Your. Getting Started with QBO

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1 ebooks QuickBooks Online: Getting Started with QBO FEATURING: 1.) New to QuickBooks Online? Take a Tour Around the Site 2.) Setting Up Settings in QuickBooks Online 3.) Managing Users in QuickBooks Online 4.) An Introduction to the QuickBooks Online Customer Page Your Company Your Goals are Ours, LLC 123 Main St. Atlanta, GA YourCompany.com (555) Info@YourCompany.com Bookkeeping Accounting Services QuickBooks Consulting

2 Your Company, LLC 123 Main St. Atlanta, GA YourCompany.com (555) We re good at what we do...but we also like to have fun. Your Goals are Our Goals ABOUT US Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi aliquam, libero eu cursus lacinia, risus velit ultricies leo, eget mattis neque arcu vel nunc. Fusce pretium felis a odio condimentum faucibus. Cras porttitor vitae velit elementum auctor. Nullam vestibulum lectus quis dui sollicitudin sagittis elementum ut enim. Integer sit amet pretium libero. Curabitur a eleifend mauris, eu dapibus ante. Proin id urna cursus, egestas ex at, ullamcorper libero. Sed tempor eu erat quis fermentum. Ut in ante sed diam tempor porta nec eu purus. Vivamus quis arcu ut magna gravida consectetur. Bookkeeping Accounting Services QuickBooks Consulting 2 Getting Started with QuickBooks Online QuickBooks is a registered trademark of Intuit

3 QuickBooks Online: Getting Started with QBO New to QuickBooks Online? Take a Tour Around the Site...3 Setting Up Settings in QuickBooks Online...7 Managing Users in QuickBooks Online...11 An Introduction to the QuickBooks Online Customer Page...15 Getting Started with QuickBooks Online 3

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5 New to QuickBooks Online? Take a Tour Around the Home Page Switching from QuickBooks desktop or starting fresh with QuickBooks Online? Here s a quick overview of its home page. Whether or not you ve ever used accounting software, we think you ll like using QuickBooks Online. It was designed for small businesses who have little or no accounting experience, and its user interface and navigation should be familiar to anyone who s been around websites. We do have to say, though, that if you ve never used any accounting applications, some upfront training with us might be in order. Once you get used to how your Excel-and-paper accounting system translates to the web, you should do fine. But you ll save a lot of time and avoid frustration if you learn the basics before you start entering your own company data. It s easier to explain how things work before you attempt them than to try to untangle a tangled-up company file. That said, let s look at what you ll see on the home page when you first sign into QuickBooks Online. QuickBooks Online s home page was designed to give you a quick look at what s happening with your company s money. By checking it first thing every morning, you ll know whether something needs attention immediately. If it does, you can use the links provided here to take care of business. Figure 1: QuickBooks Online presents a good overview of your company s finances on its home page. Getting Started with QuickBooks Online 5

6 New to QuickBooks Online? Take a Tour Around the Home Page, con t Using graphs and numbers, the home page gives you the bottom line on your income, expenses, and profit and loss. You can click on practically anything here to see the detail behind the totals and to do something about it if necessary. The left vertical pane contains your main navigational toolbar. Click on any link here, and you ll either go straight to that section like Customers and Reports or you ll get to choose from a number of sub-pages (Taxes Sales Tax or Payroll Tax, for example). Clicking on Home always takes you back to the home page. In the upper right corner, you ll find the Help icon, which gives you access to QuickBooks Online s searchable help files. If you re a new user and we haven t done any training with you, you re likely to find that these brief explanations don t answer all of your questions or don t answer them thoroughly enough. Let us help when that occurs. Your company s name appears to the left of Help. When you click on it, you ll see Figure 2. It s a good idea to explore these options early in your QuickBooks Online life: In Company Settings, you can make your preferences known about many aspects of the site. For example, you can establish the payment terms that will appear automatically on sales forms, and turn fields like Shipping and Discount on or off. You can set up an account with QuickBooks Payments so your company can accept credit cards, and you can choose whether or not to use Classes to categorize transactions (we can work with you on these in training). Another important item here is Manage Users, which lets you set limits on what other staff can and can t do in QuickBooks Online. Figure 2: Clicking on your business name in the upper right corner of QuickBooks Online opens a window containing numerous utilities and lists. 6 Getting Started with QuickBooks Online QuickBooks is a registered trademark of Intuit

7 New to QuickBooks Online? Take a Tour Around the Home Page, con t Directly below the two links in the upper right corner of the home page is a list of your bank accounts and their balances. Since QuickBooks Online can be connected to your online financial accounts, you may see two numbers here: your bank balance according to the bank and to QuickBooks Online. The most recent Activities will be displayed below your account balances. You ll see a list of all actions that have been taken by anyone with access to the site, like invoices created and/or sent, and bills paid. Finally, QuickBooks Online includes a handy navigational tool at the top of the screen that contains three icons. The magnifying glass gives you access to the site s search tool. Clicking on the + sign opens shortcuts to transaction screens and other commonly-used features. And the third icon displays the most recent transactions processed. That s it. Your accounting workflow will make use of the countless other pages within the site, but QuickBooks Online s home page does a good job of showing you the lay of the land. Figure 3: The Activities section of QuickBooks Online s right vertical pane displays all actions take recently by you and your staff. NEXT UP: Setting Up Settings in QuickBooks Online Getting Started with QuickBooks Online 7

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9 Setting Up Settings in QuickBooks Online You ll be visiting QuickBooks Online s Settings screen regularly, so it s good to know what s there. You can get into a rental car and just start driving to your destination. But you soon realize that you need to know where the temperature controls and the radio tuner are. If it starts raining, you must know where the wiper controls are. And when it gets dark, you d better know how to turn on the headlights. The same goes for QuickBooks Online. You can create bills and start paying them or begin to invoice customers or record expenses as soon as you set up an account (though you ll be adding a lot of data on the fly). But you ll soon discover that those tasks would be easier if you had established all of your Settings first. If you have multiple employees using QuickBooks Online, for example, it has probably occurred to you that not everyone needs to have access to everything in your company file. You ll want to connect the site to your financial accounts, build a budget, and specify payment terms and types. So it s a good idea to visit your Settings screen early in your QuickBooks Online journey. It s easy to find: just click the gear icon next to your company name in the upper right corner of the screen. Critical Functions Some of the links in the Settings window take you to screens that you ll have to pop into regularly in the course of your daily work. One that you re likely to visit often is All Lists. Here, you ll be able to complete tasks like: Figure 1: You ll want to explore the Settings window early on in your use of QuickBooks Online, but you ll often have occasion to revisit it. Getting Started with QuickBooks Online 9

10 Setting Up Settings in QuickBooks Online, con t Creating records for the products and/or services that you sell. Setting up recurring transactions, regularlyscheduled invoices, bills, etc. that occur at periodic intervals. (Note: You can choose to either be reminded of these or let them be processed automatically. Please consult with us if you re going to be using this feature, as it can create serious problems if it s not set up exactly right.) Adding or modifying customer payment terms. Unless you went through the QuickBooks Online setup process on your own or with help from us, it s important that you click on the link to Account and Settings under before you start entering live data. QuickBooks Online comes with its own default settings that many businesses would be likely to use; but you need to evaluate these and see if you need to change any of them to better fit your company. Going through these settings one by one has another benefit: you will learn about things that QuickBooks Online can do that you may not have discovered. It s easy to specify your preferences on these screens. You just click on each tab on the left in succession and go through each setting, toggling between Off and On by clicking on the words and clicking on any buttons whose actions you want to explore. During this process, you may have to make decisions that you ve never before considered. For example, do you want to use custom fields or custom transaction numbers? We can schedule a time to go through this together if you d like to make sure that you know what each option means and whether you should employ it. Restricting Access Will anyone besides you be using QuickBooks Online? If so, you ll need to visit the Manage Users screen. Here, you can assign roles to users and specify what areas of the site they can access, Figure 2: Work your way through the Account and Settings screens to see what QuickBooks Online can do and to determine how you want to handle its many features for your company s accounting. 10 Getting Started with QuickBooks Online QuickBooks is a registered trademark of Intuit

11 Setting Up Settings in QuickBooks Online, con t as well as what they can do there. A simple wizard walks you through this critical process. There are many other Settings that you ll likely want to visit at some point, like when you re ready to create a budget or do your first account reconciliation. But we can t stress enough the importance of establishing your accounting settings and defining user roles. Get the most out of QuickBooks Online by customizing it to meet your company s unique needs. Figure 3: What limitations do you want to put on additional QuickBooks Online users? NEXT UP: Managing Users in QuickBooks Online Getting Started with QuickBooks Online 11

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13 Managing Users in QuickBooks Online A multi-user accounting application needs good tools for assigning access permissions. You trust your employees, or you wouldn t have hired them. But you also have a grave responsibility to your customers and vendors: to keep their data safe, and to ensure that records and transactions remain accurate and unchanged throughout their lives. For that reason, QuickBooks Online offers you the option of restricting users to specific areas of the site and to individual activities. Each time you invite a new user to work on your accounting information, you should go through the process of assigning these rights. To get started, click on your company name in the upper right of the screen, and then click on Manage Users. Click New to open the miniinterview. The first screen of the mini-interview explains the four user types available. They are: Regular or custom user. You d assign this to staff who will be working with accounts receivable and/or payable but don t need access to anything else. Company administrator. This will be you or a trusted employee. The individual with this role has access to the entire site and all actions. Reports only. Just like the name says, users at this level can only view reports. They cannot, however, see payroll reports or any that contain contact information for customers, vendors, or employees. Figure 1: You have four access level options when you re setting up a new user in QuickBooks Online. Getting Started with QuickBooks Online 13

14 Managing Users in QuickBooks Online, con t Time Tracking only. You can give employees and vendors access to timesheets only, so that they can complete and edit their own. Note: The latter two designations do not count toward the user limit you chose when you signed up for QuickBooks Online. In addition, you can invite up to two accounting or bookkeeping firms. Select Regular or custom user, then Next. This is the only access level that allows you to set limits. Other levels are already established. If you click the button in front of Limited, then put a check mark in front of Customers and Sales, the employee will be able to access all add, edit, and delete QuickBooks Online records. In addition, he or she can work with some transactions and forms, as well as view reports and registers. There are many restricted areas and functions at this level, including check-printing, inventory adjustments, and payroll data access. Employees who will be working with Vendors & Purchases have a similar role on the vendor side. If you want an employee or vendor to be able to access his or her own timesheet but no other areas of QuickBooks Online, you would choose None. The All designation is reserved for users who have all of the access rights described above. They can also, for example, do some payroll tasks, make deposits and transfer funds, and work with budgets. Click Next after you ve selected an access level. The next window will display the user s administrative Figure 2: If you ve selected Regular or custom user for an employee, you have some control over the areas he or she can access. 14 Getting Started with QuickBooks Online QuickBooks is a registered trademark of Intuit

15 Managing Users in QuickBooks Online, con t rights, unless he or she is an employee or vendor who will only have access to timesheets. In those cases, there will be an additional window first that contains a drop-down list consisting of employee and vendor names. Once you ve assigned administrative rights, click Next to invite the individual to QuickBooks Online in the specified role. Enter the name and , then click Next. The user will receive an containing a link to a page where he or she can select a user ID (or enter an existing Intuit Business Services ID). When your users have accepted the invitation and logged in, their status on your Manage Users page will change from Invited to Active. You may want to discuss with us your assignment of access levels. It s one thing to see a list of permissions, but it s quite another to determine whether a specific role can put you at risk for critical errors or worse. Figure 3: Administrators should be very careful when assigning their users administrative rights. NEXT UP: An Introduction to the QuickBooks Online Customer Page Getting Started with QuickBooks Online 15

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17 An Introduction to the QuickBooks Online Customer Page Your customers are the heartbeat of your business. QuickBooks Online helps you keep them happy. Do you remember how you used to keep track of information about your customers before you started using a computer for your accounting? A file folder containing paper transaction forms and other communications? A card in your Rolodex? A list on paper? It s hard to imagine going back to those days once you start using QuickBooks Online. The site provides detailed record forms for your customers. It also offers multiple ways to get a snapshot of their current status with you. And there are numerous paths you can take to create sales forms for them. Besides helping you complete the work you must do with each customer, all of these tools can help you achieve a key goal for your business: exceptional customer relationships. Here s a look at what you can do to build those relationships. A Central Clearinghouse The easiest way to find these tools is to simply click the Customers tab in the navigation pane. This will take you to a comprehensive page that will eventually contain a list of your customers. To add a new customer, click New Customer in the upper right corner. Figure 1: QuickBooks Online helps you create thorough profiles for each of your customers. Getting Started with QuickBooks Online 17

18 An Introduction to the QuickBooks Online Customer Page, con t Note: If you already have a database of customers in an Excel or.csv format, you should be able to import it into QuickBooks Online. We can help you make this happen. You ll see an empty screen with predefined fields like the one above. Complete as many fields as possible can for your customer; you ll be using this information later in transactions and reports. When you ve finished, look in the lower left corner, where you ll see four tabs. You can use the blank screen that opens when you click Notes to enter miscellaneous information. Click on Tax info to supply a Tax Resale No. and select a Default Sales and Use Tax Rate. If you need to set up sales tax and haven t yet, we can work with you on that. Completing the fields in the screen under the fourth tab, Payment and billing, will save you a lot of time when you start creating transactions. Any of the customer s current, unpaid obligations should be entered in the field labeled Opening balance as of. You can also select default (preferred) Terms, payment method (cash? check? credit card?), and delivery method (print or send later). If you haven t yet signed up for a merchant account, which lets you accept credit/debit cards and bank transfers, let us tell you what s involved. You ll find that invoices are paid faster if a customer can do so electronically. Viewing and Acting Once you ve entered information for one or more customers, their names and some additional details will appear in the list that s displayed when you click on Customers. You ll see a horizontal colored bar at the top of the screen; this updates you on the status of your sales transactions. Below that is your table of customers. Select a group of customers and click the arrow next to Batch actions, and you ll be able to send s or create statements for them. When you ve created records for multiple customers, the search box will come in handy. Your list can also contain columns for each customer s and address; you d make this change by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right corner. And when you click on the arrow next to Receive payment in the far right column, a drop-down list will display the other activities you can do from there, like creating invoices and sending reminders. Critical Care Required Keep your customer records updated whenever there s a change. You want every detail of your communications with your customers to be correct -- down to the spelling of their street names. Seemingly little things like this can have impact on your customers perception of their value to you. Figure 2: You can do more than simply access information about each customer from the master page; you can also launch activity and transaction forms. 18 Getting Started with QuickBooks Online QuickBooks is a registered trademark of Intuit

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