Introduction 1
About This Book 1
Foolish Assumptions 2
Icons Used in This Book 3
Beyond the Book 3
Where to Go from Here 3
Part 1: Quickly into QuickBooks 5
Chapter 1: QuickBooks: The Heart of Your Business 7
Why QuickBooks? 7
Why you need an accounting system 8
What QuickBooks does 9
Why not QuickBooks online? 10
What Explains QuickBooks' Popularity? 11
What's Next, Dude? 12
How to Succeed with QuickBooks 13
Budget wisely, Grasshopper 13
Don't focus on features 14
Outsource payroll 15
Get professional help 16
Use both the profit and loss statement and the balance sheet 16
Chapter 2: The Big Setup 17
Getting Ready for QuickBooks Setup 17
The big decision 18
The trial balance of the century 19
The mother of all scavenger hunts 21
Stepping through QuickBooks Setup 23
Starting QuickBooks 23
Using the Express Setup 25
The Rest of the Story 32
Should You Get Your Accountant's Help? 33
Chapter 3: Populating QuickBooks Lists 35
The Magic and Mystery of Items 35
Adding items you might include on invoices 37
Creating other wacky items for invoices 45
Editing items 49
Adding Employees to Your Employee List 49
Customers Are Your Business 51
It's Just a Job 55
Adding Vendors to Your Vendor List 59
The Other Lists 63
The Fixed Asset Item list 63
The Price Level list 64
The Billing Rate Levels list 64
The Sales Tax Code list 65
The Class list 65
The Other Names list 65
The Sales Rep list 66
Customer, Vendor, and Job Types lists 66
The Terms list 67
The Customer Message list 67
The Payment Method list 67
The Ship Via list 68
The Vehicle list 68
The Memorized Transaction list 68
The Reminders list 68
Organizing Lists 69
Printing Lists 69
Exporting List Items to Your Word Processor 70
Dealing with the Chart of Accounts List 70
Describing customer balances 70
Describing vendor balances 71
Camouflaging some accounting goofiness 71
Supplying the missing numbers 77
Checking your work one more time 80
Part 2: Daily Entry Tasks 81
Chapter 4: Creating Invoices and Credit Memos 83
Making Sure That You're Ready to Invoice Customers 84
Preparing an Invoice 84
Fixing Invoice Mistakes 91
If the invoice is still displayed onscreen 91
If the invoice isn't displayed onscreen 91
Deleting an invoice 92
Preparing a Credit Memo 92
Fixing Credit Memo Mistakes 96
Printing Invoices and Credit Memos 96
Loading the forms into the printer 97
Setting up the invoice printer 97
Printing invoices and credit memos as you create them 100
Printing invoices in a batch 101
Printing credit memos in a batch 103
Sending Invoices and Credit Memos via Email 104
Customizing Your Invoices and Credit Memos 105
Chapter 5: Reeling in the Dough 107
Recording a Sales Receipt 108
Printing a Sales Receipt 112
Special Tips for Retailers 114
Correcting Sales Receipt Mistakes 115
Recording Customer Payments 116
Correcting Mistakes in Customer Payments Entries 121
Making Bank Deposits 121
Improving Your Cash Inflow 124
Tracking what your customers owe 124
Assessing finance charges 125
Dealing with deposits 129
Chapter 6: Paying the Bills 131
Pay Now or Pay Later? 131
Recording Your Bills by Writing Checks 132
The slow way to write checks 132
The fast way to write checks 138
Recording Your Bills the Accounts Payable Way 140
Recording your bills 141
Entering your bills the fast way 145
Deleting a bill 146
Remind me to pay that bill, will you? 147
Paying Your Bills 149
Tracking Vehicle Mileage 152
Paying Sales Tax 153
Chapter 7: Inventory Magic 155
Setting Up Inventory Items 156
When You Buy Stuff 157
Recording items that you pay for up front 157
Recording items that don't come with a bill 157
Paying for items when you get the bill 159
Recording items and paying the bill all at once 161
When You Sell Stuff 161
How Purchase Orders Work 162
Customizing a purchase order form 163
Filling out a purchase order 163
Checking up on purchase orders 166
Receiving purchase order items 166
Assembling a Product 167
Identifying the components 167
Building the assembly 168
Time for a Reality Check 169
Dealing with Multiple Inventory Locations 171
Manually keep separate inventory-by-location counts 171
Use different item numbers for different locations 172
Upgrade to QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 172
The Lazy Person's Approach to Inventory 173
How periodic inventory systems work in QuickBooks 173
The good and bad of a periodic inventory 174
Chapter 8: Keeping Your Checkbook 175
Writing Checks 175
Writing checks from the Write Checks window 176
Writing checks from the register 177
Changing a check that you've written 179
Packing more checks into the register 180
Depositing Money in a Checking Account 181
Recording simple deposits 181
Depositing income from customers 182
Transferring Money between Accounts 185
Setting up a second bank account 185
Recording deposits into the new account 185
About the other half of the transfer 187
Changing a transfer that you've already entered 187
Working with Multiple Currencies 188
To Delete or to Void? 188
Handling NSF Checks from Customers 190
The Big Register Phenomenon 190
Moving through a big register 191
Finding that darn transaction 191
Chapter 9: Paying with Plastic 193
Tracking Business Credit Cards 193
Setting up a credit card account 194
Selecting a credit card account so that you can use it 195
Entering Credit Card Transactions 196
Recording a credit card charge 197
Changing charges that you've already entered 199
Reconciling Your Credit Card Statement and Paying the Bill 200
So What about Debit and ATM Cards? 201
So What about Customer Credit Cards? 201
Part 3: Stuff You Do from Time to Time 203
Chapter 10: Printing Checks 205
Getting the Printer Ready 205
Printing a Check 208
A few words about printing checks 209
Printing a check as you write it 209
Printing checks by the bushel 211
What if I make a mistake? 214
Oh where, oh where do unprinted checks go? 215
Printing a Checking Register 215
Chapter 11: Payroll 219
Getting Ready to Do Payroll without Help from QuickBooks 219
Doing Taxes the Right Way 220
Getting an employer ID number 220
Signing up for EFTPS 221
Employees and employers do their part 221
Getting Ready to Do Payroll with QuickBooks 221
Paying Your Employees 223
Paying Payroll Liabilities 226
Paying tax liabilities if you use a full-meal-deal payroll service 226
Paying tax liabilities if you don't use a full-meal-deal payroll service 226
Paying other nontax liabilities 227
Preparing Quarterly Payroll Tax Returns 228
Using the Basic Payroll service 228
Using a full-meal-deal payroll service 228
Using the QuickBooks Enhanced Payroll service 228
Filing Annual Returns and Wage Statements 229
The State Wants Some Money Too 230
Chapter 12: Building the Perfect Budget 231
Is This a Game You Want to Play? 231
All Joking Aside: Some Basic Budgeting Tips 232
A Budgeting Secret You Won't Learn in College 233
Setting Up a Secret Plan 234
Adjusting a Secret Plan 237
Forecasting Profits and Losses 237
Projecting Cash Flows 238
Using the Business Planner Tools 238
Chapter 13: Online with QuickBooks 239
Doing the Electronic Banking Thing 239
So what's the commotion about? 239
A handful of reasons to be cautious about banking online 240
Making sense of online banking 243
Signing up for the service 243
Making an online payment 243
Transferring money electronically 245
Changing instructions 246
Transmitting instructions 246
Message in a bottle 247
A Quick Review of the Other Online Opportunities 248
Part 4: Housekeeping Chores 249
Chapter 14: The Balancing Act 251
Balancing a Bank Account 251
Giving QuickBooks information from the bank statement 252
Marking cleared checks and deposits 254
Eleven Things to Do If Your Nononline Account Doesn't Balance 258
Chapter 15: Reporting on the State of Affairs 263
What Kinds of Reports Are There, Anyway? 263
Creating and Printing a Report 266
Visiting the report dog-and-pony show 268
Editing and rearranging reports 269
Reports Made to Order 272
Processing Multiple Reports 275
Your Other Reporting Options 275
Last but Not Least: The QuickReport 276
Chapter 16: Job Estimating, Billing, and Tracking 279
Turning On Job Costing 279
Setting Up a Job 280
Creating a Job Estimate 281
Revising an Estimate 284
Turning an Estimate into an Invoice 284
Comparing Estimated Item Amounts with Actual Item Amounts 286
Charging for Actual Time and Costs 287
Tracking Job Costs 288
Chapter 17: File Management Tips 289
Backing Up is (Not That) Hard to Do 289
Backing up the quick-and-dirty way 291
Getting back the QuickBooks data you backed up 296
Using the Accountant's Copy 298
Working with Portable Files 299
Using an Audit Trail 300
Using a Closing Password 300
Chapter 18: Fixed Assets and Vehicle Lists 303
What is Fixed-Assets Accounting? 303
Fixed-Assets Accounting in QuickBooks 305
Setting Up a Fixed Asset List 306
Adding items to the Fixed Asset list 306
Adding fixed-asset items on the fly 308
Editing items in the Fixed Asset list 309
Tracking Vehicle Mileage 310
Identifying your vehicles 310
Recording vehicle miles 312
Using the vehicle reports 313
Updating vehicle mileage rates 313
Part 5: The Part of Tens 315
Chapter 19: Tips for Handling (Almost) Ten Tricky Situations 317
Tracking Depreciation 317
Selling an Asset 318
Selling a Depreciable Asset 319
Owner's Equity in a Sole Proprietorship 320
Owner's Equity in a Partnership 320
Owner's Equity in a Corporation 321
Multiple-State Accounting 322
Getting a Loan 323
Repaying a Loan 323
Chapter 20: (Almost) Ten Secret Business Formulas 325
The First "Most Expensive Money You Can Borrow" Formula 326
The Second "Most Expensive Money You Can Borrow" Formula 328
The "How Do I Break Even?" Formula 328
The "You Can Grow Too Fast" Formula 331
How net worth relates to growth 331
How to calculate sustainable growth 332
The First "What Happens If ?" Formula 333
The Second "What Happens If ?" Formula 335
The Economic Order Quantity (Isaac Newton) Formula 337
The Rule of 72 338
Part 6: Appendixes 341
Appendix A: Installing QuickBooks in Ten Easy Steps 343
Appendix B: If Numbers Are Your Friends 347
Appendix C: Sharing QuickBooks Files 365
Index 375
