How QuickBooks© Online Tracks Products and Services, Part 1

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What products and services does your company sell? Do you have enough to fulfill existing and future orders? QuickBooks Online can tell you.

Most small businesses maintain a changing inventory of multiple products. Even if you sell one-of-a-kind goods, you need to know what you’ve sold and what’s available. And if your company sells services, you also have to keep track of what you’re able to offer customers.

QuickBooks Online can meet these needs. It allows you to create detailed records for both products and services. If you carry inventory, it can make sure that you always know what’s available to sell. When you enter sales and purchase transactions, the site draws on the records you’ve created to help you complete invoices, sales receipts, purchase orders, etc., without having to leave the form you’re working on.

Creating your records initially can take some time. And your products and services require regular monitoring and maintenance. But if you’re conscientious about these tasks, you’re not likely to run short on inventory or have too much money tied up in products that aren’t selling fast enough.

Preparing QuickBooks Online

Before you begin creating records and tracking inventory, you need to make sure that QuickBooks Online is set up correctly. Click the gear icon in the upper right. Under Your Company, click Account and settings. Click the Sales tab in the toolbar. You’ll see the Products and services section near the middle of the screen.

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Make sure you’ve turned on the Products and services features you’re going to need.

Toggle the slider buttons on and off by clicking on them, and be sure to save your changes when you’re done. One option allows you to turn on price rules. This is still classified as a beta feature, but it’s live on the site. It’s also quite complicated to set up and can create confusion for your customers and revenue loss for you if it’s not done correctly. Let us help if you want to use this tool.

Creating Your Product and Service Records

Your first task, of course, is to build your product and service records. Hover your mouse over Sales in the left vertical toolbar on the home page and select Products and Services. The screen that opens is your home base for dealing with inventory and services. Eventually, it will contain a detailed table containing information about both. Two large buttons at the top of the page warn you when you have Low Stock or you’re Out of Stock.

Click New in the upper right corner. A vertical panel slides out from the right displaying your four options for Product/Service information. They are:

  • Inventory. If you buy and/or sell products whose quantities you must track, these items are considered inventory.
  • Non-inventory. You may have products that you buy and/or sell, but you don’t need to track the amount you have in stock. These are considered non-inventory.
  • Service. These are, well, services that you provide to customers, like landscaping or web design. You might sell these by the hour or project, for example.
  • Bundle. You might call these assemblies. Bundles are multiple products and/or services that you sell as a package for one price.

Click on Inventory for this example. Here is a partial view of the pane you’ll see:

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You can track your inventory levels and reorder points when you create inventory product records in QuickBooks Online.

To create a product or service record, just fill in the blanks on the form and save it. Some fields are optional. In fact, only three are required: Name, Initial quantity on hand, and As of date. Of course, your inventory tracking and the use of product and service records in transactions and reports will be much more effective if you complete as many of the fields as possible. We recommend that you at least provide answers in some additional fields (some of which aren’t shown here), including:

  • Category (will be useful in reports, for example)
  • Reorder point (will keep you from running out of items)
  • Inventory asset account (you can leave the default, Inventory Asset)
  • Description (for sales forms)
  • Sales price/rate (what the customer will be charged)
  • Description (for purchase forms)
  • Cost (what you pay to buy it)
  • Expense account (often Cost of Good Sold, but you can ask us to be sure)

Next month, we’ll discuss how QuickBooks Online makes these records available as you complete other tasks, like transactions. In the meantime, please let us know if you have other questions we can answer that would help you use QuickBooks more effectively. We hope you’re enjoying your summer!

Some Small Businesses Are Recovering. Is Yours?

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The COVID-19 pandemic isn’t over, but many small businesses are on the upswing. How QuickBooks Online can help if yours isn’t.

Intuit recently did a survey documenting the financial losses that many small businesses had experienced since March 2020. Not surprisingly, the report, Intuit QuickBooks Small Business Recovery, found that COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the financial health of U.S. small businesses.

But many of the companies surveyed have proved to be resilient. As of March 31, 2021, 61 percent of them saw an annual revenue increase compared to pre-COVID days.

How would you have answered the survey? If indeed you did suffer financial and personnel losses because of the pandemic, has your business started to rebound yet? If not, there are actions you can take in QuickBooks Online to help in your recovery. Here are some of them.

Transactions: Watch your income and expenses like a hawk.

QuickBooks Online provides excellent transaction-tracking tools that help you document income and expenses.

How much time do you spend working with your downloaded transactions? If you take advantage of the excellent tools QuickBooks Online provides, you may notice patterns that you’ll want to explore and modify. For example, are you spending too much in one or more particular areas? When and where is your income dipping?

It’s critical that you connect to as many online financial institutions as possible, so you get a complete picture of your income and expenses. Once you have, click on Transactions in the toolbar, which should open to the Banking page. If you’re only going there to make sure there are no unrecognized entries, you’re missing out on some of QuickBooks Online’s transaction-tracking tools. In the image above, we’ve specified a vendor and chosen a Category and Tags. This will make your reports more meaningful and actionable.

If you don’t know what it means to Find Match, we can show you how that works. It’s a real time saver. 

Sales: Make it easier for customers to pay you.

We’ve written about accepting online payments in this column before. It’s especially important if you’re struggling. You may actually be losing sales if you don’t let potential customers pay online through a credit card or bank account transfer. And existing customers may pay faster if they can do business with you in that way.

QuickBooks Payments makes this possible. There are some nominal fees involved, but the potential increase in your income should more than cover them. Let us know if you want us to help you set up a merchant account.

When you set up a merchant account through QuickBooks Payments, you may find that your customer base will grow, and existing customers will pay faster.

Expenses: Categorize expenses with tax time in mind.

You’ve probably already filed your 2020 income taxes, but we’re well into 2021, and it’s not too early to start thinking about your current tax situation. QuickBooks Online helps you track your income carefully, but it’s equally important to make sure you know what your tax-related expenses are. You want to get every deduction and credit you can. So when you’re looking at transactions, like we described above, make very certain that you’re assigning the correct categories to each of them. 

We can help you run reports on a quarterly basis that should be of help when you make estimated tax payments. That way, you may be able to reduce your quarterly obligation during the 2021 tax year and won’t have to wait until you file in 2022 to see savings.

Time: Make sure your billable hours are billed.

Unless you have an organized, easy-to-use method for tracking billable time, some hours are likely to fall between the cracks. QuickBooks Online provides effective tools in this area. As you go through your downloaded transactions, you may see expenses that can be billed to a customer. Select the Customer/project and check the Billable box so you’ll be able to include it on their next invoice.

You can mark expenses as billable to customers in your Transactions register.

As you create time entries for you and/or your employees, you can also mark those hours as billable.

Reports: Run basic, critical reports regularly.

You can’t know how your business is doing financially unless you create reports. Besides the quarterly and standard financial reports we can run and analyze for you, you can—and should—be generating reports yourself through QuickBooks Online. Here are some of the ones we suggest:

  • Budget vs. Actuals. If you’ve put the time and effort into creating a budget, it’s critical that you gauge your progress regularly and make adjustments as needed.
  • Open Invoices. Who have you billed that hasn’t paid?
  • Accounts Receivable Aging Detail. Who owes you, and how far behind are they?
  • Sales by Product/Service Detail. What is selling well and what isn’t? You can make decisions about your product and service lines by viewing this report. This is especially important when your sales are sluggish.
  • Business Snapshot. This is a series of charts and lists that provides a quick visual overview of key data.

QuickBooks Online can’t, of course, revive your business if the pandemic has created conditions that are out of your control. But that shouldn’t stop you from controlling what you can, no matter what your situation is. It was designed not only to automate and streamline your daily accounting work, but also to provide the information you need as you evaluate your present situation and plan for the future. Please call on us if you need help making optimal use of QuickBooks Online.

How to Use Tags in QuickBooks Online

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Where is your money coming from? Where is it going? You can use tags in QuickBooks Online to find out.

QuickBooks Online offers numerous ways to help you track your sales, expenses, and profitability. If you’re using QuickBooks Online Plus or Advanced, you can create and assign Classes to transactions to differentiate between, for example, store departments or product lines. Some of the site’s reports are designed specifically for these tools, like Sales by Class and Profit and Loss by Class. 

You can assign Categories to products and services to gain insight into your sales and inventory. There’s a different set of Categories that you’ll use when you record bills and expenses. These are important for reporting and tax purposes. You can also add a Location field to sales transactions so you can track sales by stores, sales regions, or counties, for example.

What Are Tags?

Then there are Tags, which are fairly new to QuickBooks Online. These are customizable labels that you can assign to transactions (invoices, expenses, and bills). They’re more flexible than the tools we’ve already mentioned – they allow you to track your money any way you want. They don’t affect your books, and they’re not included in the customization criteria for reports. But there are two reports specifically designed for them: Profit and Loss by Tag Group and Transaction List by Tag Group.

Creating Your Own Tags

Once you’ve given your group a name, you can start adding tags to it.

Before you create a tag, you need to create a Group. Groups consist of related tags that share a common theme. For example, say you do some event planning. You might have a group titled Events. Individual events might read, for example, Grayson Wedding, Spring Art Show, and Hillman Conference.

To get started, click the gear icon in the upper right. Under Lists, click Tags to get to the tool’s home page. (You can also click on the Transactions link in the toolbar, then click the Tags tab.) Click New, then Tag group. A vertical panel slides out from the right. Enter a name in the Group name field. Click the down arrow to select a color, then click Save. 

Enter your tags one by one in the fields labeled Tag name. Click Add after each one until your list is complete. Click the Edit button to make any changes. When you’re finished, click Done. The main Tags page will open again, and you’ll see your new group under Tags and Tag Groups. Repeat to add as many as you’d like, up to 300 tags.

Using Tags

You can add tags to any transaction that contains a field for them

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Let’s look at how you’d use tags in an expense. Click the Expenses link in the toolbar, then New transaction | Expense in the upper right. Click the down arrow in the Payee field in the upper left and select + Add new. Enter Billy’s Bridal in the Name field Leave the Type as Vendor and click Save. Back on the Expense screen, select the Payment account, Payment date, and Payment method for the expense (reference number is optional).

Directly below those fields, you’ll see the Tags field. Click Manage tags if you need to add or edit one; the right vertical pane you saw before will slide out. Otherwise, click in the field below Tags. Your list of tags will drop down. Select Grayson Wedding to move it into the field. You can assign as many tags as you’d like to transactions, but you can only select one tag from each group. Finish the expense and save it. 

Go back to the Tags home page, and you’ll see that there’s a link to one transaction in the Events row. At the end of each row is the Action column, where you can run a report, add a tag, and enter or delete a group. Your expense total appears in the Money Out (by tag) box above it. 

Tags are a great addition to the tools QuickBooks Online provides to help you track incoming and outgoing funds. If you’re not familiar with the others we mentioned at the beginning of this column and want to learn how to explore them, let us know. We’d be happy to walk you through their use and help you understand how they can make your finances more understandable.

Should You Charge Late Fees? QuickBooks Can Help

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Do you have a lot of aging receivables? Assessing finance charges can speed up customer payments.

Have your customers been submitting payments later than usual these last several months? It wouldn’t be surprising. Many businesses are struggling to pay bills these days. Still, you need to get paid – and on time. Tardy receivables have a negative impact on your own cash flow.

We’ve discussed ways to encourage prompt payment in past columns. For example, you can start accepting credit/debit cards and direct bank transfers, make sure invoices go out immediately after a sale, or offer a premium like a small one-time discount for paying on time 12 months in a row to name a few.

You can also assess finance charges on remittances that come in after the due date. QuickBooks provides the tools to allow this.

Setting It Up

Before you start charging extra for late payments, you’ll need to do some setup work in QuickBooks. Open the Edit menu and select Preferences, then Finance Charge. Click the Company Preferences tab. You’ll see a window like this:

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You can set your own preferences for assessing finance charges in QuickBooks.

You’ll have to answer these questions and enter your responses in the window:

What will your Annual Interest Rate (%) be?

What will you set as a Minimum Finance Charge?

Will you allow a Grace Period? This is the number of days given to your customers to make their payments after the due date before finance charges kick in. This is typically from 15-21 days.

Where should captured finance charges go? In this example, the Finance Charge Account has been assigned to Other Income. 

Do you want to Assess finance charges on overdue finance charges? Some jurisdictions don’t allow you to charge interest on overdue interest charges. If you want to do this, check on your local lending laws – specifically state usury laws which may limit the amounts that can be charged.

When will you start to Calculate charges? In this example, the due date is selected. So, QuickBooks will start to add finance charges 21 days after the stated due date. If you choose invoice/billed date, you’ll want to make your grace period longer. This can be rather a confusing concept. Contact us if you want a deeper explanation.

Assessing Finance Charges

There’s one more issue on the Preferences screen that you’ll need to resolve. QuickBooks offers two ways to notify customers about finance charges. You can’t include them on invoices, like you may be used to seeing on credit card bills. Rather, you have to print separate invoices that only contain the finance charges. 

If you put a check in the box in front of Mark finance charge invoices “To be printed,” you can print them out separately. If you leave the box blank, the finance charges will appear on the customer’s next statement. Click OK when you’re done with this window.

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QuickBooks can find the overdue invoices that need to have finance charges applied and display them in a window like this one.

Open the Customers menu and select Assess Finance Charges. A window like the one in the image above will open. Make sure that the Assessment Date is the actual date you want to assess charges, which may not be the current date. Click in the Assess column to create a checkmark for every customer you want to charge. When you’re done, click Assess Charges.

When you’re ready to print finance charge invoices, open the File menu and select Print Forms | Invoices to open a window like this:

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Invoices with an FC preceding the number are finance charge invoices ready for printing.

Lots to Learn

Besides knowing whether you can charge finance charges on existing finance charges, there are other considerations. For example, do your state’s lending laws allow you to use the phrase “finance charge” or must you use something like “late fee?” When should you assess finance charges? Have you notified your customers of your intent to begin assessing finance charges? This is definitely something they should know in advance. You might need to add this to your customer message on invoices.

We can’t tell you whether finances charges are the path you should take to improve your cash flow as there are many issues to consider. But we can help you with the mechanics of doing so and are here to answer any questions. Let us know if you want to get started using this tool, we can help.

New to QuickBooks® ? Try These 5 Activities

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QuickBooks can be overwhelming when you first start using it. Here are five ways to familiarize yourself with some of its features to get you up and running in no time.

Tackling any new piece of software can be daunting. Add a complex process like accounting to the mix, like QuickBooks does, and you may feel apprehensive about your ability to learn how to use it. 

But QuickBooks was designed for small businesspeople, not for accountants nor technical wizards. It uses familiar language and forms, and it works like other Windows programs. That doesn’t mean, though, that you’ll be able to just jump in and start completing your accounting tasks. 

Here are five steps you can take to start familiarizing yourself with QuickBooks that will get you up and running in no time. We’ll assume that you’ve already created your company file. If you need help with this critical first step, let us know.

Open a sample file.

While you’re exploring QuickBooks, it’s a good idea to work with a sample file. That way, you can look around and practice without risking compromising your company file. You’ll be able to see how completed records and transactions should look and try your hand at entering sample data of your own.

QuickBooks comes with sample files that allow you to practice entering data without harming your own company file.

Before you open a sample file, you’ll need to close your current company. Click on File in the upper left to open that menu, then select Close Company. A window will open that should have your company file in its list. Below that, you’ll see three boxes containing different options. Click on the down arrow next to Open a sample file, as pictured above (this may look slightly different in your version). Choose the one you want to open and click on it. QuickBooks will load again with that file open. When you’re done looking at the sample file, go to File | Close Company again. The No Company Open window should appear again. Click on your company file name and then on Open to return to your own file.

Learn where your lists are.

You’ll be storing a great deal of information in lists. QuickBooks maintains these automatically sometimes when you enter information in a record or transaction. For example, when you create a record for a product or service you sell, it goes into a master list that you can access by opening the Lists menu at the top of the screen and clicking on Item List. You’ll also open the Lists menu when you want to add options to an existing type of list, like Class List (QuickBooks allows you to assign Classes to transactions so you can group related information, like New Construction or Remodel if you’re a contractor).

You’ll sometimes select from lists of commands in QuickBooks. This is the menu for the Item List.

Try a Transaction.

There are two transactions you’ll probably be using the most: invoices and sales receipts. QuickBooks comes with templates that resemble these sales forms’ paper counterparts. You simply fill in the blanks by entering data and selecting options from drop-down lists. Open the Customers menu and select Create Invoices. Click the back arrow above Find in the upper left corner to see sample invoices. Then click the right arrow to get back to a blank form and create an invoice by clicking the down arrows in blank fields to see your sample lists.

Explore Snapshots.

Once you start entering records and transactions, you’ll want to be able to access that information in ways that provide insight on how your company is doing. You’ll eventually start running reports in QuickBooks, but the software also accomplishes this through its Snapshots. There are three of them, and they all provide these overviews by using data tables and charts. Open the Company menu and click on Company Snapshot, then click the tabs to move between Company, Payments, and Customer. You’ll learn how QuickBooks provides real-time information about your finances.

Look at the Income Tracker.

It’s easy to see the status of your invoices (and estimates) in QuickBooks. Open the Customers menu and select Income Tracker. Colored bars at the top of the screen show you what’s outstanding and what’s been paid. A list of the related transactions appears below these bars.

This partial view of the Income Tracker tells you how much money is tied up in unbilled Time & Expenses and unpaid Invoices.

As we said earlier, QuickBooks can be overwhelming when you first start to use it. We can ease that transition by providing training and helping you move your existing accounting information over to the software. If you’ve started using QuickBooks on your own and you have questions, we can always step in to offer answers.

Stay healthy, and best wishes for a more prosperous 2021.

How Do You Create Price Levels in QuickBooks?

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QuickBooks allows you to create Price Levels that you can assign to customers and jobs and to individual items.

You already know that when you create a product or service record in QuickBooks, you must assign a sale price to it. But did you know that QuickBooks gives you a great deal of flexibility when to comes to pricing items you sell? The software allows you to create one or more additional Price Levels that you can access in invoices, estimates, sales receipts, credit memos, and sales orders.

There are three ways you can use these. Once you’ve created them, they’ll be available in a drop-down list in the Rate field. This means you can assign them manually to individual transactions. The second option is to assign them globally to specific customers or jobs. Once you’ve done so, that price will apply every time you create a transaction for one of them. Finally, you can create price levels for selected items.

Here’s how it works. Let’s say you want to be able to create a price level that’s 15 percent below the actual price that you can use in individual transactions. You open the Lists menu and select Price Level List. Click the arrow in the lower left corner next to Price Level and select New. A window like this will open:

You can create price levels in QuickBooks and assign them to individual sales transactions.

Fill in the field next to Price Level Name, and then click the arrow next to Price Level Type. Select Fixed %. Select decrease from the drop-down list on the next line and enter your percentage number. Round up to the nearest is an optional field, Click OK when you’re done. The next time you create a sales transaction, your new price level will be available as an option when you open the drop-down list in the Rate column.

When you need to edit or delete a price level, go to Lists | Price Level List again and click the arrow next to Price Level in the lower left corner. You have several options here. You can, for example, make a price level inactive so it doesn’t appear on the list. The field next to Price Level is labeled Reports. Click on the arrow to see what’s available there.

Customers and Jobs

You can also apply a price level you’ve created to a specific customer or job, perhaps to reward a customer for frequent purchases. When you do so, that rate will appear every time you enter a sales transaction for the customer or job you selected.

Open the Customers menu and select Customer Center. Double click on a customer or job’s name to open the record. Click on the Payment Settings tab. Click the arrow in the field next to Price Level and select the right one, then click OK.

You can assign a Price Level to specific customers or jobs.

Per Item Price Levels

QuickBooks also allows you to set custom prices for specific items that are associated with preferred customers or jobs (this option is only available if you’re using QuickBooks Premier or Enterprise). Let’s say you want to give a 10 percent discount to specific customers who purchase your website development services. Go to Lists | Price Level List and click the arrow next to Price Level in the lower left corner again, then select New (you can also get to the New command by right-clicking anywhere in the window). 

Give your price level a name (like Web Development 10 Off), then select Per Item from the Price Level Type drop-down list. Click in front of the Item you want to include. The fields in the next line should read as pictured in the image below: 10% | lower | standard price. Click Adjust. You’ll see your reduced prices in the Custom Price column in the table above.

You can establish a Price Level for specific items in QuickBooks.

Again, the rounding field is optional. When you’re finished here, click OK. The next time you create a sales transaction for a customer who is eligible for the lower price, you’ll select Web Development 10 Off from the drop-down list in the Rate column.

Feel like you’re outgrowing your current version of QuickBooks, or is it several years old? Talk to us about upgrading. We’re here to support you and to help you more effectively use the software as your business changes and grows.

How to Create Product Records in QuickBooks® Online

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Whether your company sells product or services, QuickBooks Online can help you track them.

If you sell one-of-a-kind products and can see all of them at a glance, tracking your inventory isn’t such a big issue. But not many people run businesses like that. Even if you do, you’d want to keep track of what you have and what you’ve sold for accounting purposes.

Most businesses sell multiple types of products and stock numerous units of them. These companies need to be able to easily add them to invoices and sales receipts. They need to know what’s selling and what’s not, and they need to know when it’s time to reorder.

QuickBooks Online’s recording and tracking tools meet all of these requirements by allowing you to create records for services. Here’s how it works.

Getting Ready

Before you can start working with QuickBooks Online’s product records, you should make sure that the site is set up for this purpose. Click the gear icon in the upper right, then Your Company | Account and settings. Click the Sales tab to get to the Products and services section, as pictured below.

QuickBooks Online’s Account and Settings has a section devoted to Products and services.

Click on Products and services to open your options here. To turn any entry from On to Off, or vice versa, click in the box at the beginning of the line to check or uncheck it. To see an explanation of each, click on the small circled question mark. When you’re done here, click Save. Then click the X in the upper right to close this window.

Creating Records

To start entering product and service data in records, click the gear icon in the upper right, then select Products and services. Since you haven’t entered anything yet, the table will be blank. Eventually, it will contain data for each record you’ve created. You’ll also notice two colored circles at the top of the screen, one marked Low Stock and the other, Out of Stock. When there is a number next to either of them, you’ll be able to click on either circle to see a list of what’s low or what’s out.

Click New in the upper right. A vertical panel will slide out asking what kind of record you want to create. You can choose from:

  • Inventory – Physical items you sell whose quantity you want to track
  • Non-inventory – Products you buy or sell but whose quantities you don’t need to track
  • Service – Services you sell, like legal representation or landscaping
  • Bundle – A group of products and/or services that are sold together, like computer training and accompanying software

We’re going to create an inventory item, so click on Inventory. Type its Name in that field and add a photo if you’d like. If the product has been assigned a SKU, enter that in its field. You may want to divide your products into primary categories and sub-products or services (like Writing Instruments and Pens, Pencils, Markers, etc.). You can skip this option if you don’t.

QuickBooks Online helps prevent product shortages.

In the next section, you’ll enter the Initial quantity on hand. How many do you have as of (current) date? And where do you want to set your Reorder point? What number of items remaining should trigger the Low Stock alert so you can replenish your supply?

Inventory asset account should already be set at Inventory Asset. Enter a brief Description and then the product’s Sales price/rate (the price you’ll charge customers) and leave Income account set at Sales of Product Income. Then select a Sales tax category. If you haven’t set up sales taxes in QuickBooks Online and believe you’re required to pay them on at least some sales, please let us help. 

In the Purchasing information field, enter the description that should appear on purchase forms, then Cost (the price you paid to buy the product, if any). The Expense account should be Cost of Goods Sold. Select a Preferred Vendor if you’d like and Save the record.

Not all fields are required in your product and service records, but we strongly recommend you complete each record as thoroughly as is possible.

Next month, we’ll look at how product and service records are used in QuickBooks Online. In the meantime, please let us know if there’s any way we can help with your accounting or your use of QuickBooks Online. We know these are challenging times for you, and we hope you’ll use us as one of your resources.

Make QuickBooks® Yours: Customize the Desktop

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Make QuickBooks work faster for you by changing a few settings.

Whether your business has been locked down because of the pandemic, or you’re scrambling to hold things together with fewer employees or diminishing sales, you’re probably leaning on QuickBooks more than ever. You may be watching dwindling inventory items closely or monitoring your daily cash flow or trying to collect on invoices that aren’t being paid because your customers are short on money.

QuickBooks can help with all these accounting tasks. But you certainly don’t want to waste time now just dealing with the software’s mechanics.

As always, we’re available to help as you deal with the toll that COVID-19 is taking on your company. We’d also like to suggest that you spend a little time customizing QuickBooks. Streamlining its operations will take some of the unnecessary frustration out of your work life.

Getting Around Quickly

QuickBooks tries to accommodate different work styles and preferences by providing multiple navigation methods. These are:
• The old, standard Windows menus.
• The home page’s icons.
• The Icon Bar that appears in the left vertical pane by default (you change its position by opening the View menu).

If you’re going to use the Icon Bar, we recommend that you set it up to make your most often-used tools prominent. Right-click in the toolbar and click on Customize Shortcuts to open the Customize Icon Bar window. In the upper left corner, you’ll see a list of your icons as they’re currently arranged. You can rearrange them by grabbing the small diamonds to their left with your mouse and dragging them to their new positions. You can change their labels by clicking Edit, or Delete them.

You can add almost any window in QuickBooks to your fast-access Icon Bar.

You’re not limited to the items in the list. Click Add, and the Add Icon Bar Item opens, as pictured above. Click on any of the ones you want to include in the Icon Bar, then click OK. QuickBooks allows you to add almost any screen to your Icon Bar. Navigate to the window you want to add, then open the View menu and select Add…to Icon Bar. If you never use the Icon Bar, you can collapse it by clicking the small arrow to the right of the Search box at the top of the pane. You can also close the home page by clicking the lower of the two small X’s in the upper right.

Tile Your Windows
If you regularly work with the same handful of screens, there’s a faster way to access them. Open them all, then open the Window menu and select Tile Vertically. All the windows will be displayed on the same screen, arranged vertically. If there are enough of them, they will overlap. To activate one, just click on it. You can open it to full screen by clicking the small rectangle in the upper right and return to your vertical arrangement by clicking the double rectangle in the upper right.

If you’d prefer, you can Tile Horizontally. Or, you can click Cascade to display them stacked on top of each other with only each window’s title label showing, as shown below. If you want to go back to a blank screen and start over, click Window | Close All. The Window menu also displays a list of open windows that can be used for navigation.

If you click Window | Cascade with multiple windows open, QuickBooks will stack them, with only the bottom screen showing. Click on a title label to open a different window.

The Desktop View

There are other ways you can make QuickBooks work the way you want it to. Open the Edit menu and select Preferences, then Desktop View. Click on the My Preferences tab if it’s not already highlighted. There are several preferences here. Look under the Desktop heading. You can have QuickBooks open to the configuration of windows you want. Your options are:

• Save [the windows that are already open] when closing company.
• Save current desktop (a specific set of windows).
• Don’t save the desktop (always open to just the home page).

Click the Company Preferences tab to add or remove icons from the home page. This is also where you turn features on and off.

We’re Still Here

All these suggestions may seem minor to you. But they will save time. More important, they will give you a better sense of control over the hours you spend on accounting tasks. And with so many things out of our control right now, creating a software environment that is tailored to your workflow can benefit you.

We know that you may be struggling right now to maintain your financial health, as well as your physical health. More than ever, we hope you’ll contact us if you have a QuickBooks or general accounting problem that we could solve. We’ll be happy to do what we can to help you through during this very challenging period.

Using QuickBooks’ Reminders and Calendar

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Now, more than ever, you need QuickBooks to track what needs to be done.

COVID-19 has transformed the entire U.S. small business landscape in just a few short months. Companies are struggling to stay afloat. We all just want to get back to “normal,” but it’s unclear when that will happen.

We’d like to help you as much as possible during these uncertain times. One of the ways we can do that is by supporting you as you keep a close watch on your income and expenses. QuickBooks is our go-to tool for that purpose, and we hope you’re making the best possible use of the software right now.

There are steps you can take to ensure that QuickBooks is working quickly and well for you, and that you’re attending to the work you must do every day. The software’s Reminders and Calendar can help you stay current with your accounting.

Setting Up Reminders

You don’t want to let anything slip through the cracks right now. It’s nearly impossible to keep up with your QuickBooks tasks without using the software’s Reminders feature. Before you start using this, you’ll have to set up its structure. Open the Edit menu and select Preferences | Reminders. This window will open:

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You can tell QuickBooks which situations should trigger Reminders.

This window should open to the My Preferences screen. Click the box in front of Show Reminders List when opening a Company file to create a checkmark. Then click Company Preferences. You’ll see a list of QuickBooks “events,” like Checks to Print. You can tell QuickBooks how many days in advance you’d like to be warned about this pending activity by entering a number in the box in front of days before check date. You can also request that this appear in either Summary or List form. If you don’t want to be notified about any of them, click the button below Don’t Remind Me.  When you’re done here, click OK.

The next time you open QuickBooks, your reminders will appear in a window on top of your home page. When you double-click on one, the transaction or other item will open. Two icons in the upper right of the Reminders screen open your Preferences and a blank To Do form. Here, you can schedule a call, task, appointment, etc. and associate it with a customer, vendor, or employee if desired. This item will then appear in your Reminders list. 

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The Reminders window appears when you open the related Company file; you can add To Do’s manually.

A Graphical View

QuickBooks’ Reminders are not the only way you can ensure that you’re meeting your accounting obligations. You can use the Calendar to see what you’ve scheduled and accomplished every day.

As you did with Reminders, though, you should visit this tool’s Preferences page (Edit | Preferences | Calendar). Here, you’ll only need to work with the options under the My Preferences tab. You can choose from among a Daily, Weekly, or Monthly view, or just have QuickBooks Remember last view. Your calendar can display your choice of a Weekly view: a Fixed view of 5 or 7 days or a Variable view of 5/7 days. And, you can show All Transactions, To Do, Transactions Due, or choose one type of transaction (Invoice, Sales Receipt, Bill, etc.).

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How would you like your Calendar displayed? QuickBooks lets you choose from among options.

You can also define Upcoming and Past Due Settings. You can Hide or Show these, Show only if data exists, or remember the last settings. QuickBooks allows you to choose the number of days’ worth of data that will be displayed for both Upcoming data and Past due data.

You can open the Calendar itself from the Company menu and by clicking a link in the Toolbar or on the Home Page. You’ll see a graphical calendar in the View you selected. Every day where there’s been—or is scheduled to be—activity will say either Due or Entered, with the corresponding number of transactions in parentheses. Below that is a list of Transactions Entered; you can double-click on any of them to see the actual transaction form. 

A list of upcoming and past due transactions appears in the right vertical pane. Fields and buttons at the top of the screen allow you to change the View and limit the list to a specified type of transaction. You can also add To Do’s from this page.

We hope these tools are helpful for you as you navigate through today’s choppy financial waters. Please do let us know if we can assist you in managing your company’s critical accounting tasks. We want you to keep your business going as best you can until we get to the other side of the ongoing crisis.

How to Back Up and Move a Company File in QuickBooks®

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Your QuickBooks company file is gold. Make sure you know how to back it up and restore it properly.

You may not think of your QuickBooks company file as being portable. It lives safely on the hard drive of your desktop and/or laptop computer. You wouldn’t want it to be anywhere else, right?

However, the most common reason businesses move these critical files is because they’ve purchased a new computer or they may also want to share their data. QuickBooks allows you to create a backup file that you can save to a USB drive or CD, or to another folder on your company’s network. Once it’s available at its destination computer (where a copy of QuickBooks has already been installed), you (or another recipient) will be able to restore it.

Note: These instructions were created using QuickBooks 2018. If you don’t see what’s being described here in your version, contact us.

Making a Backup

You shouldn’t wait until you have to move a QuickBooks company file before backing it up, though. This is something you should be doing regularly. 

Before you start, make sure your copy of QuickBooks is updated, which shouldn’t be a problem if you’re set up with automatic updates. If you’re not, and you’ve ignored those messages about updates that appear when you open QuickBooks, we can help you launch a manual update and configure QuickBooks to automatically update.

With QuickBooks in Single-User Mode, open the File menu and hover over Back Up Company. Select Create Local Backup. You’ll see this window:

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You can save your QuickBooks backup copy locally or online.

Intuit offers a service called Intuit Data Protect ($99.95 annually) that allows you to back up your company file online (we can help you explore this if you’re interested). Let’s assume here, though, that you have a USB drive plugged into your computer and are ready for your backup.

Click the button next to Local backup, then the Options button. In the window that opens, you’ll select your destination location and answer a few questions about your backup. One of these gives you the option to get a reminder to back up your file every x times you close QuickBooks, should you choose to do manual backups. 

Click OK to return to the Create Backup window, then click Next. The following screen gives you the option to save your file and/or schedule future (automatic) backups. If you choose to simply save it now, check that button and click Next to verify the destination location and file name.

Note: Before you save your backup file, give it a name that is different from your regular company file. Write down the exact file name and its location.

Click Save. A small window will open displaying your progress, and you’ll get a confirmation message when the file has been saved with a .qbb extension. You can now take the removable storage device to the destination computer, where QuickBooks should already be installed.

Warning: If you want to schedule automatic backups by clicking on one of the two options in the Create Backup window, please consult with us first. Automated processes in QuickBooks can save time and effort, but when you’re dealing with your irreplaceable company file, you must get it right.

Restoring a Backup File

Once that’s done, open the File menu and select Open or Restore Company on the destination computer. This window will appear:

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QuickBooks displays this window when you select File | Open or Restore Company.

Click the button in front of Restore a backup copy. Click Next and select Local backup. Then click Next again. Click the down arrow next to the Look in field and click on the location of your backup file to display its contents. Browse until you find the file (it should end in .qbb), then highlight it by clicking on it. Click Open.

QuickBooks displays a window that asks where you want to restore your file. You’ll click Next to find it in the Save Company File as window. The Save in field should point to your main QuickBooks directory (like QuickBooks 2018) and the File name field should show the correct file name. 

When everything looks correct, click Save. QuickBooks will convert your .qbb file to the standard QuickBooks file type, .qbw, and open it.

Care Needed

Losing your QuickBooks data, as you know, would be absolutely disastrous. But there may be occasions when you’ll need to open a backup copy of your company file on a different computer. We would be happy to walk you through this the first time you do it; in fact, we highly recommend it. As always, we’re available to work with you on any QuickBooks issues you’re experiencing – or to get you up and running for the first time.