Introduction 1
About This Book 1
Foolish Assumptions 2
Icons Used in This Book 3
Beyond the Book 3
Where to Go from Here 3
Part 1: Quickly into QuickBooks 5
Chapter 1: QuickBooks: The Heart of Your Business 7
Why QuickBooks? 7
Why you need an accounting system 8
What QuickBooks does 9
Why not QuickBooks online? 10
What Explains QuickBooks’ Popularity? 11
What’s Next, Dude? 12
How to Succeed with QuickBooks 13
Budget wisely, Grasshopper 13
Don’t focus on features 14
Outsource payroll 15
Get professional help 16
Use both the profit and loss statement and the balance sheet 16
Chapter 2: The Big Setup 17
Getting Ready for QuickBooks Setup 17
The big decision 18
The trial balance of the century 19
The mother of all scavenger hunts 22
Stepping through QuickBooks Setup 23
Starting QuickBooks 23
Using the Express Setup 25
The Rest of the Story 32
Should You Get Your Accountant’s Help? 33
Chapter 3: Populating QuickBooks Lists 35
The Magic and Mystery of Items 35
Adding items you might include on invoices 37
Creating other wacky items for invoices 45
Editing items 48
Adding Employees to Your Employee List 49
Customers Are Your Business 51
It’s Just a Job 55
Adding Vendors to Your Vendor List 58
The Other Lists 62
The Fixed Asset Item list 63
The Price Level list 64
The Billing Rate Levels list 64
The Sales Tax Code list 64
The Class list 64
The Other Names list 65
The Sales Rep list 65
Customer, Vendor, and Job Types list 66
The Terms list 66
The Customer Message list 66
The Payment Method list 67
The Ship Via list 67
The Vehicle list 67
The Memorized Transaction list 67
The Reminders list 68
Organizing Lists 68
Printing Lists 68
Exporting List Items to Your Word Processor 69
Dealing with the Chart of Accounts List 69
Describing customer balances 70
Describing vendor balances 70
Camouflaging some accounting goofiness 70
Supplying the missing numbers 77
Checking your work one more time 79
Part 2: Daily Entry Tasks 81
Chapter 4: Creating Invoices and Credit Memos 83
Making Sure That You’re Ready to Invoice Customers 84
Preparing an Invoice 84
Fixing Invoice Mistakes 91
If the invoice is still displayed onscreen 91
If the invoice isn’t displayed onscreen 91
If you need to delete an invoice 92
Preparing a Credit Memo 92
Fixing Credit Memo Mistakes 96
Taking Lessons from History 96
Printing Invoices and Credit Memos 97
Loading the forms into the printer 97
Setting up the invoice printer 97
Printing invoices and credit memos as you create them 100
Printing invoices in a batch 101
Printing credit memos in a batch 103
Sending Invoices and Credit Memos via Email 104
Customizing Your Invoices and Credit Memos 105
Chapter 5: Reeling in the Dough 107
Recording a Sales Receipt 108
Printing a Sales Receipt 112
Special Tips for Retailers 114
Correcting Sales Receipt Mistakes 115
Recording Customer Payments 116
Correcting Mistakes in Customer Payments Entries 120
Making Bank Deposits 121
Improving Your Cash Inflow 124
Tracking what your customers owe 124
Assessing finance charges 125
Dealing with deposits 129
Chapter 6: Paying the Bills 131
Pay Now or Pay Later? 131
Recording Your Bills by Writing Checks 132
The slow way to write checks 132
The fast way to write checks 138
Recording Your Bills the Accounts Payable Way 140
Recording your bills 141
Entering your bills the fast way 144
Deleting a bill 146
Remind me to pay that bill, will you? 147
Paying Your Bills 148
Tracking Vehicle Mileage 152
Paying Sales Tax 153
Chapter 7: Inventory Magic 155
Setting Up Inventory Items 156
When You Buy Stuff 157
Recording items that you pay for up front 157
Recording items that don’t come with a bill 157
Paying for items when you get the bill 159
Recording items and paying the bill all at once 161
When You Sell Stuff 161
How Purchase Orders Work 162
Customizing a purchase order form 163
Filling out a purchase order 163
Checking up on purchase orders 166
Receiving purchase order items 166
Assembling a Product 167
Identifying the components 167
Building the assembly 167
Time for a Reality Check 169
Dealing with Multiple Inventory Locations 171
Manually keep separate inventory-by-location counts 171
Use different item numbers for different locations 171
Upgrade to QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 172
The Lazy Person’s Approach to Inventory 172
How periodic inventory systems work in QuickBooks 173
The good and bad of a periodic inventory 173
Chapter 8: Keeping Your Checkbook 175
Writing Checks 175
Writing checks from the Write Checks window 176
Writing checks from the register 177
Changing a check that you’ve written 179
Packing more checks into the register 180
Depositing Money in a Checking Account 181
Recording simple deposits 181
Depositing income from customers 182
Transferring Money between Accounts 184
Setting up a second bank account 185
Recording deposits into the new account 185
About the other half of the transfer 186
Changing a transfer that you’ve already entered 187
Working with Multiple Currencies 187
To Delete or to Void? 188
Handling NSF Checks from Customers 189
The Big Register Phenomenon 190
Moving through a big register 190
Finding that darn transaction 191
Chapter 9: Paying with Plastic 193
Tracking Business Credit Cards 193
Setting up a credit card account 194
Selecting a credit card account so that you can use it 195
Entering Credit Card Transactions 196
Recording a credit card charge 197
Changing charges that you’ve already entered 199
Reconciling Your Credit Card Statement and Paying the Bill 200
So What about Debit and ATM Cards? 201
So What about Customer Credit Cards? 201
Part 3: Stuff You Do from Time to Time 203
Chapter 10: Printing Checks 205
Getting the Printer Ready 205
Printing a Check 209
A few words about printing checks 209
Printing a check as you write it 209
Printing checks by the bushel 211
What if I make a mistake? 213
Oh where, oh where do unprinted checks go? 214
Printing a Checking Register 214
Chapter 11: Payroll 217
Getting Ready to Do Payroll without Help from QuickBooks 217
Doing Taxes the Right Way 218
Getting an employer ID number 218
Signing up for EFTPS 219
Having employees and employers do their part 219
Getting Ready to Do Payroll with QuickBooks 219
Paying Your Employees 221
Paying Payroll Liabilities 224
Paying tax liabilities if you use a full-meal-deal payroll service 224
Paying tax liabilities if you don’t use a full-meal-deal payroll service 224
Paying other nontax liabilities 225
Preparing Quarterly Payroll Tax Returns 225
Using the Basic Payroll service 226
Using a full-meal-deal payroll service 226
Using the QuickBooks Enhanced Payroll service 226
Filing Annual Returns and Wage Statements 227
The State Wants Some Money, Too 228
Chapter 12: Building the Perfect Budget 229
Is This a Game You Want to Play? 229
All Joking Aside: Some Basic Budgeting Tips 230
A Budgeting Secret You Won’t Learn in College 231
Setting Up a Secret Plan 232
Adjusting a Secret Plan 235
Forecasting Profits and Losses 235
Projecting Cash Flows 235
Using the Business Planner Tools 236
Chapter 13: Online with QuickBooks 237
Doing the Electronic Banking Thing 237
So what’s the commotion about? 237
A handful of reasons to be cautious about banking online 238
Making sense of online banking 241
Signing up for the service 241
Making an online payment 241
Transferring money electronically 243
Changing instructions 244
Transmitting instructions 244
Message in a bottle 245
A Quick Review of the Other Online Opportunities 246
Part 4: Housekeeping Chores 247
Chapter 14: The Balancing Act 249
Balancing a Bank Account 249
Giving QuickBooks information from the bank statement 250
Marking cleared checks and deposits 252
Eleven Things to Do If Your Non-Online Account Doesn’t Balance 256
Chapter 15: Reporting on the State of Affairs 259
What Kinds of Reports Are There, Anyway? 260
Creating and Printing a Report 262
Visiting the report dog-and-pony show 264
Editing and rearranging reports 265
Reports Made to Order 268
Processing Multiple Reports 270
Your Other Reporting Options 271
Last but Not Least: The QuickReport 272
Chapter 16: Job Estimating, Billing, and Tracking 273
Turning On Job Costing 273
Setting Up a Job 274
Creating a Job Estimate 275
Revising an Estimate 278
Turning an Estimate into an Invoice 278
Comparing Estimated Item Amounts with Actual Item Amounts 279
Charging for Actual Time and Costs 280
Tracking Job Costs 282
Chapter 17: File Management Tips 283
Backing Up Is (Not That) Hard to Do 283
Backing up the quick-and-dirty way 285
Getting back the QuickBooks data you backed up 289
Making an Accountant’s Copy 292
Working with Portable Files 292
Using an Audit Trail 293
Using a Closing Password 293
Chapter 18: Fixed Assets and Vehicle Lists 295
What Is Fixed-Assets Accounting? 295
Fixed-Assets Accounting in QuickBooks 297
Setting Up a Fixed Asset List 297
Adding items to the Fixed Asset list 298
Adding fixed-asset items on the fly 300
Editing items in the Fixed Asset list 300
Tracking Vehicle Mileage 302
Identifying your vehicles 302
Recording vehicle miles 303
Using the vehicle reports 304
Updating vehicle mileage rates 305
Part 5: The Part of Tens 307
Chapter 19: Tips for Handling (Almost) Ten Tricky Situations 309
Tracking Depreciation 309
Selling an Asset 310
Selling a Depreciable Asset 311
Owner’s Equity in a Sole Proprietorship 312
Owner’s Equity in a Partnership 312
Owner’s Equity in a Corporation 313
Multiple-State Accounting 314
Getting a Loan 314
Repaying a Loan 315
Chapter 20: (Almost) Ten Secret Business Formulas 317
The First “Most Expensive Money You Can Borrow” Formula 318
The Second “Most Expensive Money You Can Borrow” Formula 320
The “How Do I Break Even?” Formula 320
The “You Can Grow Too Fast” Formula 323
How net worth relates to growth 323
How to calculate sustainable growth 324
The First “What Happens If . . .?” Formula 325
The Second “What Happens If . . .?” Formula 327
The Economic Order Quantity (Isaac Newton) Formula 329
The Rule of 72 330
Part 6: Appendixes 333
Appendix A: Installing QuickBooks in 10 Easy Steps 335
Appendix B: If Numbers Are Your Friends 339
Keying In on Profit 339
Let me introduce you to the new you 339
The first day in business 340
Look at your cash flow first 340
Depreciation is an accounting gimmick 341
Accrual-basis accounting is cool 342
Now you know how to measure profits 343
Some financial brain food 343
In the Old Days, Things Were Different 344
What Does an Italian Monk Have to Do with Anything? 347
And now for the blow-by-blow 349
Blow-by-blow, Part 2 352
How does QuickBooks help? 354
Two Dark Shadows in the World of Accounting 354
The first dark shadow 354
The second dark shadow 355
The Danger of Shell Games 356
Appendix C: Sharing QuickBooks Files 357
Sharing a QuickBooks File on a Network 357
User permissions 357
Record locking 359
Installing QuickBooks for Network Use 359
Setting User Permissions 361
User permissions in Enterprise Solutions 361
User permissions in QuickBooks Pro and Premier 362
Specifying Multiuser Mode 364
Working in Multiuser Mode 364
Index 367
Stephen L. Nelson, MBA, CPA, MS in Taxation holds an MBA in finance and an MS in taxation. He has been an adjunct professor of taxation at Golden Gate University's graduate tax school, and today he is the managing member of a CPA firm. Steve's books on QuickBooks and Quicken have sold more than five million copies and have been translated into 11 languages.
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