooks enters transactions in your Accounts Payable register to show the expense you incurred. When you then write a cheque using the Pay Bills window to record the payment you made. Accounts Payable is the money owed by your business to vendors it also records the cheque in your chequing account, keeping your records up to date, and providing a running balance of what you owe at any time.

You fill out most QuickBooks forms by selecting entries from a list. You may want to point out that in the Enter Bills window above, the information in the Vendor, Terms, Account, and Customer:Job fields is pulled from lists.

QuickBooks has lists where you can store information about customers, vendors, employees, items or services you sell, and so on. Lists save you time and help you enter information consistently and correctly. When youre filling out an invoice form and you select a customer name from the Customer:Job list, QuickBooks not only fills in the name but also fills in the address, the payment terms, and the customers sales tax, based on the information previously entered about that customer.

QuickBooks lets you complete a variety of activities from lists, using the menu buttons located at the top of each list. Just as you use your paper cheque book register to see a record of all the transactions in your chequing accountcheques youve written, other withdrawals youve made from your account, and depositsa QuickBooks register contains a record of all the activity in one account.

Almost every QuickBooks account has its own register. You may want to explain to students that Accounts Receivable is the record of money owed to a business, that is, the outstanding invoices for which a business has not received payment. Heres an example of the register for an accounts receivable account. The register shows information about invoices written to customersthe date of the invoice, the date its due, the name of the customer, and the amount.

It also shows payments youve received against your invoices. The right column of the register gives you a running balance of all your Accounts Receivable, so you always know how much youre owed. In this section youll learn how to do the following:. This window guides you through the steps you need to complete after youve set up your company file. Centre from the Help menu. If youre upgrading from a previous version, QuickBooks displays the Whats New window. This window contains information about new features and explains how to find what you need to start working with the latest version.

When you open a window, it appears in front of other windows that you previously opened. The Open Window list keeps track of the windows that are open. Use the Open Window list to switch between windows while you work.

To switch to another open window, just click the title of the window that you want to display. If the list is currently displayed, a checkmark appears to the left of the menu item. For comparison purposes, you may wish to display more than one window at a time. You can easily switch between viewing one window at a time and viewing multiple windows. You can then move and resize the windows as needed. Another feature that makes it easy to get around in QuickBooks is the icon bar.

In addition to deciding which features to add to the icon bar, you can add or remove icons, change the. You can add colour to the icon bar in the General section of the QuickBooks preferences. For instructions on how to customize the icon bar, search the onscreen Help for icon bar, and then choose Customize the Icon Bar from the list of topics that displays.

Each Centre gathers in a single place all of the relevant transactions as well as other information, such as names and addresses of customers, vendors, or employees. The Customer Centre gives you access to all of your customers and jobs, contact and billing information for each customer, and customer transactions.

Here you can quickly find and print customer contact information, what your customers bought in the past, what invoices they’ve paid, the balance they owe, notes you want to keep about a customer, and more. You can also quickly access transactions for all your customers in one place, such as sales receipts, received payments, and statement charges. The Vendor Centre gives you quick access to all of your vendors, their contact and billing information, and vendor transactions.

The Vendor Centre displays information about all of your vendors and their transactions in a single place. Here you can add a new vendor, add a transaction to an existing vendor, or print the vendor list or transaction list.

You can also edit a vendor’s information or edit a note for the vendor. The Employee Centre gathers information for each of your employees, including contact information, social insurance number, and payroll transactions. Here you can add a new employee, add a transaction to an existing employee, or print employee and transaction information.

You can also edit an employee’s information or edit a note for the employee. If you have a QuickBooks Payroll subscription, you can perform payroll-related tasks, such as pay your employees and payroll tax liabilities. The Employee Centre also contains a separate Payroll Centre where you can manage your payroll and tax information.

The Customer, Vendor, and Employee Centres have two tabs the Employee Centre also contains the Payroll Centre in a separate tab if your company has payroll turned on. The first tab contains the list of your Customers, Vendors, or Employees.

Use this tab to view and edit information for a single customer, vendor, or employee. The Transactions tab lists the relevant transaction types for that Centre. Use this tab to view transactions across all Customers, Vendors, or Employees.

You can customize how your information is displayed in the Customer, Vendor, or Employee Centre. For example, you might choose to view only open invoices for this fiscal year, or you may want to view only the Open Balance column for all of your customers. You can also run some common reports from within each Centre. Lesson 9 describes the Report Centre.

Tasks are organized into logical groups Customers, Vendors, Employees, Company, and Banking with workflow arrows to help you learn how tasks relate to each other and to help you decide what to do next.

The workflow arrows indicate a logical progression of business tasks in QuickBooks. However, these arrows do not restrict you from doing tasks in a different order, or an order that works better for your business needs.

As you use QuickBooks, you can always return to the Home page by clicking Home. The Home page looks like the following. The icons that appear on the Home page vary depending on how your company was set up during the setup process or which preferences are set in the file.

For example, to create an invoice, click the Create Invoices icon. Each icon includes a ToolTip so you can learn about the QuickBooks task associated with that icon. To open a ToolTip, place your mouse pointer over the icon. Clicking most of the icons on the Home page takes you directly to the window for that task.

Some icons also include a drop-down arrow. Clicking an arrow opens a menu with choices for different business tasks. Click the task you want to do. Review the current balances of your bank, credit card, payables and receivables accounts.

To open the register for an account, double-click anywhere in the row of the account you want to view. To hide the list of accounts and balances, click the the Account Balances list. If you choose to sign-up for these services, appropriate icons may be added to the workflow on your Home page. View reminders and important messages. To hide the list, click the. However, it does use some common business terms.

You track this flow of money through a list of accounts called the chart of accounts. There are two types of accounts:. Balance sheet accounts, such as assetsbank, inventory, equipmentand liabilitiespayables, loans, etc.

Accounts used to group transactions for reporting purposes, such as income and expense accounts. From the Lists menu, choose Chart of Accounts. Scroll through the White Ridge Construction chart of accounts. Notice that the list displays balance sheet accounts first, followed by income accounts and expense accounts.

Close the chart of accounts. QuickBooks uses an accounts receivable account to track the money owed you. The rest of your companys assets may include chequing accounts, savings accounts, petty cash, fixed assets such as equipment or trucks , inventory, and undeposited funds money youve received from customers but havent yet deposited in the bank. When setting up your company file in QuickBooks, note that even though chequing, savings, and petty cash are all company assets, youll set them up as bank type accounts in QuickBooks.

QuickBooks uses an accounts payable account to track the money you owe different people for bills. A liability can be a formal loan, an unpaid bill, or sales and payroll taxes you owe to the government. When setting up your company file in QuickBooks, note that even though unpaid bills are liabilities, youll set them up as accounts payable type accounts in QuickBooks. Your equity reflects the health of your business, since it is the amount of money left after you satisfy.

Retained earnings, or net profits from earlier periods that havent been distributed to the owners. Of course, you as the owner can also take money out of the business. Such withdrawals, called owners draws, reduce the business equity. If you have a sole proprietorship where the existence of the business depends solely on your efforts , you can check the value of your owners equity by creating a QuickBooks balance sheet.

The bookkeeping method determines how you report income and expenses on your tax forms. This method is known as bookkeeping on a cash basis. If youve been recording deposits of your customers payments but havent been including the money customers owe you as part of your income, youve been using cash basis. Similarly, if youve been tracking expenses at the time you pay them, rather than at the time you first receive the bills, youve been using cash basis.

Similarly, you enter expenses when you receive the bill, not when you pay it. Most accountants feel that the accrual method gives you a truer picture of your business finances, and under Canadian Income Tax law, only fishers and farmers can use cash basis accounting. QuickBooks is set up to do your reports on an accrual basis.

For example, it shows income on a profit and loss statement for invoices as soon as you record them, even if you havent yet received payment. It shows expenses as soon as you record bills, even if theyre unpaid.

You can see any report except transaction reports on a cash basis by changing the reporting preference. From the Edit menu, choose Preferences. When you create reports in QuickBooks, you can switch between cash and accrual reports at any time, regardless of which bookkeeping method you have chosen for tax purposes.

These are the reports most often requested by accountants and financial officers. For example, banks request both documents when you apply for a loan. Note: Any report will reflect the real time calendar date. To see reports from the data file it may be necessary to choose a date range that suits your QuickBooks data in the date field. It shows:. From the submenu, choose Balance Sheet Standard. If necessary, set the date to Next Fiscal Year. Scroll the report window to see all parts of the report.

The QuickBooks profit and loss statement summarizes the revenue and expenses of your business by category first income, then expenses. Choose the appropriate date from the Dates drop down arrow. A statement of cash flows shows your receipts and payments during a specific accounting period. This accounting method is known as double-entry accounting.

For day-to-day transaction entries, QuickBooks uses familiar forms invoices, bills, cheques. QuickBooks also has a General Journal Entry window that you can use for special transactions such as selling a depreciated asset or for all transactions if you prefer the traditional system not recommended. To see the general journal entry for a saved transaction: 1. In any sales form, press Ctrl-Y or press the Journal Button. The Journal button only displays in the Accountant Edition.

Then click OK. In the transaction journal that appears, check the Debit and Credit columns to see the accounting. In the Customer and Vendor Centres, you can also view a journal entry for a transaction. Locate the customer or vendor transaction. Right-click the transaction and choose View Transaction Journal.

When using Accountant Edition, you can click the Reports tab and then click Transaction Journal button on a sales form to display the.

It does an automatic save while youre working with QuickBooks and every time you leave the program. If no other applications are open, QuickBooks returns you to the Windows desktop. To prevent or minimize data loss, you should make regular backup copies of your QuickBooks company data. In the event of a data loss you can restore your data from the backup copy. To make a backup copy, from the File menu, choose Create Backup and follow the instructions.

You can change from one company file to another at any time, but in QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks: Premier you can have only one company file open at a time. QuickBooks provides an easy way to find and open a company file that youve worked with before. From the File menu, choose Open Previous Company. From the submenu, choose the company file you want to open. You can increase the number of company files that QuickBooks will display in the submenu. To discuss some of the decisions you need to make before using QuickBooks, such as your QuickBooks start date and the number of QuickBooks companies you should create.

Before you can use QuickBooks, you need to tell QuickBooks about your business so that it can set up your company file. Setting up your company file properly is the most important thing you can do to help yourself manage your business efficiently and with confidence.

Explain to students that if theyve been using an older version of QuickBooks to keep their companys financial records, they dont need to create a new company; QuickBooks can convert their data for them. However, in this lesson, youll be showing them how to create a new QuickBooks company.

If you operate a business enterprise, the CRA expects you to clearly show all sources of income and to document any business expenses you claim as deductions. For tax purposes, therefore, its usually best to set up a separate QuickBooks company for each business enterprise you report on your tax forms. The setup process is easy; the Detailed Start should take you only about 30 minutes to complete. When you set up your company file, QuickBooks will ask you for a number of details about your company.

Most small business owners do better with QuickBooks setup if they break the job into manageable chunks. Heres a suggested schedule for completion: 1.

Click Leave to leave the Interview and return to QuickBooks. The next time you open the company file, QuickBooks remembers the information you have already entered and returns you.

Set aside a block of uninterrupted time to work on setting up your QuickBooks file. Dont try to complete the setup while youre in the middle of a busy workday. If you schedule your time before or after work hours, or on the weekend, setup should take a few hours.

Your goal while setting up is to provide as much information as necessary to get going, but not to provide all the details at once. For example, you could enter data for only your biggest customers and vendors. Later, you can enter customer and vendor data as you begin working in QuickBooks.

Or, if you have an especially large customer base, you may wish to hire a data entry clerk to complete this task for you. QuickBooks gives you three options. Express Start lets you start your QuickBooks company file using basic information. The Detailed Start lets you answer questions about your company in an interview format. The Create a New Company files based on existing one will be discussed in a later chapter.

It uses your answers to get you started quickly, by setting up the appropriate accounts and lists. In this lesson, youll create a new QuickBooks company for a business named Lockhart Design. Margaret Lockhart is the sole proprietor of this interior design firm.

Most of her income comes from consulting services, but she also sells products such as fabrics and room accessories to clients. At the first Welcome window for the EasyStep Interview, the Enter your company information window appears. In the Company name field, type Lockhart Design and press Tab.

When you press Tab, QuickBooks automatically enters the same name you typed into the Legal Name field. QuickBooks uses the company name on all reports. Press Tab and type the following information in the street address, city, province, and postal code fields. E-mail: margaret shaw. Your industry selection is used by the interview to ask questions and recommend features that work best for your business.

QuickBooks will recommend features that can best meet your business needs, such as:. Even if you own a type of company that isnt specifically listed, you should select the one thats closest. Margaret Lockhart does consulting, as well as retail sales, so well select a Retail company type.

On the Select your industry window, scroll down the list until you find Retail Shop or Online Commerce and select it. Although Lockhart Design receives most of its income from consulting, not from retail sales, the Retail company type will give us most of the accounts we need. Shell need to modify the chart of accounts later to include an income account for Consulting Income.

You also indicate the start of your fiscal year. Lockhart Design is a sole proprietorship: an unincorporated business with one owner. Click Sole Proprietorship to select it.

This tells QuickBooks to use the T1 tax form. When you create a new account, you can associate a tax line on which you would report the income or expenses tracked by the account. An account’s tax line associates each income and expense account with the appropriate tax form and line on your company income tax return.

You’ll see tax lines for the tax form you choose and for schedules and other forms typically filed with that tax form. This makes preparing income taxes easier and quicker, because it enables you to create tax reports to assist your accountant or to export and import your tax data into Turbo Tax, Turbo Tax for Incorporated Business, or Profile. The Set up your administrator password window appears. For this exercise, you dont need to set up a password.

Click Next to save the company file. In the Filename for New Company window, make sure that QuickBooks is set to save the file in the QBtrain folder you set up in the introduction to this guide. Click Save to accept the default filename of Lockhart Design. QuickBooks creates the company file. Based on your answers, QuickBooks sets preferences for the company file. The preferences enable certain features of the QuickBooks program.

In general, businesses either sell products or services, or both. Margaret Lockhart provides consulting services as well as selling products, such as fabrics. Click Next to move to the What do you sell? Click Both services and products to select it. QuickBooks uses this information to set recommendations for a retail-type business.

Margaret Lockhart does not do retail sales on a daily basis, so she will record her sales as they occur. In the How will you enter your sales in QuickBooks? Your screen should look like this:. Click Next. In the Do you sell products online? Margaret Lockhart has no plans to sell online.

You should turn the sales tax setting off only if you never charge sales tax. Margaret Lockhart typically charges sales tax, so well turn on sales tax in her company file.

Click Yes for the question, Do you charge sales tax? In your own business company file, you would edit these tax items to enter the current tax rates if necessary. QuickBooks will setup the taxes for you according to province where your business is located. Additional taxes can be added for other provinces if necessary. If the Invalid Business Number window appears, click Continue anyway. If you were setting up a real company, you would have a valid CRA business number issued, which you would use in this screen.

You can use the QuickBooks estimate form to prepare professional-looking itemized estimates, bids, quotes, or proposals for your customers.

You can customize a QuickBooks estimate to look and say exactly what you want it to. When it’s time to bill your customer, you can easily create an invoice from the estimate with just one click. QuickBooks then creates an invoice using information from your estimate. You can also associate price levels with your customers and use those price levels on estimates. When you need to know how accurate your estimates are, you can create reports that compare your estimated costs and revenue against your actual costs and revenue.

Creating estimates in QuickBooks will allow you to easily compare your actual costs against what you estimated. This will let you see how accurate your estimates are. You can track which estimates are still active and easily update each estimate as you continue to negotiate with your customers.

For this exercise, Margaret Lockhart creates proposals for her customers for their interior design projects, so she needs to enable estimates for her company. On the Do you want to create estimates in QuickBooks? On the next window, if you are using a QuickBooks: Premier Edition product, QuickBooks asks if you want to track sales orders. Click Yes, and then click Next. Simply click Yes or No, then click Next to move forward in the Interview.

For Lockhart Design, complete the preferences by giving the following responses: For this item Answering the series of questions about your business helps customize QuickBooks to meet your specific business needs. Next, youll set up your accounts. You can always change preference settings later, after the EasyStep Interview. From the Edit menu, choose Preferences, and then select the preference type in the left panel. To set up the chart of accounts, you need to:.

The chart of accounts is the framework used to categorize the information and transactions used to create reports. By using a chart of accounts and creating reports, youll always know the current state of your business. The chart of accounts is made up of five types of accounts common to all businesses and you categorize transactions into one of these five account types.

This is the starting point you want to use for all your QuickBooks accounts. The start date is the date for which you give QuickBooks a financial snapshot of your company assets and liabilities. Once you decide on a start date, you enter all your companys transactions since that date.

Thats why you should choose a start date thats not too far back in the past for you to handle. Many business owners like to use the last day of a financial period as their start date, such as the end of last fiscal year, last quarter, or last month. You need to enter all historical transactions from the day after your start date up through today. For example, if you decide on a start date of March 31, youd enter your historical transactions from April 1 up through today. QuickStart Tip.

When choosing the start date you want to use for your own QuickBooks company file, consider this question: Is having a lot of historical data important to you? If it is, youll want to choose a start date as close to the beginning of your fiscal year as possible. If historical data is not very important to you, you can make setup easier by choosing a start date as close to today as possible.

You only have to enter historical data between your start date and today. On the Using accounts in QuickBooks window, click Next. The Select a date to start tracking your finances window appears. When you create a new QuickBooks company, you select a company type that most closely matches your type of business, and QuickBooks sets up a chart of accounts for you. The chart of accounts is made up of five types of accounts common to all businesses the income and expense accounts used by the Profit and Loss Statement, and the asset, liability, and equity accounts used by the Balance Sheet.

Each time you enter a transaction, QuickBooks will prompt you to categorize it into one of these five types of accounts. Because you chose an industry from the list earlier in the Interview, QuickBooks has already created income and expense accounts for your company.

Next, youll view the preset income and expense accounts. In the Review income and expense accounts window, scroll through the preset accounts to get an idea of what is included. Note that from the list of accounts in this window you can remove or add accounts. If you see accounts you do not need, you can clear the checkmark for the account and QuickBooks removes it from the chart of accounts.

To add an account, click in the checkmark column. QuickBooks launches QuickBooks Setup window. From this window you can add the people you do business with like customers and Vendors.

You can also add the products and services you sell. QuickBooks also lets you add your bank accounts from this window. The balance sheet accounts in the QuickBooks chart of accounts start with an opening balance of zero.

Before you begin working in QuickBooks, you need to enter an opening balance for each balance sheet account as of your start date. The opening balance is important because QuickBooks cant give you an accurate balance sheet what your company owns and what it owes without it. An accurate balance sheet gives you a true picture of your companys finances. Also, if you start with an accurate balance as of a specific date, you can reconcile your QuickBooks bank accounts with your bank statements, and your QuickBooks chequing accounts will show the actual amount of money you have in the bank.

The easiest way to determine an accounts opening balance is to work from an accurate balance sheet. If you have a balance sheet as of your start date, you can take the opening balance from there. During the QuickBooks Setup, you can enter opening balances for bank accounts only. Youll learn later how to enter opening balances for accounts after youve completed the QuickBooks Setup.

Lets assume Margaret Lockhart wants to enter an opening balance for her chequing account. The opening balance for a QuickBooks bank account is the dollar amount in the bank on the start date.

This amount can be determined two ways: using the ending balance on the last bank statement on or immediately prior to the start date, or using the bank account balance from a balance sheet prepared by an accountant. Margaret has a recent bank statement for this account, so well use that method. From the Add your bank accounts section, click Add.

Enter the name for the first bank account in Account Name. Type Chequing as the name of the account. Just leave the Bank account number blank. Click Continue. If you print cheques from QuickBooks you can order cheques or add a reminder to order cheques at a later date. Click No Thanks, then click Continue. However, there are some additional tasks you might need do to make sure the company file is properly set up and that the data is complete.

If you take two minutes now to understand these basic concepts, you’ll be able to get started quickly and correctly with your company information. Customer: A customer is anyone who pays you. This can mean patients, donors, members, legal or consulting clients, or your typical retail customer. Vendor: A vendor is anyone you pay, except for employees. This can mean subcontractors, utility companies, your landlord, tax agencies, or suppliers.

For example you may want to create expense accounts to track office supply purchases separately from advertising costs. All accounts are listed on your chart of accounts. If you choose a tax form, you can associate accounts with tax lines, which would make preparing for tax time easier.

Item: An item is anything you want to put on an invoice. This includes products, services, labour, discounts, taxes and others. This section covers how to set up customers, vendors, and items, and how to add an income account. By entering details about the people and companies you do business with, you can personalize invoices, send invoices easily and quickly and view the status of their accounts.

You can add new customers at any time. QuickBooks lets you add multiple customers at one time. In the section labelled Add the people you do business with, click Add. Select Paste from Excel or enter manually, then click Continue. Select the type of name you would like to add to QuickBooks. You can enter the names manually completing each of the appropriate fields for the name including name, company name, email, phone and other fields. Type the name Smith, Lee in the Name field, then click tab to move to the next field.

In the Address field type 43 Hampshire Blvd,. Click Continue to add this customer. QuickBooks confirms the number of names to be added to your company file. Nearly everyone you pay, other than employees, is a vendor. You can add new vendors at any time. QuickBooks uses the Vendors list to hold information about the people and companies you do business with; for example, this list could include the phone company, your office supplies vendor, and your tax agency.

In the Add the people you do business with section, click Add More. Press Tab to move to the next field. In the First Name field type Maureen. In the Last Name field, type Fay.

In the Address field, type, Royal Rd. Click Continue to confirm the new vendor. You can think of an item as something that shows up as a line on an invoice or other sales or purchase form. Items help you fill out the line item area of a sales or purchase form quickly. When you choose an item from your Item list, QuickBooks fills in a description of the line item and calculates its amount for you.

While they provide a quick means of data entry, a much more important role for items is to handle the behind-the-scenes accounting. When you create an item, you link it to an account; when the item is used on a form, it posts an entry to that account and another entry to the appropriate accounts receivable, accounts payable, chequing, fixed asset, or other account.

When creating items, consider how much detail you want on your invoices or statements and set up items with that level of detail in mind. For example, if you are a seamstress who creates and sells home accessories, you can set up a single item and charge a flat rate for a certain size of couch pillow, or you can break that pillow down further into labour and materials.

QuickBooks provides several different types of items. Somesuch as the service item or the inventory part itemhelp you record the services and products your business sells. Otherssuch as the subtotal item or discount itemare used to perform calculations on the amounts in a sale. For Lockhart Design, youll set up a service item for billing the time used for initial consultation for a design project.