QuickBooks Pro displays the “Home” window when you open a company file. In QuickBooks 2016, the Home window contains two tabs: “Home Page” and “Insights.” You can switch between the content of the two tabs by clicking their names shown on the tabs in the upper-left corner of the page. The Home window is shown by default whenever you open a new company file, but you can close it by clicking the small “X” in the upper right corner of the window.

In QuickBooks you have access to four main “Centers” called the “Customer Center,” the “Vendor Center,” the “Employee/Payroll Center,” and the “Report Center.” These centers allow you to perform many tasks associated with the topic of each center. For example, you can add new customers to your company file through the Customer Center. We will examine the tasks you can perform within the centers later in this tutorial within their associated chapters- however, you should learn how to access the centers now.

QuickBooks contains a Menu Bar at the top of the application window that lets you access all its commands and features. To perform a command, click a Menu Bar command category, like “File,” “Edit,” or “Lists,” to display a drop-down menu of sub-commands within the selected command category.

In QuickBooks, you enter information and perform tasks within many different windows. Unless you close the windows after using them, they remain open for ease of access. You can view a listing of the opened windows within QuickBooks to quickly switch between opened windows. This listing is called the “Open Windows” list. This feature allows you to quickly switch between opened windows without having to open and close them repeatedly while working.

Another tool that helps you complete the most common tasks in QuickBooks is the Icon Bar. The Icon Bar is located at the left side of the QuickBooks window by default. However, you can also place it at the top of the window, if you prefer. Note that changing its placement does impact some of its functionality in QuickBooks. The Icon Bar can also be hidden, if preferred.

You can customize the Icon Bar by adding and removing buttons. To do this, select “View| Customize Icon Bar…” from the Menu Bar to open the “Customize Icon Bar” window. All your current button choices are shown in the left window pane.

Although you do not have to be fluent in accounting terminology to understand QuickBooks, it is necessary to have a basic understanding of some accounting concepts prior to entering information into the program. The first concept to discuss is the “Chart of Accounts.” A chart of accounts is a listing of all the accounts used within your company file.

Once you begin your business, you need to decide which bookkeeping method to use- “Cash” or “Accrual.” This will determine the method used to report income and expenses on your tax forms. Please check with your accountant, tax advisor, or the IRS, before choosing a bookkeeping method for tax purposes.

You also need to know how to measure your company’s profitability. Two very important reports that assist you in figuring this out are the Balance Sheet and the Profit and Loss Statement (also called an Income Statement). These are most often the reports that will be requested by banks and CPAs.

You can use the Express Start feature to create a new company file. This feature simplifies and segments the steps in the EasyStep Interview into more manageable sections, so you can get started with QuickBooks more quickly. When you first open QuickBooks, the option to create a company file using the Express Start feature is displayed in the “QuickBooks Setup” screen.

In QuickBooks, you can also use the EasyStep Interview to create a company file. You complete the EasyStep Interview by entering information into different screens shown within the Interview. After entering information into a screen, you click the “Next >” button to proceed to the next screen and repeat the process. After answering all questions within all screens, you can click the “Go To Setup” button to start using QuickBooks.

You can leave the EasyStep Interview at any point after you have saved the company file by clicking the “Leave…” button in the lower left corner of the EasyStep Interview.

You should always backup your data to prevent data loss. You must be in single-user mode to do this. QuickBooks recommends you backup your files daily. That way, if the data in your company file becomes corrupted or lost, you can restore a copy of the file from a backup.

If you corrupt your company’s data file and need to restore the data from a local backup copy, you can- as long as you created local backup copies. You must, however, be in single-user mode to do this. When you restore your company file, you overwrite your corrupted company data with the data that you saved when you created the local backup copy. You will then have to re-enter all transactions that occurred from the date you created the backup copy up through the current day to bring your company file up to date.

QuickBooks lets you create user accounts and passwords for the individuals that will access your company file. You can decide which types of activities users can perform and what areas of the application they can access. You can set up users by selecting “Company| Set Up Users and Passwords| Set Up Users…” from the Menu Bar. That will open the “User List” dialog box.

Some activities, like creating a backup file or restoring a company file, require that you open QuickBooks in single-user mode. You must make sure all other users of the application are logged off before you switch user modes.

To close your company file, select “File| Close Company” from the Menu Bar. Doing this will leave the QuickBooks application open so that you may open up another company file, if you would like.

To open a company file in QuickBooks, you can select “File| Open or Restore Company…” from the Menu Bar. Alternately, if the “No Company Open” dialog box is showing onscreen, you can click the “Open or restore an existing company” button to launch the same dialog box.

In QuickBooks, you store much of the information for your company file in lists. In QuickBooks you keep lists for all of your vendors, customers, inventory items, and accounts. They are there so you will not need to retype information you use frequently every time you want to place it into a form. You also don’t need to enter all your information into the lists at startup.

One of the most important lists in QuickBooks is the chart of accounts. You can open this list by selecting “Lists| Chart of Accounts” from the Menu Bar. The chart of accounts lists all the accounts within your company file. These accounts track all incoming and outgoing money, and tell you how much you currently own and owe.

You can perform all activities associated with your customers through the Customer Center. While there are many features available in the Customer Center, one of the most important parts of it is the “Customers & Jobs” list. This list is where you can add, edit, and display all of your customer’s information as well as information for any jobs that you create for each customer, if you use the “Jobs” features in QuickBooks.

If you are using QuickBooks to handle payroll and indicated that you have employees during the EasyStep Interview, you can later setup payroll for your company file and then enter employees into the Employees tab in the Employee Center. The Employee Center allows you to handle all transactions that involve your employees and payroll.

You keep information about the companies and people from whom you purchase goods or services in the Vendors tab within the Vendor Center. In QuickBooks, you keep parts supply vendors, utility companies, subcontractors and more within this list. The list of vendors tends to be one of the larger lists you maintain. QuickBooks uses the information you enter to fill out purchase orders, bills, and checks as you make purchases for your company. You can open the Vendor Center by selecting “Vendors| Vendor Center” from the Menu Bar.

You can add your own customized fields to the “Customers & Jobs,” “Vendors,” “Employees,” and “Item” lists in QuickBooks. This allows you to create fields that will appear for each record in a list and lets you track information specific to your particular business.

You can sort information in QuickBooks lists manually or automatically. To manually sort items within a list, click and drag the small diamond at the left side of any list entry and drop it into a new location within the list. However, it is important to note you cannot manually arrange list items when automatic sorting is applied to a list.

In QuickBooks lists, you can only delete list items if you have not used them in any transactions. If you try to delete a list item that has been used in a transaction, QuickBooks will warn you that the item cannot be deleted. If you don’t want to use a list item but you can’t delete it, you can make it inactive, instead, to hide its display by default within the list.

To print a list, open the list to print and click the button in the lower left corner of the list. From the pop-up menu that appears, select “Print List.”

Although there is no specific “Rename” command within the QuickBooks lists, to rename a list item you simply open the “Edit [list item]” window for the selected item from the desired list. Then type a new name for the entry into the “Name” field at the very top of the window, and the entry will adopt the new name after you click the “OK” or “Save & Close” buttons to save your changes.

A feature that can improve the speed of company file creation is the ability to copy and paste data into lists within QuickBooks from Microsoft Excel. You can copy and paste data from an Excel worksheet into the “Customers,” “Vendors,” “Service Items,” “Inventory Part,” and “Non-inventory Part” lists.

Collecting and paying sales tax can be complicated for some companies. For example, a company may have to collect and pay more than one sales tax. Many companies have a mix of taxable and non-taxable products and services to sell, and many also have some customers that are taxable while other customers are not.

The first thing to do when setting up QuickBooks to collect sales tax is create the agencies for whom you collect sales taxes, and to whom you pay the sales taxes collected, as vendors within the Vendors List. This allows you to remit checks for the sales taxes collected to the selected vendors within QuickBooks when the time comes for you to pay sales tax. To review the process of adding a new vendor record to the Vendors list, please review lesson “3.5- The Vendors List.”

After creating the vendor records to indicate the agencies for whom you are collecting sales taxes, you then create the actual sales tax rates within the QuickBooks Item List. You can open the Item List by selecting “Lists| Item List” from the Menu Bar.

If you have to collect a combination of sales taxes that you report separately, like a county sales tax and a city sales tax, you don’t want to possibly confuse customers by itemizing the individual sales taxes you collect as separate line items within your sales forms. Many customers may mistakenly assume they are being taxed twice.

You should inspect your sales tax preferences within QuickBooks before you begin collecting sales taxes through your sales forms, in case you need to modify any of the default settings. To do this, select “Edit| Preferences…” from the Menu Bar to open the “Preferences” dialog box. In the scroll box at the left side of this screen, click the “Sales Tax” icon and then click the “Company Preferences” tab that appears to the right to set your company defaults for sales tax.

To collect sales taxes in QuickBooks, you must indicate who and what gets taxed within your company file. So, in the Customer:Job list, enter which customers are taxable and non-taxable on the “Sales Tax Settings” tab within the “New Customer” or “Edit Customer” windows. On this tab, select the default tax code for the customer from the “Tax Code” drop-down by choosing either “Tax” for taxable customers or “Non” for non-taxable customers.

For many companies, inventory is enabled if you create your company file using the “EasyStep Interview.” However, if you did not enable inventory when you created your company file, you can enable it at a later point in time. You can enable inventory within your company file and view the default inventory preferences, by selecting “Edit| Preferences…” from the Menu Bar.

You can set up “Inventory Part” items within the Item List to create items for which you want to track the quantity and value in QuickBooks. You cannot show inventory value for a manufacturing company, or where the inventory value is changed as it goes through a process, as it is simply too complex for QuickBooks to compute.

After entering inventory parts into the Item list, you need to order the items to keep your inventory parts stocked. While QuickBooks doesn’t require you to use purchase orders, it is recommended. If you use purchase orders, you can see what items you have ordered and when they are due to be received. You will also be able to compare items you receive against items listed in a purchase order.

After creating and submitting a purchase order to a vendor, you will either receive the inventory parts you ordered along with a bill for those parts, or you will receive the inventory ordered while the bill for the inventory arrives separately. In QuickBooks, you must receive the inventory ordered to sell the inventory.

When you receive inventory items from a purchase order, you have to enter the items into inventory to sell them within your sales forms. Sometimes you receive these items without a corresponding bill. In this case, you create an item receipt that you can later match to the vendor bill when it finally arrives.

When the vendor bill for items already received finally arrives, you must match the vendor bill to the item receipt that was created for those items when you received them. To do this, select “Vendors| Enter Bill for Received Items” from the Menu Bar to open the “Select Item Receipt” window.

When you have loss, spoilage, or send out samples of your products, you need to manually adjust your inventory levels. QuickBooks allows you to do this in the “Adjust Quantity/Value on Hand” window. To view this window, select “Vendors| Inventory Activities| Adjust Quantity/Value on Hand” from the Menu Bar.

You can set up “Service” items in the Item List for services you provide. This helps you avoid repeatedly typing line item information into sales forms. Like all items, you create “Service” items by first opening the “Item List.” To create a new “Service” item, click the “Item” button in the lower left corner of the list window and select the “New” command. In the “New Item” window, select “Service” from the “Type” drop-down.

You can create “Non-inventory Parts” in the Item List for items that are bought and/or sold, but not tracked as “inventory parts.” QuickBooks tracks neither the quantity on hand nor the value of “non-inventory part” items.

You can set up “Other Charge” items within the Item List. An “Other Charge” item can be used to collect amounts for things such as freight charges or photocopying charges in a sales form. You could also use it to collect membership dues or assess some other type of miscellaneous fee in a sales form.

You can set up “Subtotal” items in the Item List. A subtotal will total all the items within an invoice or sales receipt up to the last subtotal entered, if one was entered. This is useful for totaling all of the previous line items within an invoice before applying a discount to the subtotal amount.

You can create “Groups” in the Item List for items you may purchase individually, but want to display as a single line item in a sales form. For instance, if you sold gravel by the ton and also assessed a service charge for the delivery, you could create both the gravel (a “non-inventory part”) and the service charge (an “other charge”), and then create a “Group” (like “Gravel Delivery”) that consists of gravel and the delivery charge. That lets you show a single line item in the invoice, instead of two separate line items.

You can create “Discount” items in the Item List to discount the line item that was entered immediately above the “Discount” line item within a sales form. If you create a discount and use it in an invoice, it applies the discount to the line item amount directly above it- but not to any other line items previously entered. Therefore, this item is often used in conjunction with the “Subtotal” item in sales forms. For example, you can place the subtotal item underneath a list of line items within an invoice to get a subtotal amount, and then place the discount item under the subtotal item to remove the amount or percentage specified by the discount item from the subtotal.

You can create “Payments” in the Item List to subtract the amount of a customer payment from the total amount shown in an invoice when creating an invoice. You need a payment item when you receive a partial payment you need to apply to an invoice at, or before, the time you create the invoice. Note that this is not what is used when receiving full payment at the time of sale. In that case, you simply fill out a “Sales Receipt.”

While you can always edit an item’s price in the Item List by opening the “Edit Item” window and directly changing the price in that window, you can also change the price of multiple items in the Item List simultaneously. To do that, select “Customers| Change Item Prices” from the Menu Bar to open the “Change Item Prices” window.

When you sell anything for your company, you have to fill out one of the sales forms in QuickBooks. The sales form you use depends on whether you expect payment in the future or at the time of the sale. If you expect to be paid in the future, you fill out an invoice for the sale. Later on, you will match the customer payment you receive to the associated invoice. However, if you take full payment at the time of sale, you will instead fill out a sales receipt to give to the customer.

When a customer agrees to make a purchase for which payment will be made at a later point in time, you enter the sale into an invoice. The invoice lists the customer’s information, along with an itemized list of how much that customer owes for the goods or services purchased. To create an invoice, select “Customers| Create Invoices” from the Menu Bar. The particular invoice form used for the transaction can be changed by using the “Template” drop-down in the upper right corner of the invoice form to select the particular type of invoice to use for the transaction.

You can also easily create batch invoices to give multiple, selected customers an invoice for the same products or services. Before you create batch invoices, however, you should be sure you have the customer’s information recorded correctly within the “Customers & Jobs” list in the Customer Center. QuickBooks uses the customer information you have entered to “fill-in” the specific information for each customer when it creates the invoices. This includes the customer’s “Terms,” “Preferred Delivery Method,” sales tax, and address information. QuickBooks uses this information to specify the customer’s settings within each invoice created, as well as determine whether to print or email the invoice now or later.

If taking payment from the customer at the time of sale for a purchase they have made, you enter the transaction into a sales receipt. You can create a sales receipt by selecting “Customers| Enter Sales Receipts” from the Menu Bar. In the “Enter Sales Receipts” screen, you enter information in much the same way that you do within an invoice. Also, as with invoices, you can select which sales receipt template to use by choosing one from the “Template” drop-down available in the upper right corner of the form.

To find any transaction form at a later point in time, you can use the “Find” feature of QuickBooks to locate it. To find an invoice, or any other type of transaction, open the associated form for which you want to search. Using the example of finding an invoice, you would open the “Create Invoices” window.

To see how the currently opened sales form will look when printed, click the drop-down arrow below the “Print” button in the “Main” tab of the Ribbon at the top of the sales form and select the “Preview” command from the drop-down menu to show the print preview of the sales form.

To print invoices or sales receipts, open the form that contains the information you want to print and click the “Print” button in the “Main” tab of the Ribbon at the top of the invoice to open the “Print” dialog box, where you can set the printing parameters.

Sometimes businesses want to vary an item’s price when selling the item to different customer types. For instance, you may charge different rates to residential customers versus commercial customers. You can associate price levels with specific customers so each time you create a sales form for that customer, QuickBooks will use the appropriate price level when calculating rates and amounts for line items within sales forms for the selected customer.

You can set the default preferences for finance charges assessed in customer statements within the “Preferences” window in QuickBooks. To do this, select “Edit| Preferences…” from the Menu Bar to open the “Preferences” window where you can set the default behaviors of the currently opened company file.

Entering statement charges is the first step in preparing billing statements for customers. This can be an effective way to collect customer charges over a period of time for certain types of businesses that do not need to send out an invoice for each charge assessed to a customer. With statement charges, you simply enter the charges directly into each customer’s “accounts receivable” register as they are accrued. At the end of the billing cycle, you send the customer a billing statement that lists all the charges that are due or past due.

A QuickBooks statement prints information already recorded by statement charges and other receivables transactions. Therefore, you can’t edit the statement’s information directly within the statement window. A typical statement covers a time period and shows the customer’s previous balance, new charges, payments or credits you’ve received and applied to the account, and the new balance for the customer during the period specified. A statement can simply show information- like invoices sent to and payments received from a customer over a time period, or they can be used for billing- showing statement charges due and requesting payment of those charges.

If receiving payment at the time of sale, you fill out a sales receipt to record the customer payment. When you invoice a customer and receive payment on that invoice at a later point in time, you enter the payment into the QuickBooks “Receive Payments” window. This allows you to match customer payments to customer invoices. To open this window, select “Customers| Receive Payments” from the Menu Bar.

If entering a partial customer payment, begin by selecting “Customers| Receive Payments” from the Menu Bar to open the “Receive Payments” window. Select the name of the customer or customer:job from the “Received From” drop-down. Enter the partial payment date, amount, and payment method at the top of this window, just as when accepting a full payment. Unpaid invoices will appear at the bottom of the window.

You can also apply a single payment amount from a customer to multiple outstanding invoices for that customer by placing a checkmark in the checkmark column that appears to the left of the invoices against which you want to apply the cumulative payment amount received, until the total payment has been distributed to the correct invoices.

If the customer pays you more than is due, you can enter the entire amount received into the “Receive Payments” window. The amount left over after you have applied the entire amount to outstanding invoices will be shown in the “Overpayment” area at the bottom left corner of the “Receive Payments” window. You can then select an option button shown in this area to indicate what you want QuickBooks to do with this overpayment.

Just as when you receive an overpayment, if a customer gives you a down payment or prepayment which you want to take and then invoice them at a later date, you can enter the entire payment received for the customer or customer:job into the “Receive Payments” window. Since they have no outstanding invoice against which to apply the amount entered, the entire amount will be saved as a customer credit when you click either the “Save & Close” or “Save & New” buttons.

When a customer overpays you, or gives you a down payment or prepayment, you record the amount received in the “Receive Payments” window. Doing this creates a credit for the customer or customer:job specified. Later on, after you have created an invoice for the specific customer or customer:job, you can return to the “Receive Payments” window to apply the customer’s existing credit.

When you receive funds from customers in the “Receive Payments” window and place the funds into the “Undeposited Funds” asset account, QuickBooks tracks that money until it is actually deposited into the bank. When you’re ready to take the payments to the bank, you can record the deposit in QuickBooks and group the various payments you received and placed into the “Undeposited Funds” account into a single amount that is shown as being deposited into your selected bank account.

QuickBooks has an easy way to handle bounced checks received from customers as payments against invoices or received as payment within sales receipts. This feature will mark the previously paid invoice or sales receipt as “Unpaid,” remove the funds received from your bank account, allow you to enter any bank service fees assessed by your bank, and also create a new invoice for these fees that you can give to the customer who bounced the check. This is a terrific feature that allows you to easily deal with a situation that often caused many headaches when it occurred.

You can easily refund a customer’s purchase if they return merchandise by creating a credit memo and then issuing a refund check. To do this, first create a credit memo for the return. After creating the credit memo, then create a refund check for the amount of the credit memo to refund the customer.

If a customer overpays an invoice or statement, or gives you a down payment or prepayment, you create a credit for that customer when you enter the payment into the “Receive Payments” window. Later on, if the customer requests that you send the amount back, or cancels the order, you can issue a refund check on the credit for the payment that you accepted.

You can set the bill payment preferences before using the Accounts Payable features of QuickBooks by selecting “Edit| Preferences…” from the Menu Bar to open the “Preferences” window. Click the “Bills” icon at the left side of the “Preferences” window and then click the “Company Preferences” tab that appears at the right side of the window to view and set the default billing preferences.

You should always enter bills into QuickBooks as soon as you receive them. To enter a bill, select “Vendors| Enter Bills” from the Menu Bar to open the “Enter Bills” window. The top half of the “Enter Bills” window is where you enter the bill information. The bottom half of the window is where you assign the bill amount to different expense accounts, or list the inventory items purchased.

To pay bills you have entered, open the “Pay Bills” window by selecting “Vendors| Pay Bills” from the Menu Bar. At the top of the “Pay Bills” window, select either the option button to show bills “Due on or before” a date you select or to “Show all bills.” Place a checkmark in front of the bill or bills to pay by clicking within the column to the left of those bills. QuickBooks will place the amount to pay for each bill selected into the rightmost “Amt. To Pay” column. Notice that this is a white column. If necessary, you can change the amount shown here to make a partial payment on a selected bill.

If you take advantage of discounts for early bill payment offered by some vendors, you can record the discounts directly in the “Pay Bills” window when you pay the bills by the date specified by your vendor’s terms. This allows you to let QuickBooks track the discount amounts. You can manually take this discount as you pay the bill in the “Pay Bills” window if you do not have QuickBooks set up to automatically take vendor discounts and credits.

If you receive a credit from a vendor that you want to enter and later use against the next bill you receive from them, you can easily do that in QuickBooks. To enter the vendor credit, open the “Enter Bills” window by selecting “Vendors| Enter Bills” from the Menu Bar. Select the option button for “Credit” at the top of the “Enter Bills” window. The word “Credit” should appear in the top of the form.

If you’ve received a credit from a vendor and entered it into QuickBooks, you can use it on the next payment you make to that vendor. You can manually take this credit as you pay the next bill in the “Pay Bills” window, if you do not have QuickBooks set to automatically apply discounts and credits.

You can enter checks directly into the checking account register rather than through the “Write Checks” window, if you prefer. This doesn’t allow you to see how the check will appear if printed, but it may seem familiar to you since it looks like a typical checkbook register. Also, for businesses that may not write very many checks or do not use QuickBooks for printing checks, it may simply be easier to transfer the information from the paper check register into this register for accounting purposes.

In QuickBooks you can enter checks directly into the QuickBooks “Write Checks” window. When you enter a check into this form, you can see address information and easily allocate the check’s amount between multiple accounts, if necessary, at the bottom of the “Write Checks” window. This form also corresponds to the “check” entries made in the register for the selected checking account.

If you don’t use purchase orders to acquire inventory item parts you sell to customers, you can write a check to purchase inventory items, instead. To write a check for “Inventory Part” items you have created in your “Item List,” select “Banking| Write Checks” from the Menu Bar to display the “Write Checks” window.

You can click the “Print Later” checkbox that appears in the “Main” tab of the Ribbon at the top of the “Write Checks” window to save it and print it later. To print your checks later, open the “Write Checks” window by selecting “Banking| Write Checks” from the Menu Bar.

You can easily transfer money between accounts within QuickBooks by using the “Transfer Funds Between Accounts” window. You can access this window by selecting “Banking| Transfer Funds” from the Menu Bar.

Reconciling is the process of ensuring that your checking account record in QuickBooks matches the bank statement for the account. Reconciling your checking account is a very good habit because it allows you to spot bank errors and avoid overdraft fees. When reconciling accounts, the goal is to make the bank statement and your account balance within QuickBooks match. While you will most commonly reconcile your checking account, you can also reconcile several different types of accounts, if desired- such as other asset accounts, for example.

You can void a check that you have created, if necessary. To void a check, open the check you would like to void and display it in the “Write Checks” window. Then, select “Edit| Void Check” from the Menu Bar to void the check displayed in the “Write Checks” window. When you click either the “Save” button in the “Main” tab of the Ribbon at the top of the “Write Checks” window or click the “Save & Close” button at the bottom of the window to save the changes to the check, QuickBooks may offer to create two journal entries to maintain the accuracy of your financial reports and account balances.

If you are required to collect sales tax from customers, you must also make periodic payments of the sales tax you have collected to the appropriate taxing authorities. QuickBooks gives you three ways to view the amount of your sales tax liability. You can use either the “Sales Tax Liability” report, the “Sales Tax Payable” register, or the “Pay Sales Tax” window to view your sales tax liability amounts.

Each time you create an invoice or sales receipt that includes sales tax, QuickBooks enters the information into your “Sales Tax Payable” account register. QuickBooks keeps track of transactions for all tax vendors using the same “Sales Tax Payable” account. You can open the “Sales Tax Payable” register to inspect the entries by opening the “Chart of Accounts” list and then double-clicking the “Sales Tax Payable” account within the list.

When the time comes to pay the sales tax, you MUST use the “Pay Sales Tax” window to write a check to the tax agency or agencies. You open the “Pay Sales Tax” window by selecting “Vendors| Sales Tax| Pay Sales Tax…” from the Menu Bar.

You can set the default personal and company preferences for reports and graphs created in QuickBooks by changing the settings within the “Preferences” dialog box. You can access these settings by selecting “Edit| Preferences…” from the Menu Bar to open the “Preferences” dialog box.

One way to see a report on your QuickBooks data is to create a QuickReport. QuickReports are predesigned reports that display information about the items you are currently viewing onscreen. Whenever you have a list, a register, or a form displayed onscreen, you can click a button or hyperlink to have QuickBooks create a QuickReport on the data displayed.

When viewing reports displayed within QuickBooks you will often see transaction data, or summary totals of transaction data. You can use the QuickZoom feature when viewing reports within QuickBooks to show the detail data used to display summary values in reports. These details will appear in a separate report window. You can also use this feature on any transaction detail entry displayed within a detail report to open the transaction itself in a separate window.

In addition to QuickReports that you can view on any selected data or any displayed form, QuickBooks also provides dozens of preset reports you can view, customize, and save as your own custom reports. The preset reports include many different types of standard business reports, such as the profit and loss report, balance sheet report, accounts receivable reports, sales reports, accounts payable reports, inventory reports, and many other types of useful business reports.

While the preset reports provided in QuickBooks are very useful, you will probably also want to create custom reports for your company file. You can create reports that either detail or summarize the data stored in your QuickBooks company file. You can create a custom transaction detail or summary report from scratch to specify all of the report’s features, or you can modify one of the preset reports to display the data you want. Modifying a preset report can often save you a few steps when creating a custom report, especially if there is a preset report that closely resembles the data you want to see.

You can rearrange the order of columns from left to right within any transaction detail report in QuickBooks. To do this, display the transaction detail report whose columns you want to rearrange onscreen. For the column you want to move, place your mouse pointer over the column name shown in the column headings at the top of the report until you see the mouse pointer change into a “hand” icon. Then click and drag the column left or right. As you are dragging the column, you will see a small upward-pointing red arrow appear between the column names. This arrow indicates where the column will be placed when you release the mouse button. When it is in the desired location, release the mouse button to move the column to the selected location.

After you have modified a report, you can have QuickBooks memorize the report so you can quickly reproduce the same report in the future without having to reapply all of the report customizations.

As you begin to create custom reports within QuickBooks, you can create memorized report groups to organize the memorized reports in a way that makes sense for your company. Memorized report groups allow you to quickly print or view a batch of memorized reports at once.

You can easily print any report displayed in QuickBooks. To do this, open the report you want to print, click the “Print” button in the toolbar of the report, and then select the “Report” command from the drop-down menu. That will display the “Print Reports” window where you can set options for the printer that you would like to use, page orientation, page breaking behavior, the print range, and the number of copies of the report.

If you want to “batch print” a set of forms, like all your paychecks or all your bill payment checks, you can. You can also print mailing labels and other assorted forms in QuickBooks.

You can export report data from QuickBooks to Microsoft Excel. You must have Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016 or Office 365 for this feature to work and either QuickBooks Pro or Premier. Since the data is exported to Excel, changes you make to it in Excel will not impact the data in QuickBooks. So feel free to change it as needed in Excel. To do this, open the report you want to export. Then click the “Excel” button in the toolbar at the top of the report and select either the “Create New Worksheet” or “Update Existing Worksheet” commands, as needed.

In QuickBooks, you can save any report, invoice, estimate or other form as a PDF (Portable Document Format) file that you can send as an e-mail attachment through your e-mail program.

QuickBooks Pro allows you to comment on line items within reports. Reports with commentary can be saved within QuickBooks into a special “Commented Reports” group. In this lesson, you will learn how to comment on reports in QuickBooks and manage your commented reports.

You can batch print, batch display, or batch email reports you have added to the “Memorized Report List.” You can also batch print, display, or email commented reports saved to the “Commented Reports” list.

While a report can show numbers that are critical to understanding the overall health of your company, some people like a visual representation of the data. That’s where graphs come into play in QuickBooks. A QuickInsight graph shows your data as either a bar graph or a pie chart (except for the “Budget vs. Actual” and “Net Worth” graphs). The bar graphs and pie charts are just different visual ways of presenting the same financial information that you view in a typical report. QuickBooks has six types of graphs that can provide up to 15 different views of your data.

The “Company Snapshot” shows multiple graphs and information from lists as independent “widgets” within the “Company Snapshot” window. You can interact with some of the widgets within the “Company Snapshot” window to perform basic tasks. You can use the drop-downs and click the links within the widgets shown to change widget settings and perform other tasks related to the widget.

Every form you enter information into has its own layout of fields, images, and labels used for data entry and printed display. In QuickBooks, you can customize the layout of a form to better suit your company’s needs. For example, there are three preset formats for invoices: professional, service, and product. If these templates don’t precisely fulfill your needs, you can customize them, as needed. You can also customize more than invoices in QuickBooks.

After selecting a type of form to customize, the “Basic Customization” window appears onscreen. This window displays the most commonly used and basic customization options for forms. You can make any changes to the options shown here, and examine how your choice impacts the preview of the form shown at the right side of the window.

After applying basic form customization to a template in the “Basic Customization” window, you can click the “Additional Customization…” button to set additional form customization options within the “Additional Customization” window. The “Additional Customization” window uses several tabs to display different sets of options for customizing various sections of the selected type of form. Each area within the form is represented by a tab. Click the name of the tab that corresponds to the area of the form you would like to customize.

The “Layout Designer” window lets you change the appearance and placement of data fields, text boxes, labels, and images within the printed version of the form template. Within the “Layout Designer” window you will see the printed version of the form within the main screen, surrounded by a ruler at the left and top sides for measurement purposes. You should also see the margins of the printed version of the form. There is also a grid displayed onscreen you can use to align onscreen objects. You can scroll the content within the window to view the objects within the printed version of the form template.

Before changing the layout of objects within the “Layout Designer” window, ensure that the margins and the grid shown onscreen are set as needed. The margins and grid aid you in placing objects into the correct positions within the form so they will appear correctly when printed.

Before you can perform any task within the “Layout Designer” window, you must learn how to select the form objects shown within the window. To select an object within the “Layout Designer” window, click it to select it. When an onscreen object is selected, it appears with a border comprised of slashes and containing eight squares on the corners and sides of the object. These squares are the resizing handles used to resize the object.

To move selected objects within the “Layout Designer” window, click and drag the objects from one place to another in the form. To resize a selected object, place your mouse pointer over one of the resizing squares until the mouse pointer turns into a double-pointed arrow.

You can change the text, border, and background of a text box or data field within the “Layout Designer” window. To do this, double-click the text box or data field you want to format to open the “Properties” dialog box. Alternately, you can select a text box or data field and then click the “Properties…” button in the toolbar at the top of the “Layout Designer” window to also open the “Properties” dialog box.

You can easily copy a selected object within the “Layout Designer” window by clicking the “Copy” button within the toolbar at the top of the window. The copy of the selected object will appear slightly down and to the right of the original. You can move the copy to a new place within the window and edit it, as needed.

To add additional text boxes, data fields, and images to a form, click the “Add” drop-down button in the toolbar at the top of the “Layout Designer” window. From the drop-down menu that appears, choose the type of object to add to the form: “Text Box,” “Data Field,” or “Image.”

In QuickBooks you must manually align objects to one another by clicking and dragging the objects into position and using the grid for alignment of the left and right edges. You must also manually align objects vertically by clicking and dragging the objects and using the grid for alignment. To center two differently sized objects over one another horizontally, you can use the “Horz” button within the “Center” button group in the toolbar at the top of the “Layout Designer” window.

If you are customizing a form that contains a line items area, you can resize the columns displayed within the line items area within the printed version of the form. To do this, simply click once on the columns shown towards the bottom of the form within the “Layout Designer” window to select the entire table of columns. Then place your mouse pointer between any two columns, to the left or right of the column that you want to resize, until the mouse pointer turns into an icon of a single vertical line intersected by a horizontal arrow. When the mouse pointer changes, click and drag either left or right to increase or decrease the size of the columns.

Project-based businesses that want to track income and expenses for customer projects can use the “Jobs” feature within QuickBooks to do this. You can create a job for a customer in the “Customers & Jobs” list. To do this, open the “Customer Center” window and select the name of the customer for whom you want to make a job within the “Customers & Jobs” list. Then click the “New Customer & Job” button in the upper-left corner of the Customer Center and choose the “Add Job” command from the drop-down to open the “New Job” window.

An estimate is a preliminary sales proposal that is often created for a customer’s job. You can create multiple estimates for each customer or each job. If the customer accepts an estimate, you can create an invoice from the estimate, changing it as needed. QuickBooks allows you to create invoices from estimates either by transferring the entire estimate amount to an invoice or by billing only a portion or percentage of the estimate amount over several invoices. The ability to bill for only a percentage of the estimate or for various amounts of selected items in an estimate is called progress invoicing or partial billing.

You can also create multiple estimates for the same job, if needed. For example, you may need to do this if you have a client that needs a few different pricing options for a job, and thus needs multiple estimates for the same job. You can easily duplicate and modify an existing estimate, versus creating an entirely new estimate for the same job, to save time performing data entry.

After you have created an estimate and the customer has accepted it, you can use the estimate to invoice the customer. You can either send them an invoice for the entire amount or send them several invoices for smaller portions of the total estimated amount. This is called progress invoicing.

Each time the status of a job changes, you should update its status in the “Customers & Jobs” list within the “Customer Center” window. For example, if you began work on a job that was labeled “Pending,” you should update the information for the job to reflect the fact that you have started work on it.

If you have a customer with multiple outstanding estimates for a job that accepts one of the estimates, you should make any other estimates for that job inactive. When you make an estimate inactive, QuickBooks keeps a record of it, but removes its value from the total estimated amount for the selected job.

You can assign purchases you make to a specific customer or job, so you can later bill the customer for those costs. To do this, use the drop-down within the “Customer:Job” column that appears in the line item area within forms such as the “Enter Bills” window to select the name of the customer:job you will be billing for the purchase as you create a bill in the “Enter Bills” window.

If you assign job costs you incur to the correct customer:job, then the next time that you create an invoice for that customer:job, you can bill for the job costs. To do this, create an invoice by selecting “Customers| Create Invoices” from the Menu Bar. Then use the “Customer:Job” drop-down to select the customer:job to which you have assigned job costs.

QuickBooks provides you with various reports that display general job information, job costing information, and estimate information. You can access these reports from the “Reports” menu within the Menu Bar, under the “Jobs, Time & Mileage” report category in QuickBooks Pro.

QuickBooks provides time tracking for any job. Time tracking lets you keep track of the time a person spends on each job. The person whose time you track can be an employee, an owner, a partner, or a subcontractor, as long as you have created the subcontractor as a vendor within the “Vendors” list.

You can use the “Weekly Timesheet” window to enter the hours worked by a person within a week, what they did, for which customer:job, and, optionally, how much you paid them. You can open the “Weekly Timesheet” window by choosing “Employees| Enter Time| Use Weekly Timesheet” from the Menu Bar.

You can use the “Time/Enter Single Activity” timesheet to enter the hours worked by a person, what they did, for which customer:job, and, optionally, how much you paid them to do it for a single day. You can open the “Time/Enter Single Activity” window by selecting “Employees| Enter Time| Time / Enter Single Activity” from the Menu Bar.

After recording the time that your employees or subcontractors spend performing services for a customer’s job, you can bill the customer for the work performed in an invoice. To do this, create an invoice by selecting “Customers| Create Invoices” from the Menu Bar. Then use the “Customer:Job” drop-down to select the customer:job to which you have assigned billable time.

QuickBooks provides you with reports that assist you in time tracking. They can be accessed by selecting “Reports| Jobs, Time & Mileage” from the Menu Bar in QuickBooks Pro.

You can track mileage for vehicles in QuickBooks so you have a record of vehicle mileage for tax purposes. You can also assign mileage to a specific customer job, so you can bill the customer for the mileage, if needed. There are some limitations to the use of this data, however. You cannot use the data to reimburse employees or vendors for mileage. You also cannot track specific vehicle expenses like tolls paid, gas, and other types of expenses.

As long as you entered vehicle mileage, marked it as billable, and assigned it to a customer job, you can invoice the customer:job to collect the mileage. To do this, create an invoice by selecting “Customers| Create Invoices” from the Menu Bar. Use the “Customer:Job” drop-down to select the customer:job to which you have assigned billable mileage.

Before you can use the payroll features of QuickBooks, you must set up payroll for your company in QuickBooks. To find out how to do this, select “Employees| Payroll| Turn on Payroll in QuickBooks” from the Menu Bar. In the window that appears, you can evaluate the payroll plans and purchase a payroll plan through QuickBooks to begin the setup of your initial payroll data.

QuickBooks maintains a list of all the items that affect payroll amounts, including payroll expenses, in the “Payroll Item” list. There are payroll items for compensation, taxes, other additions and deductions, and employer-paid expenses. QuickBooks uses payroll items to track individual amounts on a paycheck and accumulated year-to-date wage and tax amounts for each employee.

You can store information you want to set as the default values when you create a new employee record within the “employee defaults” in the “Employees” list. After setting default employee values, when you later add a new employee, QuickBooks will automatically fill-in the default information from the employee defaults so you won’t need to re-enter it. All you need to do is enter employee-specific information.

You can enter employee payroll information when you add new employees to the “Employees” list within the “New Employee” window. You can also edit the employee’s payroll data by using the “Edit Employee” window, if the payroll info changes. In either the “New Employee” or “Edit Employee” windows, you can enter or edit payroll information by selecting the “Payroll Info” tab at the left side of either window.

In QuickBooks, you will most often create employee paychecks by using the scheduled payroll feature. However, if needed, you can also print unscheduled employee paychecks, as well as termination paychecks.

You can create and print employee paychecks for a scheduled payroll by either selecting “Employees| Pay Employees| Scheduled Payroll” from the Menu Bar or by clicking the “Pay Employees” button in the Home page to open the “Employee Center: Payroll Center” window.

You can also create unscheduled paychecks for additional checks, such as bonus checks. You can select “Employees| Pay Employees| Unscheduled Payroll” from the Menu Bar to open the “Enter Payroll Information” window. Here you manually set the “Pay Period Ends” and “Check Date.” Then select the account from which the funds will be withdrawn from the “Bank Account:” drop-down. Place a checkmark next to the names of the employees to pay. Then click the “Continue” button to continue creating the paychecks.

To create termination paychecks when an employee leaves, select “Employees| Pay Employees| Termination Check” from the Menu Bar to open the “Enter Payroll Information” window. Manually set the “Pay Period Ends” and “Check Date.” Then select the account from which the funds will be withdrawn from the “Bank Account:” drop-down. Place a checkmark next to the names of the employees who need a termination check. To the right of their names, under the “Release Date” column, enter the employee’s release date. This information will be updated within their employee record when you create the paychecks. Then click the “Continue” button to continue creating the paychecks.

Although rarely required, you can void paychecks, if needed. Unlike other types of checks, voiding a paycheck affects tax and liability calculations and payments, and is only performed as a last resort. Most paycheck errors can be resolved by correcting mistakes and reissuing the paychecks, or by correcting incorrect amounts issued in the next paycheck.

As the employer, you need to track both payroll expenses and payroll liabilities. The payroll expenses you need to track are the employee’s gross pay and the employer’s payroll taxes. QuickBooks uses an account called “Payroll Expenses” to track the actual costs to your company. Whatever funds you deduct from employee paychecks aren’t shown here. Those funds are placed into an account called “Payroll Liabilities.” That makes it easy to see what payroll taxes you owe, so that you can have the necessary cash available for payment.

Once you are ready to write a check for the payroll liabilities, you must create a “Liability Check.” Do NOT create a check using the “Write Checks” window or an account register to pay payroll liabilities! Unless you use the method shown, QuickBooks will not properly adjust the Payroll Liabilities account! When you write a check (or enter a General Journal entry) against the “Payroll Liabilities” account without specifying which specific liabilities to adjust, the total amount of the adjustment is disbursed amongst the individual liabilities, which causes the balance of each individual liability to be incorrect! While you can fix it by making liability adjustments to the individual liabilities, it is tedious to fix and best avoided.

If you are using Assisted Payroll, you can’t adjust the liability balance for liabilities paid by the payroll service, meaning the federal and state tax liabilities. However, you can adjust the liability balance for local or other taxes not supported by the payroll service.

If you overpay your payroll liabilities and taxes, you may receive a refund check which you need to record in QuickBooks to correct your liability balance. To do this, select “Employees| Payroll Taxes and Liabilities| Deposit Refund of Liabilities” from the Menu Bar.

If you are subscribed to a QuickBooks payroll service, you can print your annual and quarterly federal payroll forms by selecting “Employees| Payroll Tax Forms & W-2’s| Process Payroll Forms” from the Menu Bar.

If you use QuickBooks and subscribe to the QuickBooks Enhanced Payroll service, you can take advantage of the workers compensation tracking feature to manage tracking workers compensation hours and make the required payments. You must, however, set up the workers compensation feature before you run a payroll. If you do not, the information may be inaccurate or incomplete. Also, this feature must be enabled at the beginning of the insurance policy coverage year to completely track the information within QuickBooks. There is no way to enter “year-to-date” data if starting in the middle of the insurance coverage year. In that case, you must combine the data in QuickBooks with any information you have manually tracked to get the correct totals for the year.

You should set up a QuickBooks credit card account in the Chart of Accounts for each credit card you use for your business. Like any QuickBooks account, a credit card account has its own register. The register lists all the charges and credits you’ve recorded, as well as payments you’ve made.

QuickBooks allows you to choose when you enter credit card charges. You can enter credit card charges incrementally as you make charges to the credit card, or you can enter all credit card charges as lump amounts for each account when you receive the credit card bill. Your choice depends on whether it is better for your business to enter charges incrementally, or all at once.

If you enter credit card charges incrementally, you can reconcile the entries made against the credit card bill when it arrives. This is helpful in preventing unauthorized charges on the card. Reconciling a credit card account is almost identical to reconciling a bank account.

QuickBooks has two account types that track the value of short-term and long-term assets. The Other Current Asset account tracks assets likely to be converted into cash, or used up, within one year. Examples of “Other Current Asset” accounts include prepaid expenses and short-term notes receivable. A Fixed Asset account tracks assets your business owns that are NOT likely to be converted into cash or used up within a year. “Fixed Asset” accounts track the value of long-lived assets with a larger value that assist you in performing your business. The value of these items are expensed over the “useful life” of the asset, which will vary. Examples include furniture, some office equipment, computers, and vehicles.

The “Other Current Asset” account type tracks assets your company expects to use up or convert into cash in the next year. Other current assets might include short-term notes receivable, or prepaid expenses. Your inventory account is an example of an other current asset.

In this lesson, you will learn how to enter a “General Journal Entry” to decrease the value of an other current asset account. Let’s use the example from the last lesson of the “Prepaid Rent” other current asset account into which five months of prepaid rent was placed. As you later incur your monthly rent expense of $1,000 per month over the next five months, you will use up part of the prepaid rent expense and enter each change to the value of that account either through the “General Journal Entry” window or by making an entry directly into the register for that account. So for each of the following five months, decrease the amount of the rent as it is actually incurred from the “Prepaid Rent” other current asset account and assign the value of the rent to the “Rent” expense account.

A “Fixed Asset” account tracks assets your business owns that are NOT likely to be converted into cash within a year. A fixed asset is something of significant value that is necessary for the operation of your business, like vehicles, computers, furniture, and some office equipment. Many times the purchase of a fixed asset will also incur a long-term liability, such as when acquiring an auto loan to buy a new vehicle.

You can create liability accounts to track amounts you need to pay to someone else. If the liability is to be paid off within the year, it is an “Other Current Liability.” If you have a line of credit, that would be an example of an other current liability.

When purchasing a fixed asset, attribute any amounts spent or borrowed to buy the fixed asset directly to the “Original Cost” subaccount.

Your accountant should provide you with the amounts to enter for depreciation on your fixed assets. They should at least double-check your depreciation entries. After you have those amounts, you can enter them into the “Decrease” column of the “Accumulated Depreciation” subaccount’s register you created for the fixed asset.

Assuming you have all of the relevant information about a loan, you can enter the loan into the Loan Manager to set up a payment schedule. Using the Loan Manager allows you to manage all the loans you need to pay from a single screen.

You can use the “Fixed Asset Item List” to track your individual fixed assets. You can use this list to enter information about the purchase price of an asset, its purchase date, and whether the asset was new or used at purchase. You can also enter the asset’s sale price if you decide to sell the asset at a later point in time.

Equity is basically the difference between what you have (your assets) and what you owe (your liabilities). If you sold all your assets today and paid off your liabilities using the money received from the sale of your assets, the money you’d have left over would be your equity.

If your company is a sole proprietorship, you can take draws against the equity you have in your company.

As an owner of a sole proprietorship or partnership, a capital investment is personal money you, or a business partner, invests into your business. You use an equity account to track capital investments. You may call it something like “Owner’s Equity:Owner’s Contributions.”

Since you are already keeping much of your vendor and customer information in QuickBooks, it can be useful to note you can also send customized letters to them without having to retype much of the information. QuickBooks provides you with a variety of different business letters you can edit, as needed, to suit your particular company.

While you can make small changes to each letter as you print them individually, you can also enforce global editing changes to all future copies of a letter by editing the letter template, which is the original copy of the letter, to make changes to all future copies of the letter you produce.

If you move or get a new phone number, you’ll want to change your company’s information to reflect that update. To update your company’s information in QuickBooks, select “Company| My Company…” from the Menu Bar.

Budgets can be created for either Profit and Loss or Balance Sheet accounts, but they do have to be account-based. You can create them from scratch, from actual data from the previous fiscal year, or from the previous fiscal year's budget. A budget is uniquely identified by its fiscal year, the account type (either Profit and Loss or Balance Sheet) and if desired, further identified by Customer:Job or Class.

You can remind yourself of tasks you want to complete by a certain date. You can look at your notes in the “To Do” list at any time, or you can use the “Reminders” list to see the notes whose dates are due.

A nice feature of the QuickBooks program is that when you open it up, you can have reminders appear to tell you if you have transactions to complete, such as paying your bills or depositing funds.

You can create general journal entries to record transactions you don’t enter through other forms and screens in QuickBooks. Actually, you create general journal entries when you make entries directly into the account registers for transactions like depreciation expense transactions. While QuickBooks is a terrific program because it simplifies accounting using the concept of checking registers, you can still create general journal entries if you prefer to work with more traditional credits and debits.

You can use the data you have already entered into QuickBooks along with the Cash Flow Projector to create an estimate of the cash flow in your company for the next six weeks. After you set up the information needed to create the cash forecast, you can view the cash available in a report. You can even view how making changes to estimated receipts and disbursements could affect your future cash balance.

In QuickBooks you can condense the data in your company file to remove old transactions from your company file. This removes detailed transactions prior to a specified date and replaces them with general journal entries. It can also remove inactive list records from your company file. This can often improve performance in company files with a high volume of transactions entered.

You can export your list data into an IIF file. This file format stores list information in a text format for transfer to another company file, or transfer to other applications that can use IIF files. You create export files by selecting “File| Utilities| Export| Lists to IIF Files…” from the Menu Bar.

You can import list data into QuickBooks using Microsoft Excel. You can also easily copy and paste data from an Excel workbook into lists within your company file without having to perform an import. To see how you can perform this task, please review lesson “3.11- Adding Multiple List Entries from Excel” in the “Introductory QuickBooks” manual. In addition to being able to copy and paste Excel data, you can also perform an advanced importing of Excel data into your QuickBooks lists.

You can ensure your version of QuickBooks is current by selecting “Help| Update QuickBooks…” from the Menu Bar. You can either manually or automatically have QuickBooks search for updates.

To perform quick calculations, you can access the calculator in QuickBooks by selecting “Edit| Use Calculator” from the Menu Bar.

You can create a portable company file you can take with you on portable media or e-mail to another for use. For example, if you wanted to email a copy of your company file to your accountant for review, you could send them a portable company file, which has a .QBM extension. When they open the file you sent them in QuickBooks, it will open the file and create a QuickBooks company file (with the .QBW file extension) from the data.

You have a calendar feature that allows you to see company information, such as when bills are due, in a calendar layout. To open the calendar, click the “Calendar” button in the QuickBooks toolbar, click the “Calendar” icon within the Home Page, or select “Company| Calendar” from the Menu Bar.

QuickBooks provides the Income Tracker tool to make it easier to create and process the sales within your company file. However, this tool is not available when multicurrency is enabled within a company file. You can access the Income Tracker by selecting “Customers| Income Tracker” from the Menu Bar.

QuickBooks provides the Bill Tracker tool to make it easier to create and process payables and purchase orders within your company file. However, this tool is not available when multicurrency is enabled within a company file. You can access the Bill Tracker by selecting “Vendors| Bill Tracker” from the Menu Bar.

QuickBooks provides the Lead Center as a way to keep track of potential customer leads for your company file. To open the Lead Center, select “Customers| Lead Center” from the Menu Bar. The Lead Center window that appears onscreen is divided into three panes. The left pane is used to select and sort the leads you have entered. The upper-right “Lead Information” pane is used to display and edit the information for a selected lead. The bottom-right pane contains four tabs: “To Do’s,” “Contacts,” “Locations” and “Notes.” You can click these tabs to view to dos, contacts, locations, and notes about a selected lead.

You can create an accountant’s copy of your company file to give to your accountant, should they ask for one. When an accountant’s copy is created, you can still use your company file and import changes made by your accountant in the accountant’s copy back into your company file later. This gives you more flexibility for data entry than the portable company file option does.

If you work with an accountant who uses the QuickBooks for Accountants Edition, you can use the “File Transfer” ability within QuickBooks Pro to send an accountant’s copy to your accountant. To use this feature you must be using QuickBooks Pro 2013 or better, have an Internet connection and an e-mail address, and you must know your accountant’s e-mail address. This feature allows you to save the accountant’s copy to an Intuit web server, which notifies your accountant via e-mail to download the copy.

After creating an accountant’s copy of your company file, you must import your accountant’s changes back into your company file later on to restore full functionality to your original company file.

After creating an accountant’s copy of your company file, you will see the “Accountant’s Changes Pending” message within the title bar of the company file. You may also notice that some tasks, such as deleting accounts within the chart of accounts, cannot be performed on a company file when it is waiting for changes from an accountant.

QuickBooks provides a multitude of different support features. Answers to almost any QuickBooks question can be found by using the “QuickBooks Help” feature, which lets you search for help topics by subject and display the information that is found.