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How to Use QuickBooks: A Complete Guide
What is Quickbooks? How do you use it? Is it worth gettting? In this guide, we detail everything you need to know about using Quickbooks to manage your business…
QuickBooks comes with effective accounting features that are designed to not only streamline your accounting processes, but also give you better insight into how your business is functioning.
You can track and monitor things like payroll, expenses, tax, contractor spending – basically everything you need to constantly stay on top of.
And because QuickBooks operates on the basis of organization, many businesses with large amounts of data can plug the software into existing processes and get improved visibility and analysis of its core metrics.
In this guide, you’ll learn more about QuickBooks including how to use it and all of its impressive features.
Although, if you want to become a pro-grade Quickbooks user, this course is 100% worth investing in – it will show you how to do everything from basic stuff to high-end processes.
This post is designed to give you a quick overview of Quickbooks, how it works, and some basic features. If you want to learn how to use it professionally, this course is highly recommended.
What is QuickBooks?
QuickBooks is a small business accounting software and also the most popular used by businesses to manage their revenue and expenses.
It is designed to help you keep track of the financial health of your business.
The following are some of the applications of QuickBooks in a business:
- QuickBooks can be used to invoice customers
- The software can also generate reports
- It helps you prepare your taxes too
The Features of QuickBooks
Like mentioned earlier, QuickBooks is rich with essential features that help businesses thrive in their daily transactions.
These features are effective and can operate well in either small or mid-sized business settings. So, there is no size limitation when it comes to using this software on any business. In fact, individuals who are running their personal businesses can benefit a lot from using QuickBooks.
That said, the following are the features of QuickBooks covered in detail:
1. Income and Sales Management
Organization and management are the original reasons why the QuickBooks software was created. This is because any operational business depends on income and sales for the business to continue running.
And not just running, but also making sure that the income and sales management are optimally active.
When using QuickBooks, a user can create an invoice in the software. This act is meant to help any QuickBooks user manage their business sales and income.
The invoice created in this software allows the user to view their accounts receivable ageing report. This grants the user a chance to view their accounts receivable balance, making the whole process more efficient.
Generally, QuickBooks will include all the details of an account’s past and current invoice reports.
2. Tracks Your Bills and Expenses
If you want to monitor bills and expenses in your business, then QuickBooks might be your best solution. With this software, you can easily monitor the money going out of your business by connecting bank accounts and credit cards to QuickBooks.
As a result, it becomes easier to not only track your expenses but also categorise and download all the compounded data. With such capability, QuickBooks allows you to track your cash and also check your transactions.
3. Cash Flow Management
When you use QuickBooks in your business, you can easily manage the cash that flows in and out of your business efficiently.
Additionally, this software allows you to access any of your financial business reports for reference. With such candid information, it’s easy to strategise on the best ways of managing your cash flow.
And it’s also easier to run the cash flow reports on this software with only a few clicks, and they are also updated in real-time. As a bonus to the offers, QuickBooks also allows you to run three different reports that you can use to tell the position of your business.
The three different reports include:
- The balance sheet report
- Statement of cash flow and
- The profit and loss report
With the three different reports, you can capitalise on the information by strategising better to scale your business. And by knowing the scope of your business, you’ll know what you can do better to increase your profits.
4. Payroll
The payroll feature that comes in the QuickBooks software will help you manage different accounts effectively. With this feature, business owners who have employees can easily manage their accounts appropriately if they run payroll.
What the payroll feature does is help you, the business owner, manage the taxes of your employees and also update their accounts. Other than that, you can also use the payroll feature in QuickBooks to calculate the following aspects:
- Wages
- Salaries
- Bonuses
- Any withheld taxes
Keeping tabs on all of your employees is highly essential for your business because they are integral parts of your organization. And there is no better software to help you do that than the QuickBooks software.
5. Inventory Tracking
Like cash flow, tracking your inventory is another essential part of running your business.
The inventory tracking feature in QuickBooks is efficient and accurate, and can help you manage all of your product sales. This feature will also help you understand if you are earning or losing money on every product you sell.
Lastly, you need to turn on the inventory tracking feature before setting up inventory in QuickBooks. This requirement fully ensures that your inventory tracking starts immediately when you start using the software.
6. Online Payment Options
The world is becoming more digitised by the day and every type of business is embracing the advancements. People no longer depend on brick-and-mortar payments and that’s what has made e-commerce a multi-billion-dollar industry.
QuickBooks utilizes the same concept and offers users a chance to set up online payment options for their businesses. As a user, you can add Intuit payment features on your business with QuickBooks for safe, secure digital transactions.
And if customers can purchase and pay for their products from any location, then this might increase your conversions and income.
7. Scanning Receipts
If you are a subscriber of QuickBooks, you can download their official application on your mobile phone. With the application, you can take a picture of a receipt and upload it to the QBO.
This helps you and your team stay on top of expenses.
What this feature does is save you time and reduces any chances of you having to deal with any paperwork.
And because it’s an application, you can easily achieve all you need remotely on QuickBooks, as it runs on iPhone and Android as well as desktop.
How to Use QuickBooks?
Now that you know exactly what the QuickBooks software can do, it’s now time to learn how to use it. Using this software isn’t a complicated task and you don’t need to have in-depth knowledge on a lot of stuff.
This is because the QuickBooks software was created to make business management an easy and efficient process. By so doing, small business owners will be able to benefit more from their daily business interactions.
Therefore, you don’t have to worry if it’s your first time using this software.
That said, here is how to use QuickBooks:
Install the Software
This is the initial step of using QuickBooks on your day-to-day business activities. To use this software, you first have to install it on your computer. When installing, you’ll have to indicate the type of installation that you prefer, Custom or Network Options.
If you plan to use the software on one PC only, then you should select the “I’ll be using QuickBooks on this computer” option. Lastly, you’ll also need to select the location or folder that you wish the software to be installed in.
Collect Financial Papers
After installing the software on your PC, the next step is to gather essential financial papers. This is a requirement because you’ll need those papers for setting up your QuickBooks files.
If unaware, these financial papers will include the business name, tax ID numbers, financial statements, and, of course, the business address.
Create a File for Your Business
With the program installed on your computer and having gathered all the important financial papers, it’s time to launch QuickBooks. Click on the software’s desktop icon to run the program so that you can start using it.
At first, there’s an EasyStep Interview wizard option that will appear to help you through the whole process of creating your company file. This setup wizard is highly essential and effective, especially if you are using this software for the first time.
So, take advantage of the EasyStep Interview wizard to create your company file, while learning more about QuickBooks.
Setting Up and Managing Vendor Accounts
After creating the company file, you’ll now need to set up the vendor accounts so that you can easily and effectively manage them. If not clear, vendors are integral parts of your business and includes your suppliers or contractors.
The process of creating vendor accounts to manage them is straightforward, and looks something like this:
- On the top toolbar, click on the “Vendor Centre”
- Select the “New Vendor” button to create a new vendor account
- If you want to add transactions, you can do so by clicking the “New Transaction” button
And that’s how to create a vendor’s account on QuickBooks so that you can manage the accounts better. If perhaps you want to export the information on all or particular vendor accounts, you can link this software to Excel to enable the process.
And you can also export the information on “Word”, so you have records just for yourself on other platforms.
Create and Manage Employee Accounts
Like the vendors, your employees are also important for your business. Therefore, QuickBooks can help ensure that you are keeping tabs on them for better staff management.
To create employee accounts, here is what you need to do:
- Click on the “Employee Centre”
- Follow by clicking on the “New Employee” tab to create and manage all of your employee accounts
- As for relevant transactions with your employees, click on the “Transaction” tab
- Lastly, you can manage your employee time sheets by using the “Enter Time” feature on the software
Generate Reports
The last step of how to use QuickBooks involves generating reports through the software’s Report Centre. You can get a lot done in your business with this feature such as getting reports from the following areas:
- Profit and loss statements
- Budgets
- Accounts receivable reports, among many more
How to Reconcile in QuickBooks
Wondering how you can reconcile your banking accounts on QuickBooks? Well, it’s not as hard as most people think. Remember, this software is created for the sole purpose of making your business run efficiently.
However, the reconciliation process in the QuickBooks software is a bit different but not something that you can’t manage. Therefore, you shouldn’t shy away from using this software to reconcile your banking accounts.
Moving on, here is a step-by-step guide on how to reconcile in QuickBooks:
- Select the Gear Button, click on “Tools” and follow with “Reconcile”
- You’ll find a drop-down menu under “Accounts”, which you’ll select and click the account you wish to reconcile
- Based on your bank statement, you’ll then fill in the “Ending balance” and the “Ending date” as well
- Afterward, you’ll need to match your bank statement with the transactions, which you’ll also check individually
- Use filters on transactions so they become easily detectable
- Continually run the feature until you achieve zero digits on the “Difference” field
And that’s how to reconcile in QuickBooks.
Conclusion
In conclusion, QuickBooks is a proven business management software that’s capable of scaling your business to greater heights. But how much does it cost to use QuickBooks?
Depending on your preference of the software’s variants, you can pay from $25 to about $300 every month for using the QuickBooks software.
But considering the advantages of using this software, that’s a decent amount to pay for using it.