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Rather than pile on tons of new features in its upgrades, Intuit – for many years – has seemed to concentrate on making it easier for you to access the tools and data that are already there.
QuickBooks 2014 can make it easier to get in and do what needs to be done quickly, and then move on to other activities that will help build your business.

A Better View
If you do upgrade to QuickBooks 2014, check out the new Income Tracker (Customers | Income Tracker). QuickBooks new feature provides possibly the best “view” we’ve seen in the software.

Figure 1: QuickBooks 2014’s new Income Tracker gives you real-time access to the status of your receivables.

This screen gives you a birds-eye view of your receivables that isn’t available anywhere else in the program. You can click on any of the four colored bars that run across the top of the screen – Estimates, Open Invoices, Overdue and Paid Last 30 Days — to change the data that appears below. Within each bar is the number of related transactions and their total dollar amount.
More Descriptive/Detailed Email
If you regularly send invoices through email, you may have wondered how many of them actually get opened by your customers in a decent, timely fashion. QuickBooks 2014 has a new tool that makes the details of an invoice available in the body of the email itself.

Figure 2: You can modify this template or leave it as is: QuickBooks 2014 will fill in the relevant details for each customer.
To access this template, open the Edit menu and select Preferences. Click on the Send Forms tab, then Company Preferences.
Some Other Smaller Changes
Intuit has made many small-but-productive features to QuickBooks 2014, all designed to help you work faster and smarter, and simply to support simpler operations. For example, the Ribbon toolbars on transactions now include a tab or menu that lets you open related reports.

Figure 3: You can now access reports directly from the Ribbon toolbar on transaction screens.
In addition:

• The program seems to run faster.
• We can communicate with you (and vice versa) through an email window that’s been embedded into the software.
• There’s been some re-doing of online banking (now called “Bank Feeds”), making it more accessible and hopefully understandable to you and other users.

Upgrading to a new version of QuickBooks can sometimes be challenging, so we encourage you to let us know if you’d like to explore the process. New functionality and usability that improves your workflow and your understanding of your finances can be worth the time and trouble.

If you make one resolution about improving your accounting procedures in 2012, it should be this: Make extensive use of the tools that QuickBooks offers for report modification.

Comprehensive, meticulously-shaped reports that flow out of your carefully-constructed records and transactions are your reward for pounding on the keys every day, conscientiously recording income and expenses. 

​QuickBooks supplies you with a wide variety of pre-formatted reports whose modification options
can help you do focused, critical analysis of your financial data. The right set of numbers will help you understand your history and plan for the future more effectively.

Note: The reports discussed and pictured here shows only one possible set of customization options. There are many variations. We can answer your questions.

CHECK YOUR PREFERENCES

When you created your company file in QuickBooks, you chose between reporting on a cash (income and expenses are recorded when money changes hands) or accrual (recorded when you invoice or receive a bill) basis. This affects summary reports, but not those that break out individual transactions or are simply lists.
If you want to change this, click Edit | Preferences | Reports & Graphs | Company Preferences and click the desired button:

Figure 1: You can establish a preference for your summary reports’ basis here.
You can set other preference in this window that will affect your report output here, too, as you can see.

ALTERING THE DISPLAY
Open the INCOME BY CUSTOMER SUMMARY report (Reports | Company & Financial). Change the dates to reflect the range you’d like to see. Also QuickBooks has a feature called “fuzzy dates”. When you choose a “fuzzy date” range for your report, like “last month” or “last quarter” and you memorize this report, it will always come up with the dates changed to reflect your “fuzzy date” no matter when you pull it up – a month later or a quarter later. Note that Figure 2 is using a “fuzzy date” – “This fiscal year-to-date”.

Want the data displayed by different time increments – like week or quarter – instead of just total?
Click the arrow next to COLUMNS and select FOUR WEEK.

Figure 2: You can do some report display alterations from this toolbar; the options it offers vary by report.
By default, your report rows display alphabetically. If you want to view a column by total in ascending or descending order, select the column by hovering over the top number until the magnifying glass appears, and click on it. Click the arrow next to Sort by and choose Total, then click the AZ [down arrow] icon (in some reports, there will be other options here).

Additional options in this toolbar let you:

• Memorize the report
• Print, email or export it to Excel
• Hide or Show the Header
• Collapse or Expand the columns
• Refresh the report if you’ve made changes that will alter data

MORE DISPLAY OPTIONS 

Click CUSTOMIZE REPORT to open this window:

Figure 3: This window outlines your report’s content options.
Some of the options here duplicate what you saw in the toolbar. In additon you can switch between CASH and ACCRUAL for just this report, and add subcolumns in some. The latter is a complicated operation, one that you must understand well in order to glean any insight from it. We can help you with this.

Sometimes the subcolumns are generic, as shown in the screen above. In other reports, they are very specific to that group of data. An example of that might be theAR AGING REPORT. Some of QuickBooks’ reports are specifically designed to do a certain type of report and they therefore refer to that specific outcome.

Clicking on REVERT takes you back to the default format, and ADVANCED OPTIONSopens addtional options specific to the current report.

Figure 4: In transaction – or detail – reports, you can alter the column structure.  
Learn the mechanics of report display modification well, and your company’s finances will come into much sharper focus, improving the wisdom of future choices. Up next month: filtering your reports for additional clarity.

​If you have questions on this or any other QuickBooks feature, call or email us. We’re your partner and we’re here to make your business better!

Keeping your accounts receivable current in this economy is a challenge. Checks can be slow to arrive and cumbersome to process. And if you’re using a non-QuickBooks merchant account for credit card transactions, you may be paying more than necessary, using a clunky terminal, and/or doing unnecessary data entry.

There’s a better solution. Intuit Merchant Service for QuickBooks lets you accept credit and debit card transactions. You’ll be able to:

• Authorize the transactions in QuickBooks
• Get paid faster
• Reduce data entry errors
• Process payments on any PC

​Recording Cards
After a quick application and setup process, you can begin. If you’re applying payments to invoices, just click Receive Payments like you normally do (you can also apply card payments to sales receipts and credit memos).

In the Customer Payment window, choose a customer, enter the amount, and select the payment method. Enter the number and expiration date (if this is already in the customer record, it will appear), check the Process xxxx payment when savingbox, and save. Upon authorization, the money will go into Undeposited Funds unless you’ve specified otherwise in Preferences.

​Let us know if you have any questions – we’ll be happy to help you get started on the right foot.

Refunds!! You probably wince at the word. Some – like customer refunds for returns – are fairly uncomplicated, thanks to QuickBooks’ tools. Others, not so much. You may find yourself unable to balance your accounts receivable. There are numerous scenarios that necessitate the use of credit memos, including overpayment, order cancellations and bad debt write-off. It’s critical that these are entered correctly. If they aren’t, you may lose a lot of the time that QuickBooks helped you save as you try to chase down a few dollars.

Figure 1: QuickBooks helps you identify refunds quickly. 
Sending money back 
Let’s say a customer pays for an order but cancels before it ships. You could: 

• Apply the balance to an existing invoice
• Keep it as an available credit
• Issue a refund 

 Click Customers | Create Credit Memos/Refunds. Select the correct customer and job (and A/R account, if you have more than one). Enter the items just as they appear on the invoice.
When you’re finished, click Save & New.  The Available Credit window opens, displaying your options:

Figure 2: The Available Credit window displays your credit balance options.
You would select Give a refund and click OK. The Issue a Refund window opens and should already be filled in. If everything is correct, click OK. The refund check has now been entered in the checking register, ready to be processed. If the order involved inventory items, the creation of the credit memo has returned the items into inventory.

WARNING: If the invoice was paid with a credit card, it gets complicated. Your instructions will depend on whether you are using Intuit Merchant Service for QuickBooks or another merchant account service. You’ll also have to deal with transaction fees. We can help you deal with this. Other refund options
If the customer has open invoices, you may want to choose Apply to an invoice in the Available Credit window. A list opens;  just select the correct invoice. Or if you want to have those extra funds available for other invoices but don’t want to apply them immediately, click Retain as an available credit.  When you want to use them, click the Apply Credits button in the lower right corner of the invoice.

Figure 3: When issuing a refund, QuickBooks can hold those funds to be applied to invoices later.
Sometimes, customers overpay an invoice or statement charge, or make a down payment for which there is no invoice. This is easy to fix. Open the Customer Payment screen (Customer Center | Transactions | Received Payments) and double-click the related payment. In the screen’s lower left corner, you’ll see this:

Figure 4: Click the correct option here.
Click the correct button, then Save & Close. The Issue a Refund window opens; you’d treat it the same way you did when you dispatched a return refund.

Another use
You can also use credit memos to write off bad debt if you are using the accrual method of accounting.

If you don’t already have a Bad Debt item in your item list, set up a new item as an Other Charge. Name it “Bad Debt” and match it to the correct account. Usually this account is an expense account called BAD DEBT EXPENSE.

Open the Credit Memo window and select the customer, then select Bad Debt as the item. You’ll get a message saying that the item is associated with an expense account; click OK. Enter the write-off amount minus sales tax if taxable (be sure the Tax column is correct) and click Save & Close.

The Available Credit window opens. Select Apply to an invoice. Put a check mark next to the correct one and click Done.

Make refunds make sense
It seemed easier in the days when you just wrote a check for a refund or made an entry in a paper ledger, didn’t it? Using QuickBooks credit memos, though, helps you maintain records that follow standard accounting procedures and simplifies our understanding of your files. We’ll be glad to help you make sure that this sometimes-complex task is done right from the start.

E-Pay and E-File with QuickBooks are two great benefits of QuickBooks Payroll.

Are you using these features or are you still logging into EFTPS and doing your payments there, and filing paper forms for 941, State Taxes and 940. We can even do your W-2s electronically.

It’s so easy and makes it possible for you to be totally in control and up do date with all your payroll tax info.

​Give us a call and we can guide you througjh the set up and make your life easier. It’s worth it.

Never leave QuickBooks and yet make  your tax payments and file your tax forms – ELECTRONICALLY. QuickBooks even gives you a confirmation number and tracks the info all the way to IRS or your state agencies with an audit trail.
Make sure you are getting the most out of your QuickBooks payroll subscription.

No matter which level of QuickBooks® payroll you choose, you’ll have to do some groundwork before you start dispatching paychecks. Intuit can manage everything up to and including, well, everything – payroll runs, filings, taxes and reports – but you’ll have to provide myriad details before you begin and during each payroll run.
​
QuickBooks’ tools must be followed to the letter to avoid penalties from federal and local agencies. But before you even fire up QuickBooks, you’ll save a lot of scrambling later if you pull together the information you’ll need first.

Details, details, details

​Yes, this part will be tiresome, but you’ll have to do it eventually, anyway. You may have all of this information in a neat file or an Excel spreadsheet, but it may also be scattered. Wherever it exists, pull together:

• All employee W-4s
• All possible compensation levels (salary, hourly, bonuses, commissions and tips)
• Employee benefit information. Do you offer 401Ks, health or dental insurance? Can employees set up Flexible Spending Accounts?  How much PTO, vacation and sick time, etc.,  is offered?
• Additional withholding and payment options, like travel reimbursements and cash advances, wage garnishments and union dues
• Hire and termination dates
• A voided check, if you offer direct deposit

Figure 1: Before you start entering payroll information, QuickBooks will want all of the details.
Tax data, too

You know from getting paychecks in the past that your total earnings are reduced by deductions like FICA, Medicare and state income tax. As an employer, you’re now responsible for calculating those withholdings and remitting them to the appropriate government entities.

Payroll taxes will be the bane of your existence unless you pick a payroll option that manages them (or let us help you with this arduous task). You’ll need to know exactly what your liability is to both federal and local authorities. If you don’t already, you can find contact information for state and local agencies here.

So another pre-payroll information-gathering task will involve learning what you’ll owe to whom, and when. Fortunately, QuickBooks will do all of the calculating for you, and it provides a thorough setup wizard.

Figure 2: QuickBooks helps you set up your tax liabilities.
Paying employees is a challenging element of your role as an employer, and it must be done right. We can help you build an accurate framework and keep up with your government payroll tax obligations.

​No matter which version of QuickBooks you’re using, there are always ways to make your workday easier. As with any software, we tend to learn the features we need and not much more. But small changes in the way you operate can add up to significant time savings and more accurate files. If you jumped into QuickBooks without a thorough introduction, consider these tips.

Use the Open Window list
Spend some time in Preferences, and you’ll be surprised to learn that you have more flexibility than you knew. QuickBooks is designed to work for a tremendously wide variety of businesses, so it comes with some features activated but many dormant.
The Open Window list is a good example. Do you tire of closing windows to find a screen that you used several tasks ago? Make sure that you’re in one-window view (View | One Window), and then click View | Open Window List. Click on any entry to move to that page.

Figure 1: The Open Windows list lets you easily move among active screens.

Make account assignment mandatory 
QuickBooks lets you enter transactions without assigning them to accounts. So your Chart of Accounts has two accounts labeled Uncategorized Income and Uncategorized Expenses that serve as repositories for these transactions. This means that when you run reports or prepare for taxes, you may have a hard time remembering the circumstances of those transactions and will find it difficult to assign them to accounts.

Do yourself a favor. Set up QuickBooks so that you must assign an account to every transaction. This will take extra time upfront, but not as much as if you try to recall the transaction three months from now. Go to Edit | Preferences | Accounting | Company Preferences and make sure that Require Accounts is checked. If you have questions on this, please call or email us.

Use the Account Prefill fields 
Speaking of accounts, here’s a little time-saving tip. If you have vendors that are always assigned to the same account(s), you can establish this constant in the vendor record. Simply open the Edit Vendor window for a client and click the Account Prefill tab. Select the appropriate selection(s) from the drop-down lists. If a payment is sometimes split between multiple accounts, you’ll handle this division when you add transactions.

Figure 2: Designate vendor accounts to save time when creating transactions.

Use “Pending Sales”
Invoices, sales receipts and credit memos can be earmarked as “pending.” These sales do not show up in registers or reports (except for the Pending Sales report) and can’t be used for transactions where payment has already been applied. Create the transaction and click  Edit | Mark [form name] As Pending. To finalize it, open the form and click Edit | Mark [form name] As Final.
This action can be useful in multiple situations, including:

• Backordered items
• Draft approvals
• Estimates
• Time-tracking for jobs
• Profit and loss reports that show the impact of pending sales (choose Either as the posting status [Non-posting or Posting] under Filters)

Figure 3: You can mark a payment as “pending” in several situations.

Be kind to your accountant: Set a closing date 
Once we’ve worked with your QuickBooks file up to a certain date, entering, editing or deleting transactions prior to that date wreaks havoc with the balance of your books. To be safe, your administrator should password-protect the ability to do this, so that no one does this intentionally or unintentionally. Go to Edit | Preferences | Accounting | Company Preferences and enter a closing date and password. We will change the date each time we complete our work.

Figure 4: Password-protect closed periods to preserve the accuracy of your books.
These are just a few examples of ways you can customize QuickBooks to make your workdays more productive and your record-keeping safer and more reflective of your business. We can help you further tailor the software to make it a better fit.
If you have questions on this or any other QuickBooks feature, call or email us. We’re your partner and we’re here to make your business better

As it usually does this time of year, Intuit has introduced new versions of its Pro and Premier products. QuickBooks 2012 promises to help you get better organized, save steps, and acquire more in-depth financial insights.

The new Express Start is designed for newcomers to QuickBooks who want to blast through setup and start entering customers and invoices. You have two other options, though: Advanced Setup is the old EasyStep interview that solicits more details. You can also open an existing file or convert data from Quicken or other accounting software.

Express Start requires minimal input: company name, industry, company type, tax ID, and contact information. After you save your company file, it lets you start adding or importing customers/vendors/employees, products/services, and bank.accounts. Of course, depending on your needs as a business, there are many features not covered here that a qualified Pro Advisor could set up and explain to you, but this gets you started.

Figure 1: Express Start simplifies company setup

An Activity-Driven Calendar
QuickBooks’ Reminders keep you apprised of each day’s tasks, but they don’t provide any information about the past or future. QuickBooks 2012 solves this problem with its new Calendar. When you enter an appointment, to-do, or key business task (invoices, bills, purchase orders, etc.), it appears in the calendar. You can display a graphical view of the month that tallies activities for each day and lists them below. Daily and weekly views are in list form. And links open the original documents. For those of you acquainted with the Find function in QuickBooks, this Calendar feature may make it easier and faster to find documents you are looking for if they are in the near recent past.

Figure 2: The new Calendar displays daily, weekly, and monthly views of your financial transactions.

Save Excel Formatting
Once you’ve formatted a QuickBooks report in Excel, it’s frustrating to have to reformat it each time you run it for different time periods and/or with your ever-changing content.  Excel Integration Refresh simplifies this process. You can now export a report to Excel, make formatting changes and save them, and then reapply them later to the same type of report using different date ranges and your updated QuickBooks data. Acceptable alterations include:

• Row and column header font formatting
• New formulas
• Renamed column and row headers, and report titles
• Resized columns
• Inserted columns and rows
• Inserted formula text

You can do this by opening your report in QuickBooks and clicking Update an existing worksheet, or by launching your report in Excel and clicking the QuickBooks tab on the toolbar, then the Update Report button.

Figure 3: This window opens when you click Update Report in Excel.

A New Report Community
There’s always room for more report formats. QuickBooks 2012 offers a library of Contributed Reports, variations created either by Intuit or your fellow users. You can select one of these, like Customer Sales By Quantity By Item Detail and instantly populate it with your own data. This list is starting out with hundreds of reports created by Intuit, but as users add to them who knows how large the list will be.

You can sort these templates by industry and rating, and view them as a list, in a grid, or in the
Report Center’s Carousel view.

Centralized Operations
QuickBooks 2012 also saves you time with its new Centers. The Inventory Center works similarly to those available for customers, vendors, and employees. It’s a clearinghouse of item records and transactions that can be viewed and sorted. You can also do inventory housekeeping tasks here, like adding items and launching transactions. You can now post an image of your inventory product and you also have a field to make internal notes on this product. This is quite a revolution in the inventory list.

The Lead Center helps you carefully track new leads that you either paste in from Excel or enter manually. You can add to-dos and notes to contact records, and convert them into customers. Wow. To me this is a big one. Keeping all your leads in the same software as your accounting. I look forward to using this feature myself.

Upgrading Can Be Tricky
Intuit has included other, smaller time-saving organizational and reporting tools in QuickBooks 2012, like One-Click Transactions, which lets you create related transactions from existing ones (i.e., invoice to credit memo) with one click.

There’s nothing especially difficult about using most of QuickBooks 2012’s new features. But upgrading and setup are sometimes quirky, and the Excel Integration Refresh tool has a learning curve. We’re happy to help you start your company file on the right foot or get acclimated to this latest version.

Figure 4; Track your leads and convert them into customers in the new Lead Center

If you are anything like me, being able to do things on the keyboard sure speeds up entry rather than having to reach for that mouse all the time….and there are so many things you can do in QuickBooks ON THE KEYBOARD. It all started in DOS (yes, I remember DOS…am I telling my age LOL) and now those “quickie” keystrokes are still there. You might want to try them and see how they speed up your entry.

Shortcut 1: Keyboard Tips Working with Dates
When in a date field there are many ways to change the date. Of course you can type the date or you can pull up the calendar and “mouse it”, but there may be faster ways to get to a specific date.

Changing by a Few Days:
If you only want to change a few days try using the Plus (+) or Minus (-) key to move forward or backwards. You can hold the key down and change dates quite quickly but I usually recommend this for a change of a few days.

Changing by Weeks:
You can go back to the first day of the week by using the letter W and forward to the last day of the week by using the letter K.

Note: Recognizing that these are the first and last letters of the word WeeK gives you a clue as to how you can move forward or back within the week.

Changing by Months:
You can go back to the first day of the month by using the letter M and forward to the last day of the month by using the letter H.

Note: Recognizing that these are the first and last letters of the word MontH gives you a clue as to how you can move forward or back within the month.

Changing by Year:
You can go back to the first day of the year by using the letter Y and forward to the end of the year at a time by using the letter R.

Note: Recognizing that these are the first and last letters of the word YeaR gives you a clue as to how you can move forward or back within the year.

Today: By now you will probably not be surprised to learn that you can return to today’s date at any time by pressing the letter T.

Shortcut 2: Saving Transactions from Keyboard
When working in a transaction and tabbing from field to field, you eventually get to the point where you want to save the transaction.

If you do not wish to take your hands off the keyboard to move the mouse to the Save & New Button, try holding down the CTRL key while pressing the Enter key.

This combination will execute whatever is highlighted, almost always the Save & New Button.
Shortcut 3: Calculations on the Fly

How often have you worked in QuickBooks and needed to do add up numbers?
Windows and QuickBooks both have calculators that you can pull up, but you really don’t need them.

If you are in an amount field anywhere in QuickBooks, like on a check or other transaction, just pressing the number keys followed by a mathematical symbol (+, -, /, *) you will pull up the calculator. You can continue to enter numbers and math functions until you are done.

When I show clients this shortcut they are amazed, as they had been reaching for a calculator when they had one right in front of them without even leaving the field they were in.

Note: Just remember to press the Enter key to enter the amount into the number field. If you press the tab key you will lose the amount.

Shortcut 4: Working with Check Numbers
Many people don’t realize you can enter something other than a check number in the check number field.

I like to use the word “Online” for all transactions that I do online. You can enter whatever description  pleases you to categorize your transactions. I use “DD” for the direct deposit checks.
The main thing is to know that once the check is entered you can put anything in the number field and it does not have to be a number.

QuickBooks actually enters “e-pay” when you use the e-pay in Payroll to pay your payroll taxes.
This makes it easy to track the transactions and they show up grouped together on the bank statement reconciliation screen.

Note: Just be sure to be consistent with the word and the spelling, including capitalization or they won’t be grouped together.

Shortcut 5: Making the Icon Bar Work for You
Every menu item that you use often should be ON YOUR ICON BAR.
This makes entry so easy and fast, I would be lost without it.

If you go to VIEW on the top menu, you will see “Customize Icon Bar”. Click on it and you will see how you can add and delete icons from the bar.

You can also open up a window or a report and click on View and just click “add to icon bar”. Then you will have the exact window or report at your fingertips. No more searching thru menus for frequently used items.

Of course the Home Page is always there for you, but this saves a click because the icon bar is always on the screen.
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I hope these tips make using QuickBooks a little easier as you go through the day.

Which is right for your application?

​QuickBooks’ standard reports are critical to understanding your company’s past, present, and future. But the program also offers innovative tools that can make them significantly more insightful and comprehensive.

QuickBooks offers two simple conventions that let you identify related data: classes and types. Classes are used in transactions. Types are assigned to individual customers, vendors, and jobs.

You might use classes to, for example, separate transactions that relate to different departments or locations or types of business. A construction company might want to track classes using New Construction, Remodel, and Overhead. Your customer types might help you isolate groups by characteristics like Industry or Geographical Location. A common use of classes is to separate two or more company “locations” or “divisions”. allowing an income statement by profit center.

Creating Classes
First, make sure that QuickBooks is set up to use classes. Go to Edit | Preferences | Accounting | Company Preferences. Make sure that Use class tracking is checked. If you want to be prompted for a class designation in transactions, check that box, too. This could be very important if you want to make sure that every transaction is coded to a class. QuickBooks already contains a Type field in customer, vendor, and job records. Therefore, Type is set up in the profile and will pertain to every transaction that is created in that customer, job or vendor name.

It’s easy to build lists of options for both. To define classes, go to Lists | Class List. In the bottom left corner of the screen, click on Class, then select New from the menu. You’ll see this:

Figure 1: To create a class, just give it a name and click OK.

Let’s say that you’re a contractor and you want to separate remodeling jobs into room types, like Bathroom or Kitchen. Go through the above steps again. Enter “Bathroom” in the Class Name field and click the box next to Subclass of. Open the list and choose “Remodel.” Click OK. 

Tip: If your class list grows lengthy and you want to tidy it up, you can make classes that you’re not currently using inactive by checking the box in this window. It will remain in your QuickBooks records and can be reactivated again. 

Putting Classes to Work
Now you can use classes in transactions. Open a blank invoice and select a customer. The Class field will be next to the customer name. If the entire invoice will be assigned to the same class, click the drop-down list and select it. You can also assign separate classes to individual line items:

Figure 2: You can assign different classes to individual line items in transactions.
Not all invoice templates include a column for classes. You can add this by selecting the invoice form you want to modify and clicking Customize in the toolbar. You need to make sure that class is on the template that you are using, although most of the time, it is only on the screen and you would not choose to print it. You may also note that when you are customizing a template in most cases, QuickBooks requires that  you may a copy of their default template so that the default stays in tact, and that you are customizing a duplicate of the model template. A good control.

QuickBooks comes with two reports specially designed for tracking class-based transactions: Profit & Loss by Class and Balance Sheet by Class (both can be found in the Reports menu, under Company & Financial). Of course, you can filter other reports to include a class column. You can also create a QuickReport for individual classes. Go to Lists | Class List and select a report or graph.

Figure 3: You can filter by class in QuickBooks reports.

Warning! The Balance Sheet by Class report is complicated and may produce unexpected results. Let your ProAdvisor help you work with this one. They can also help you set up a solid class structure.

A Simpler Assignment
Customer, vendor, and job types are a bit less complicated. Job types are especially useful; you can track, for example, profitability and time spent on individual projects. Customer and vendor types can produce output for things like targeted mailings and reports.

Creating types is very similar to creating classes. Go to Lists | Customer & Vendor Profile Lists, and select the type you want to work with. You’ll follow the same instructions here as you did for classes. Types do not appear on transactions; they’re designed for your own internal use, and they’re stored in records.

Figure 4: Customer, vendor, and job types are specified in their records.
Classes and types can be used very effectively in your bookkeeping, but they require a good deal of thought and planning upfront to get accurate, meaningful reports. Let us know if we can assist as you attempt to use these powerful forms of classification.