Manage your small business with Intuit QuickBooks 2008 Lessons

1. Getting started with QuickBooks 2008 QuickBooks 2008 can help you become more organized and in control of your finances. In this lesson, you'll learn how to use QuickBooks to build an accounting system and help your business succeed. 2. QuickBooks tutorial: using basic QuickBooks functions This lesson focuses on several topics that are common among accounting software packages -- editing the chart of accounts, adding vendors and processing checks and bank deposits.

Intuit's QuickBooks is one of the most popular accounting software products on the market for growing businesses, and you don't need to know very much about accounting to use it, just basic computing skills! In this free QuickBooks training, you'll learn how to set up and manage your company's books, create a budget, print and track checks and invoices and more.

3. QuickBooks tips: working with accounts payable In this lesson, you'll learn how QuickBooks 2008 can simplify managing, paying and tracking your bills. From the Vendor Center to generating an accounts payable report, you'll see how easy it is to use QuickBooks for all accounts payable functions. 4. QuickBooks tips: working with accounts receivable If you use accounts payable, you need accounts receivable! This lesson walks you through tracking your customers, sales and income through QuickBooks' customer lists and accounts receivable features.

Welcome to QuickBooks 2008

Getting started with QuickBooks 2008

5. How to use QuickBooks customized reports and templates A highly useful feature in QuickBooks 2008 is its powerful reporting function. This lesson teaches you how to run reports and customize reports and templates for your own needs. You'll see at a glance where your money is, goes and how it flows. 6. Working with classes, budgets, credit cards and more In this lesson, you'll learn to use classes, set up budgets and run class and budget reports. You'll also find out how to manage credit card accounts, reconcile bank accounts and pay sales tax.

QuickBooks 2008 can help you become more organized and in control of your finances. In this lesson, you'll learn how to use QuickBooks to build an accounting system and help your business succeed. Keeping accurate financial records is essential to successfully running a business. However, many small businesses find it challenging, at best, to stay on top of their finances, which results in more than half of small businesses failing within the first five years. In this course, you'll learn how you to use QuickBooks 2008 to manage and simplify accounting tasks. The lessons show you how to set up a practice company, which you'll work with as you complete the rest of the class. You'll also learn how to set up your own QuickBooks company file, so you can get started using it in the real world right away. Later lessons will cover basic accounting functions, entering and tracking income and expenses, creating management reports, and designing your own custom reports.

How the class works

This course consists of six lessons, each one with a simple quiz and an assignment. The lessons are:

This QuickBooks tutorial is designed for consumers and small business owners who want to perform their own accounting and get help with QuickBooks.

Meet the QuickBooks product family

Quizzes and assignments are for your own learning experience only. Quizzes are computer-graded, and you may retake a quiz as many times as you like. Assignments are optional, and you don't have to turn anything in. Let's get started with the topics in Lesson 1.

Lesson 1, Getting Started with QuickBooks 2008. In this lesson, you'll form the foundation for your accounting system by setting up a new company and entering beginning balances. Lesson 2, Using Basic QuickBooks Functions. This lesson shows you how to edit the Chart of Accounts, add vendors, and process checks and bank deposits. Lesson 3, Working with Accounts Payable. This lesson focuses on account payable functions, such as creating vendors, and paying and tracking your bills. Lesson 4, Working with Accounts Receivable. Learn how to manage accounts receivables by tracking customers, sales, and income in this lesson. Lesson 5, Customizing and Generating Reports and Templates. This lesson shows you how to customize and run reports, and use report templates. Lesson 6, Working with Classes, Budgets, Credit Cards, and More. This lesson covers a grab bag of accounting features -- using classes, setting up budgets, managing credit card accounts, reconciling bank accounts, and more.

QuickBooks 2008 financial software offers different products starting with the basic program, QuickBooks Simple Start Plus Pack, and progressing to the most comprehensive product, QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions. There are also industry-specific QuickBooks products available. You can find more information on each of the following products on the QuickBooks Web site, but here's a quick overview of the versions: QuickBooks Simple Start Plus Pack 2008: Provides basic accounting functions, such as printing checks, paying bills, invoicing customers, tracking customer payments, and paying sales tax. QuickBooks Pro 2008: Provides all of the same basic accounting functions as QuickBooks Simple Start Plus Pack software, but also supports multiple simultaneous users and offers a centralized data management system. You can store and track customer and vendor data, process payroll, and track employee time or job costs.

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QuickBooks Pro 2008 also enables you to customize, generate, and e-mail forms and reports, send shipments easily, share QuickBooks among users on a network, export data and reports to Microsoft Excel, synchronize your contacts with Microsoft Outlook, manage your loans, track inventory, and automatically create budgets and cash flow projections.

QuickBooks Premier Editions 2008: Provides all of the features of QuickBooks Pro and includes annual forecasting, performance trend assessments, purchase order generation from estimates, and more. There are several industry-specific versions that are tailored to certain business

What's new in 2008?

Considering upgrading from an earlier version? QuickBooks 2008's new features include the following:

QuickBooks Pro 2008 is used in the examples throughout this course. If you have an older version of QuickBooks or one of the other versions mentioned in the preceding list, many of the activities covered in this course will be similar but the exact steps might not be the same. You can still benefit from the course; however, you might need to consult your version's Help files for specific steps to complete each task.

needs, such as professional services, wholesalers/distributors, and retailers. QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 8.0: Provides all of the features of QuickBooks Premier but allows for up to 20 simultaneous users. You can also add twice as many customers, products, and vendors, connect multiple locations, combine reports from multiple companies, as well as use many other features. QuickBooks Online Edition: Provides the same features as QuickBooks Simple Start Plus Pack, and a few more that you get with QuickBooks Pro, with the added bonus of 24/7 online Internet access for up to 20 simultaneous users and sophisticated data protection features.

Set up a new company

Now that you understand the different versions of QuickBooks 2008 that are available and the new features, let's open the software and begin setting up a new company.

Send e-mails directly from QuickBooks using Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express Identify unbilled time and expenses in one screen, and invoice clients with one click Capture billable hours online and from your Outlook calendar Enable your accountant to review data and make changes simultaneously with other logged-in users, as well as import changes back into your file with the ability to review tracked changes Import Excel data using import templates for customer, vendor, and product information Get help faster with an improved Help system and coaching tips

Before you begin the steps in this lesson, install QuickBooks Pro 2008 on your computer. Follow the installation instructions in the QuickBooks manual to get started. After the software is installed, select Start > All Programs > QuickBooks > QuickBooks Pro 2008 to open the program. Confirm the software installation, if prompted, and click OK to start QuickBooks Pro 2008. It's important that you follow the steps outlined in each lesson. If you skip any of these steps, the data for your practice company will not be complete. When you try to do the assignments, you may not have enough data to do them correctly.

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There are two ways to set up a new company in QuickBooks:

The best way to build a company file in QuickBooks is to use the EasyStep

If you just installed the program, select the Create a new company file option when you launch QuickBooks for the first time. You also may need to register your copy of QuickBooks online before you can proceed. If this isn't the first time you've launched QuickBooks, select File > New Company from the main menu.

Interview. It guides you step by step through each screen as you click Next. You can always change your answers during the session or look at previous items by clicking Back. An Interview Progress bar to the left of the window gives you an idea of how far you have come. QuickBooks Pro 2008 is designed to be flexible and customizable. You can change most preferences you set in the EasyStep Interview at a later time, if necessary. To set up your practice company, follow these steps:

1. In the Get Started window, click Start Interview to begin setting up the company. 2. Enter your company information in the Enter your company information screen. Call your new company XYZ Company. When you create your own company, you may enter a separate name in the Legal Name field. In the Tax ID field, enter 00-1234567. For your own company, you'll enter your Federal EIN (Employer Identification Number) or Social Security number here. Finally, enter this address in the appropriate fields: 1234 First Street, Austin, TX 78700. There's no need to enter the additional information now; you'll be able to enter it later. The completed screen should look like the one shown in Figure 1-1. Click Next.

Figure 1-1: Enter your company information. Enlarge image

See how to create a new company file. (.7 MB file)

You're done setting up your basic company information. The next steps in the interview will help you customize QuickBooks for your business.

1. When prompted to select your industry, click Professional Consulting and then click Next. 2. When prompted to select how your company is organized, click Sole Proprietorship and then click Next. 3. When prompted for the start of the fiscal year, use the default of January and click Next. 4. When prompted for the administrator password, leave the fields blank. A password is not necessary for your sample company. If you'll have multiple users working on your actual company information, setting an administrator password enables you to set various privilege levels for different users. For now, don't enter a password, and click Next. 5. Click Next again to create your company file. The Filename for New Company dialog box appears. To accept the default file name and location, click Save. It takes QuickBooks a moment to create and save the file, and then you're automatically taken to the next section of the interview.

Customize for your business

In this section of the EasyStep Interview, QuickBooks asks you questions that pertain to QuickBooks features. For your sample XYZ Company file, you'll only set up the essential preferences that QuickBooks requires. For your own company file, you can add more features to customize QuickBooks to meet your specific needs, as you'll learn later in the course. In this section of the EasyStep Interview:

When you set up your own company file, different screens appear depending on which preferences you activate for your company. Just answer the questions as they appear. QuickBooks walks you through every step, and provides links to additional information for many features.

1. Read over the information in the Customizing QuickBooks for your business screen, and then click Next. 2. What do you sell? Select Both services and products. Click Next. 3. Do you sell products online? Select I don't sell online and I am not interested in doing so. Click Next. 4. Do you charge sales tax? Select Yes. Later in the course, you'll process some invoices to your customers and will charge sales tax. Click Next. 5. Do you want to create estimates in QuickBooks? Select Yes. Click Next. 6. Do you want to use sales receipts in QuickBooks? Select Yes. Click Next. 7. Do you want to use billing statements in QuickBooks? Select Yes. Click Next. 8. Do you want to use progress invoicing? Select No. Click Next. 9. Do you want to keep track of bills you owe? Select Yes. Click Next. 10. Do you print checks? Select I print checks. Click Next. 11. Do you want to track inventory in QuickBooks? Select No. Click Next. 12. Do you accept credit cards? Select I accept credit cards and debit cards. Click Next. 13. Do you want to track time in QuickBooks? Select Yes. Click Next. 14. Do you have employees? Select No. Click Next.

Set up your Chart of Accounts

See how to customize business settings. (.3 MB file)

You've completed the customization part of new company setup in QuickBooks Pro 2008. Next, learn how to set up your Chart of Accounts. The next section of the process -- Using Accounts -- helps you set up your Chart of Accounts, which are categories of income and expenses. You use the Chart of Accounts to track your business's finances. All you need to get started is the following: After you've read the information in the Using Accounts in QuickBooks screen, click Next and then do the following: A start date -- the date you want to use as your starting point for tracking your business in QuickBooks. Your last bank statement before the start date. A sense of how you want to categorize your income and expenses.

1. When prompted to enter a start date, click Use today's date or the first day of the quarter or month. Then click the button next to the default date, browse to January 2008, and click the 1 on that month's calendar.

Click Next. 2. Would you like to add an existing bank account? Select Yes. Click Next. 3. In the Bank account name field, enter Checking. In the Bank account number field, enter 1234567. Leave the Bank routing number blank. 4. Select the option Before 01/01/2008 for when you opened the account, and then click Next. 5. In the bank statement information screen, accept the default statement ending date 12/31/2007, and then enter an ending balance of 2056.35. Click Next. 6. The EasyStep Interview shows you a summary of some of the information you've just entered, and asks if you want to add another bank account. Select No, I'm done or will add more later, and then click Next. You'll add some additional accounts later in this lesson. 7. Accept the accounts that QuickBooks recommends, and then click Next. 8. Click Finish. The QuickBooks Coach appears. Click Start Working to go to the QuickBooks Home page, as shown in Figure 1-2. The QuickBooks Coach remains open in the task pane at the right.

Figure 1-2: The Home page. Enlarge image

You can click View the Tutorial in the QuickBooks Coach at any time to watch a variety of QuickBooks tutorials. Topics include the basics of setting up accounts, customers, and items for the products and services you sell.

Navigate in QuickBooks

See how to set up a new company's chart of accounts. (.3 MB file)

Now you know how to set up your Chart of Accounts. Next, learn how to navigate the QuickBooks Pro 2008 interface.

You can navigate QuickBooks' features and tools in numerous ways. QuickBooks has the familiar menu bar at the top of the screen and icons below the menu bar, much like any other software application. The QuickBooks Pro 2008 Home page provides a customizable map of the workflow process and icons that serve as shortcuts to the most common QuickBooks screens and tasks. This section introduces you to each of these methods of getting around.

The Menu bar

Navigate QuickBooks with ease

All QuickBooks commands are available from the menu bar across the top of the screen. Many commands have associated keyboard shortcuts that appear to the right of each menu command.

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The Navigation bar and Icon bar

QuickBooks Pro 2008 displays two toolbars across the top of the screen. They run together on the same line, as shown in Figure 1-3, so at first glance it looks like they're a single toolbar. Figure 1-3: Navigation and Icon bar. Enlarge image

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The Navigation bar is on the left. It's not customizable. From it, you can quickly access the Home page; the Customer, Vendor, and Employee centers; the Report Center; and the Help system. The Icon bar is on the right. You can customize it by adding buttons for tasks you perform frequently. Follow these steps to practice adding a button to the Icon bar: 1. Select View > Customize Icon Bar. 2. Click Add to open the Add Icon Bar Item dialog box. 3. Select Back Up Data and click OK, and then click OK again to close the Customize Icon Bar dialog box. The Backup button now appears on the far right end of the Icon bar. You'll use it later in this lesson.

The Home page

The QuickBooks Home page gives you a big-picture view of your business process. Icons link to essential tasks, and workflow arrows provide a diagram of relationships among those tasks.

When the Coach Tips feature is turned on, the Home page looks like the one you saw in Figure 1-2. You can click Hide Coach Tips in the task pane on the right to turn off the help bubbles and change the background color, as shown in Figure 1-4.

Figure 1-4: QuickBooks Pro 2008 Home page. Enlarge image

The Home page is divided into three main sections: Vendors, Customers, and Employees. Each has a button at the left side of the Home page, which you can use to jump to a more detailed view of that area. Now that you know how to navigate within QuickBooks Pro 2008, read the next

Manage data in QuickBooks

lesson to learn the basics of data management.

QuickBooks stores the basic information you need to manage your accounting activities -- information about customers, vendors, employees, sales, items, and your Chart of Accounts -- in lists. These lists are managed through Centers, such as the Customer Center shown in Figure 1-5, and Lists.

Figure 1-5: Customer Center. Enlarge image

To open each Center, click the appropriate button on the Navigation bar or a Center's tab on the left side of the Home page. The Centers enable you to add or view customers, vendors, or employees; add or edit transactions; exchange data with Excel or Microsoft Word; and sort or filter transaction lists.

You can access lists through the Lists menu. For example, to open your chart of accounts, select Lists > Chart of Accounts. Double-clicking any bank, asset, or liability account in the list opens a register that shows the activity that's been entered for that account, such as the Checking account shown in Figure 1-6. These registers look just like your paper check register, displaying the date, check number (if one has been entered), description, amount, and resulting balance for each transaction.

Figure 1-6: Checking register. Enlarge image

Add customers and vendors

You've learned how to manage your data in QuickBooks. The next section addresses how to add customers and vendors to your company file.

Now that you know your way around QuickBooks, you're ready to enter a few customers and vendors through the Customer and Vendor Centers.

Click Customer Center on the Navigation bar. To enter a customer, do the following:

Click Vendor Center on the Navigation bar. To enter some vendors, do the following:

1. Click the down arrow on the New Customer & Job button in the upperleft corner of the screen, and then select New Customer from the dropdown menu to open the New Customer dialog box. 2. Enter Ed Warner into the Customer Name field, and then click OK. 3. You might want to have customers listed by last name, rather than first, so let's edit the entry you just made. Double-click the entry to reopen it in the Edit Customer window. 4. Change the customer name to Warner, Ed. 5. In the First Name field, type Ed. In the Last Name field, type Warner. Click OK. 6. Close the Customer Center window. 1. Click New Vendor to open the New Vendor dialog box. 2. Use the same method you used to add a customer to add vendors. Add AT&T and BJ Office Supply. For each of these, enter the name both in the Vendor Name field and in the Company Name field. Leave all other fields empty, and then click OK. 1. Close the Vendor Center window.

Clicking Next after entering each vendor keeps the dialog box open and simplifies adding multiple names.

Enter beginning balances

For your own company, if your customers or vendors have existing balances, enter the balances in the New Customer and New Vendor dialog boxes. Speaking of balances, now that you know how to add customers and vendors, read further to learn how to enter beginning balances. Next, let's set up some bank accounts. You set up a checking account earlier, when you created the company file; now you'll learn how to create more accounts. To enter some more accounts and their beginning balances, do the following: 1. Select Lists > Chart of Accounts. The Chart of Accounts window appears. 2. Click Account in the lower-left corner of the Chart of Accounts window, and then select New to start the Add New Account Wizard. 3. Select the Bank option, and then click Continue. 4. Type Savings in the Account Name field, and enter 987654-32 in the Bank Acct. No. field. 5. Click the Enter Opening Balance button. The Enter Opening Balance: Bank Account dialog box appears. 6. Enter 5000 in the Statement Ending Balance field. Enter 12/31/2007 in the Statement Ending Date field. Click OK. 7. Click Save & New to save this account and start another one. The Add New Account dialog box reappears.

If the Future Transactions dialog box appears, indicating that the

transaction is more than 30 days in the future, click Yes. Account name: State Bank MasterCard

1. In the Account Type drop-down list, select Credit Card. Set up the account with the following settings: 1. Follow the same procedures to add a Long Term Liability named Note Payable State Bank for the amount of $12,000 as of 12/31/2007. 2. Follow the steps one more time to create a Fixed Asset named Fixed Asset with an opening balance of $20,000 as of 12/31/2007. Click OK, and then click Save & Close. Opening balance: 8000 as of 12/31/2007

Your beginning balances are listed in the Chart of Accounts window, as shown in Figure 1-7.

Figure 1-7: A list of all accounts with their opening balances.

Back up and restore your data

Now that you've set up a company and accounts, added some customers and vendors, and entered opening balances, let's find out how to back up your data so you don't have to start from scratch in case of a system failure. Backup and recovery procedures are covered next. You can prevent data loss -- or readily recover from it -- by backing up and restoring your QuickBooks data file frequently.

Back up data

Backup best practices

Data entered into QuickBooks is stored in one data file with a .qbw extension. QuickBooks stores transactions in the file as you enter them so you don't have to save the file to save the transactions. You do need to back up your file regularly in case you have a computer failure or disk problem. When you back up your data, QuickBooks condenses the file and saves it in a file with a .qbb extension. To create a backup, follow these steps:

1. Click the Backup button you added to the Icon bar, or select File > Save Copy or Backup from the menu bar. 2. Accept the default option of Backup copy, and then click Next. 3. Select Local backup, and then click Next. The Backup Options dialog

For your real company data, you should save it to a drive other than the one where the main data file is stored; however, for this course, it doesn't matter. In general, it's best to back up your files to a removable media file, such as a flash drive or tape drive. If your entire hard disk crashes and you can't recover any data, you'll lose your QuickBooks files and any backup files saved to the hard disk. Another option is to save the backup to your hard disk, and then burn a copy of it onto a CD or copy it to another form of removable

Restore data

If you have data or hard drive problems, you can restore your QuickBooks data quickly and easily from the backup file. Follow these steps to practice restoring data from a backup: 1. Select File > Open or Restore Company from the menu bar to open the Open or Restore Company dialog box. 2. Select Restore a backup copy, and then click Next. 3. Select Local backup, and then click Next. 4. Select the backup file. QuickBooks defaults to the last location to which you backed up. Click Open. 5. In the Where do you want to restore the file? screen, click Next. 6. The location where your regular company files are stored opens in a Save Company File as dialog box. Accept that location, accept the default name, and then click Save. 7. In the message dialog box stating that the file already exists, click Yes. 8. In the Delete Entire File dialog box, type YES and click OK. 9. A message dialog box states that your data has been successfully restored. Click OK.

box appears. 4. In the Tell us where to save your backup copies (required) field, type the path to which to save the backup, or click the Browse button to select the desired location. (You can save it anywhere you like, but remember which location you selected.) 5. Click OK to close the Backup Options dialog box. If a warning appears about saving to the same hard drive as the company file, click Use this Location. 6. Ensure the Save it now option is selected, and then click Finish. 7. When a confirmation message indicates that the data has been backed up, click OK.

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Moving on

Assignment #1

In this lesson, you set up your sample company in QuickBooks, learned about the basic QuickBooks interface, and learned to back up your data. In Lesson 2, you'll learn the basic functions you need to get your own company up and running on QuickBooks. Before you move on, complete the assignment and take the quiz to reinforce important topics covered in this lesson.

For this assignment, concentrate on your own business. Decide on which date you want your company's books to begin, and then gather all the information you need to set up your real company, as discussed in Lesson 1. You'll need the following, at a minimum:

Quiz #1

Question 1: True or False: When setting up a company in Intuit QuickBooks Pro 2008 using the EasyStep interview, you can

Legal business name Type of business entity (sole proprietor, partnership, LLC, and so on) Checking and savings account numbers, bank names and routing numbers, and most recent statements Business credit card numbers and most recent statements

change your answers at a later time. A) B) A) B) A) B) A) B) A) B) True True True True True False False False False False

Question 2: True or False: You can customize the Navigation bar but not the Icon bar.

Question 3: True or False: Vendors, Customers, and Employees are the three main sections on the Home page.

Question 4: True or False: It's a good idea when backing up your QuickBooks file to save the backup in the same location as the original data file. Question 5: True or False: You can access the Report Center from the Navigation bar.

Understand the Chart of Accounts

QuickBooks tutorial: using basic QuickBooks functions

Welcome back. In Lesson 1, you were introduced to QuickBooks 2008, learned how to set up a company and accounts, and back up your data. In this lesson, you'll explore the important topics of income/expense categorization, bank accounts, and check writing. As you learned in Lesson 1, the Chart of Accounts is the heart of your accounting system. It's simply a list of all of the accounts that monies flow through as they move in and out of your business. By organizing transactions within the chart of accounts, you can easily create company profit and loss reports, determine the health of your company, and list your company's assets and liabilities. Because the chart of accounts can help you manage your business in so many ways, you should customize it to fit your specific needs. Don't confuse the Chart of Accounts with a list of bank accounts. Your bank accounts are listed in the chart of accounts; however, they're far from the only entries there. The Chart of Accounts contains categories of income and expenses; it serves as a way of organizing and understanding your finances, not just a way of tracking where your cash is held. For example, the chart of accounts might have an entry for Advertising to track how much money your business is spending on that.

This lesson focuses on several topics that are common among accounting software packages -- editing the chart of accounts, adding vendors and processing checks and bank deposits.

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When you set up XYZ Company in Lesson 1, you asked QuickBooks to build a chart of accounts that was designed for a consulting business. However, every business has its own special needs, so editing, adding, and deleting accounts becomes necessary to tailor this chart of accounts to your specific operation.

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To see the chart of accounts, click the Chart of Accounts icon in the Company section of the Home page. As you scroll down the list of accounts, notice the accounts that QuickBooks has set up for you. Let's add an account for the XYZ company by following these steps:

In the lower-left corner of the Chart of Accounts window are three buttons: Account, Activities, and Reports. The Account button enables you to add, edit, or delete accounts, or make one inactive. 1. Click Account, and then select New from the menu. The Add New Account dialog box appears. 2. Select Expense as the type, and then click Continue. 3. In the Account Name field, type Supplies, as shown in Figure 2-1.

Figure 2-1: Creating a new account. Enlarge image

Edit and print the Chart of Accounts

In the next section, you'll learn more about editing the chart of accounts.

1. Click Save & Close. The new account is added to the chart of accounts list.

Now that you know how to add accounts to the chart of accounts, let's look at some other ways you can modify that list.

Add subaccounts

Notice in the Chart of Accounts window, shown in Figure 2-2, that some accounts are indented from the left margin. These are subaccounts. For example, the Insurance Expense account has a subaccount called General Liability Insurance. Each subaccount keeps track of the total amount your company is spending in that subaccount.

Figure 2-2: Subaccounts in the chart of accounts.

Let's add another subaccount to the Insurance Expense account. Follow these steps: 1. From the Chart of Accounts window, click Account and then select New from the menu. 2. Select Expense, and then click Continue. 3. In the Account Name field, type Auto Insurance. 4. Mark the Subaccount of checkbox. 5. Open the drop-down list to the right of Subaccount of, and select Insurance Expense. 6. Click Save & Close. The chart of accounts should now show two subaccounts under Insurance Expense.

Edit accounts

To edit an account, highlight its name in the chart of accounts, click Account, and then select Edit Account from the menu. You may then change any information you need to for that account.

Delete accounts

To delete an account, highlight its name in the chart of accounts, click Account, and then select Delete Account from the menu. It's important that you highlight the account you intend to delete before issuing the Delete Account command; otherwise, you'll delete the account that was previously highlighted.

QuickBooks doesn't allow you to delete an account that contains any accounting activity. For example, if you make a purchase and assign the Advertising account to it, you can't delete the Advertising account. This is to prevent transactions from becoming orphaned (that is, existing but having no account assigned to them).

To remove an account that you've used for one or more transactions, here are some suggestions:

You can edit the transaction(s) one by one to use a different account. You can combine one account with another account. Select the account that you want to remove, select Account > Edit Account, change the name of the account to the exact name of the account with which you want to combine, and then click Save & Close. In Merge dialog box, click Yes. You can make the account inactive. This is useful when you have several

Make an account inactive or active

To make an account inactive, follow the steps in this example:

years' worth of accounting in QuickBooks, and you have an account you no longer use but need to keep the history of the account's activity. 1. In the chart of accounts, select the Auto Insurance account that you created earlier. 2. Select Account > Make Account Inactive. The account is removed from the list.

To reactivate the inactive account:

QuickBooks hides the account from view on the chart of accounts but retains the account and its transactions.

1. Select Account > Show Inactive Accounts. The inactive account appears with an X to its left, as shown in Figure 2-3.

Figure 2-3: An inactive account is displayed with an X to the left of the account name. See how to edit the chart of accounts. (1.6 MB file)

Print the Chart of Accounts

1. Select the inactive account. 2. Select Account > Make Account Active.

Enter checks

To print a listing of the chart of accounts, click the Reports button in the Chart of Accounts window, and then select Account Listing. QuickBooks displays the report on your screen. To print the report, click Print at the top of the report. Be sure the page layout matches the width of the report -- some reports in QuickBooks print better in landscape format than in portrait. You can preview the report by clicking Preview in the Print Reports dialog box; look at the preview to be sure the report will print properly on the page. Next, learn how to enter checks.

QuickBooks offers you a variety of ways to enter your expenses. Depending on

the needs of your company, you may select one or any combination of these options:

Enter checks in the Check Register

To enter checks in the check register, click the Check Register icon in the Banking section of the Home page. The Use Register dialog box enables you to select the bank account register in which you want to work. To practice using the register with XYZ Company, select Checking and click OK. The Checking window appears, as shown in Figure 2-4.

You can enter your checks into the check register, just as you do with your paper check register. This is the simplest and quickest way to enter checks. If you don't want to print your checks on your printer, and you do bookkeeping once a month when you receive your bank statement, this may be the best method for you. You can electronically write checks. Click the Write Checks icon in the Banking section of the Home page, and then complete the check as though you were writing it by hand. If your company uses inventory, customer, job, or class tracking, and if you want to run checks through your printer, this is the best method. You can enter information from each bill you receive, and then select those you'd like to pay. This method provides you with an accurate record of the date of the bills, separately from the date of their payment, and it enables you to produce reports showing outstanding bills and their due dates. This option is covered in Lesson 3.

Figure 2-4: Checking window. Enlarge image

Enter a check into the register dated 1/2/2008 for check number 2001 to Texas Oil Company. If this were a payee you had already used before, you could start typing the name and QuickBooks would fill in the name, or you could click the dropdown list arrow and select the payee you wanted. For our example, this is not the case, though.

When you press Tab after typing the name Texas Oil Company in the register, the Name Not Found dialog box appears, stating that Texas Oil Company is not in the Name list. QuickBooks requires that every name you enter in a register be on one of its lists before it allows you to write a check. Before you can write the check to Texas Oil, you need to add the name to the list.

There are two ways to add an entry to a list: Quick Add and Set Up. Quick Add only adds the entry's name to the list. Set Up enables you to enter more information about the entry, such as address, phone number, and so on. For this check, click Quick Add, select Vendor, and then click OK. The amount of the check is $250.00. This check is written for an automotive expense, so either type Automobile Expense in the Account field or select

Automobile Expense account from the drop-down menu. The last field is for a memo on the check, in which you can enter a note, if you like. Press Enter or click Record in the lower-right corner to save the check.

Split an expense between two accounts

Sometimes you need to write a check to a single payee but categorize the expense across multiple accounts. For example, you might write a check to a store for office supplies and cleaning products in the same visit.

To see how this works, begin entering another check dated 1/2/2008, for check number 2002 to BJ Office Supply for $50.00. This payee is already in the system. Click the Splits button in the lower-left corner of the Checking window to split this check between two accounts: $35.00 for Office Supplies (paper, pens, and staples) and $15.00 for Cleaning/Janitorial Expense. Press Tab to move between the fields and lines for the split.

But wait -- there is no category called Cleaning/Janitorial Expense. Scroll to the top of the Account list, click <Add New>, and create that category on the fly. When you're finished splitting the transaction, it should look like Figure 2-5.

Figure 2-5: Splitting checks between two or more accounts. Enlarge image

Click Close to accept the splits, and then click Record to record the transaction. Close the Checking window.

Enter checks via the checks icon

Go back to the Home page. Now you'll create a check another way. Click the Write Checks icon in the Banking section. Enter a check to Luby's Cafeteria. When you tab past the payee name, you'll be prompted that the name is not found. Click Quick Add, and then click OK to add it as a vendor.

To complete the check, date it 1/5/2008 and make it out for $35.00. Check the To be printed checkbox in the middle of the Write Checks - Checking window, and then allocate it to the Meals and Entertainment account, as shown in Figure 2-6.

Figure 2-6: An entered check. Enlarge image

Acquire and print checks

Click Save & Close at the bottom of the screen to save the check and close the window. If you select Save & New, the check is saved and a new blank check appears on the screen. For now, click Save & Close. Next, learn how to acquire and print checks.

QuickBooks Pro 2008 makes it easy to print the checks you've entered. This is an efficient way to complete your bookkeeping. When you pay your bills with QuickBooks, you're continually updating your accounting information. When the end of the month arrives, it's easy for you to reconcile your bank statement and complete your accounting tasks.

Acquire checks

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Before you can print checks with QuickBooks, you need to acquire checks you can run through your printer. You can order blank checks from Intuit (maker of QuickBooks), your bank, printing supply companies, and most office supply stores. You must provide your supplier with a voided check and let them know that you're ordering checks to be printed by QuickBooks. These three formats are supported by QuickBooks:

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Print checks

Checking the To be printed box in the middle of a check entry window tells QuickBooks to enter the check into your check register but to leave it without a check number and place it in the queue to be printed. You may enter as many checks as you need, and then go to the print queue and print all of the checks. You can also print only the check displayed on the screen by clicking the Print icon at the top of the check. When you print checks, QuickBooks prompts you for the next check number. You'll enter this number from the preprinted check that you're loading into your printer. To print a batch of checks, select File > Print Forms > Checks. A list of the

Standard checks: Three checks per page Voucher checks: One check per page Wallet checks: Three checks per page, with stubs

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checks that you have entered appears in the Select Checks to Print dialog box. You can select the ones you want to print, and then enter a beginning check number, as shown in Figure 2-7. QuickBooks prints all the checks from that number forward. Click OK. The Print Checks dialog box appears.

Figure 2-7: Select Checks to Print dialog box. Enlarge image

In the Print Checks dialog box, shown in Figure 2-8, notice that you have a choice of three different types of check stock for printing the check. Be sure to select the type of checks you have ordered in the Check Style area. (If you chose three checks to a page, you can tell the printer how many checks are on the first page, which keeps you from wasting checks after printing only a partial sheet.)

To try this feature, print the check you wrote to Luby's Cafeteria. The starting check number is 2003. Never mind that you don't have any real checks to print on; print it on a blank sheet of paper.

Figure 2-8: Print Checks dialog box. Enlarge image

Enter deposits

After all the checks have been printed, QuickBooks prompts you to confirm that they were printed correctly. If any problems occurred, select the check(s) and click OK. Go back to the Select Checks to Print dialog box, and then reprint the check(s), as needed. QuickBooks enables you to enter deposits in a variety of ways. The quickest and easiest way is to enter the deposit into the check register. You can also enter the deposits in the Make Deposits window. Later in this course, you'll learn a third way to make deposits -- by receiving payments from customers and recording deposits.

Print the check register

To print the check register, click Print at the top of the register. Enter the dates you'd like the register to

Enter deposits in the check register

To enter a deposit in the check register, click the Check Register icon on the Home page, select the bank account to which you're depositing (Checking, for our example), and then click OK. To try this feature with XYZ Company, enter a deposit for $100.00 made on 1/6/2008 received from Ed Warner. (Leave the Number field blank.) He reimbursed you for expenses. (Create a new Income type of account called Reimbursement to use for this transaction.) The register entry should look similar to Figure 2-9. Click Record, and then close the Checking window.

span, and then click OK. You may preview the check register in the Print Lists dialog box before you print by clicking the Preview button.

Figure 2-9: The quickest way to enter a deposit is to type it into the check register. Enlarge image

Enter deposits in the Make Deposits window

To enter a deposit in the Make Deposits window, click the Record Deposits icon in the Banking section of the Home page. On this screen, you can enter detailed information about the deposit and split the monies from a deposit into more than one account.

QuickBooks also lets you print a deposit slip for your own use or for the bank. If you plan to print deposit slips from QuickBooks and take them to the bank, you need to order coded slips when you order your checks.

Moving on

Assignment #2

In this lesson, you learned how to how to edit the chart of accounts, as well as add checks and deposits into QuickBooks. In Lesson 3, you'll learn to use QuickBooks' accounts payable functions to simplify managing, paying, and tracking your bills. Before you move on, do the assignment and take the quiz for this lesson. In the XYZ Company file you created in Lesson 1, perform the following tasks:

1. Recategorize the Auto Insurance account so that it's a subaccount of Automobile Expense. 2. Add these new subaccounts under Automobile Expense: Gas, Repair/Maintenance, and Vehicle Purchase. 3. In the check register for the Checking account, find the transaction for Texas Oil Company and change the account assigned to it to Automobile Expense: Gas (that is, the Gas subaccount). 4. Create a new income account called Rental, and three subaccounts within it: Equipment Rental, Trailer Rental, and Truck Rental. 5. Change the name of the Office Supplies category to Office Supplies & Expenses.

#2004 dated 1/8/08 to JBB Insurance Agency, $400.00 for General Liability Insurance #2005 dated 1/8/08 to AT&T, $230.00 for Telephone Expense #2006 dated 1/8/08 to John's Computer Supply, $80.00 for Computer and Internet Expenses $50.00 on 1/6/08 for Trailer Rental from John Jones $300.00 on 1/8/08 for Consulting Income from Bill Edwards 1. Using the Checking register, enter these deposits (Quick Add all as new customers): 1. Using the Make Deposits window (click Record Deposits on the Home page), enter a deposit that occurred on 1/9/08 for $425.00 that's split as follows:

6. Print the chart of accounts list. 7. Enter the following checks in the check register. (Do not use the To be printed checkbox, and use Quick Add for each vendor that's not already in the system):

Quiz #2
A) B) A) B) A) B) A) B) A) B)

$350.00 for Consulting Income from John Jones, no check number, payment method Cash $75.00 for Truck Rental from Ellen Worth, check number 221, payment method Check (set up Ellen Worth as a new customer in the format Worth, Ellen) 1. Open the Customer Center, and edit the entries for Bill Edwards and John Jones so that their last names come first (Edwards, Bill and Jones, John). Check each entry to make sure that the First Name and Last Name fields are correctly filled in. True True True True True

Question 1: True or False: A chart of accounts is a list of all your bank accounts set up in QuickBooks. False False False False False

Question 2: True or False: When setting up subaccounts, you must set up the subaccount first, and then the main account. Question 3: True or False: You can't delete an account that has been assigned to one or more transactions.

Question 4: True or False: To print the chart of accounts, click the Reports button in the Chart of Accounts window, click Account Listing, and then print that report. Question 5: True or False: QuickBooks prints checks on standard paper.

Use the Vendor Center

QuickBooks tips: working with accounts payable

In this lesson, you'll learn how QuickBooks 2008 can simplify managing, paying and tracking your bills. From the Vendor Center to generating an accounts payable report, you'll see how easy it is to use QuickBooks for all accounts payable functions.

Welcome back. Almost every business has expenses -- that is, people or organizations they pay money to in exchange for the goods, services, licenses, and other necessities for keeping the business running. In this lesson, you'll learn how to create vendor entries and manage the vendor list, and how to enter, pay, and schedule bill-paying for your vendors. You'll also learn how to run an Accounts Payable report, so you can see how much your business owes to others. A vendor is any person or company you pay for goods and services. As bills are entered and checks are written, QuickBooks maintains records of them. The Vendor Center keeps track not only of your bank account but also of each vendor's history with your company. When you need information about a vendor, or if you need to make corrections to a vendor account, you can access the data in various ways. To open the Vendor Center, shown in Figure 3-1, click Vendor Center on the Navigator bar, or click the Vendors button along the left edge of the Home page.

Figure 3-1: Vendor Center. Enlarge image

Add vendors

The Vendors list is displayed in the Vendor Center, as well as any information you entered about the selected vendor and all the transactions that have occurred. To see your vendors organized by transaction, click the Transactions tab and select a category. In the next section, you'll learn how to add a vendor through the Vendor Center.

In Lesson 2, you used the Quick Add feature to add some vendors as you were writing checks. You can also add vendors through the Vendor Center. Let's create a vendor for the XYZ Company. Open that company file now if it's not already open. (You can tell it's open because XYZ Company appears in the title bar of the QuickBooks window. Use the File > Open Previous Company command to reopen it if needed.) Then follow these steps: 1. Display the Vendor Center. 2. Click New Vendor above the Vendors list. The New Vendor window appears. 3. On the Address Info tab, enter the contact information shown in Figure 3-2. Notice that you don't have to fill in every field; use only the fields that are appropriate for that vendor.

If you want a different payee name to appear on checks, make the change in the Print on Check as field.

Figure 3-2: New Vendor window. Enlarge image

1. Click the Additional Info tab. This tab provides fields for setting up the vendor type, terms, and other financial information. 2. Enter the information shown in Figure 3-3. This information includes: Account No: If you have an account number established with a vendor, enter it here. Type: You can optionally categorize vendors so that you can break out their information separately by category in reports.

Terms: Specify the vendor's payment terms for their invoices here, such as net 30. This indicates when the vendor's invoices must be paid to avoid a penalty or get a discount. Credit Limit: If you have a credit limit with this vendor, enter it here. Tax ID: If the vendor has a tax ID number on file with you, for wholesale/tax free purchasing or selling, enter it here.

Figure 3-3: Adding additional information. Enlarge image

Perform other vendor activities

In the next section, you'll learn how to edit existing vendor information, combine vendors, and delete vendors or make them inactive. Aside from adding vendors, you can also edit vendor information, combine vendors, and delete vendors or make them inactive, as shown in detail in this section.

You can import vendor data from an Excel or CSV (comma-separated values) file; however, you must name the column headings per specific QuickBooks guidelines. Press F1 to access the Help system, and then look up the topic Set up your Excel or CSV file for importing vendor data for details. Use the File > Utilities > Import command to import the data.

1. Click the Account Prefill tab. On this tab you can optionally select default accounts/subaccounts for transactions involving this vendor. This is handy because it spares you from having to re-select the account each time. 2. Select Office Supplies & Expenses from the first drop-down list. Leave the other two fields blank. 3. Click OK. The vendor is added to the Vendor Center.

Edit vendor information

The vendor editing feature works the same way as the editing feature that you used with the chart of accounts. To try it, follow these steps to add the address for BJ Office Supply: 1. In the Vendor Center, double-click BJ Office Supply in the Vendors list, or right-click it and then select Edit Vendor. 2. Enter the address for BJ Office Supply: 2234 West Main Street Clinton, IL 62522

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Combine vendors

You can accidentally enter a vendor's information twice if you spell the names a little differently. If you notice you've created a duplicate entry, you can combine the two vendor records. This works the same way as combining accounts in the chart of accounts. To experiment with this, do the following:

1. Click OK.

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Delete or make vendors inactive

You can delete vendors only if no activity has occurred for this vendor. To do this, select the vendor and then select Edit > Delete Vendor or press Ctrl+D.

1. Enter a new vendor named BJs Office Supply (enter no other information other than the Vendor Name), and then click OK to add it to your Vendors list. 2. Open the new entry and edit it, deleting the s and changing the name of the account to the exact name of the original vendor with which you want to combine it. 3. Click OK. QuickBooks informs you that the name is already being used and asks if you want to merge the vendors. 4. Click Yes. The two vendors are combined into a single vendor.

If you have recorded transactions for a vendor but no longer want the vendor to appear on your list, you can make the vendor inactive. To do this, edit the vendor (by double-clicking the name), and then mark the Vendor is inactive checkbox. You can also right-click the vendor name, and then select Make Vendor Inactive from the menu. The default view of the vendor list is Active Vendors. This is set via the dropdown list above the Vendor list. To see the inactive vendors as well, change this setting to All Vendors. When you do so, inactive vendors appear with an X next to their names, as shown in Figure 3-4.

Figure 3-4: Showing or hiding inactive vendors. Enlarge image

Try this with the XYZ Company vendors. Make one of the vendors inactive, and then display the full list of vendors (inactive and active) and make it active again.

Enter bills

In the next section, you'll learn how to work with bills -- that is, accounts payable items.

QuickBooks offers several ways to pay bills. Some business owners choose to collect their bills and pay them all regularly, such as weekly or twice a month. The QuickBooks bill-paying feature makes this task very easy. You can either enter the bills as you receive them or enter the bills all at one time before you pay them. QuickBooks keeps track of the vendors you owe, how much you owe, and when the bills are due. This information is recorded in the Accounts Payable account. With all of your bills gathered in a single account, you can view them in a register, just as you view your check register. There are two ways of starting to enter a bill:

The Enter Bills dialog box appears. It's much like the window for writing checks that you saw in Lesson 2; however, in this case, you're not paying the bill immediately -- you're just entering it in the system. To try this feature on your XYZ Company, enter a bill from the JBB Insurance Agency, as follows: If you completed the assignment for Lesson 2, JBB Insurance Agency should already be in your Vendors list. If you didn't, click Quick Add and add JBB Insurance Agency as a vendor. 1. Click Enter Bills on the Home page. 2. In the Enter Bills window, enter JBB Insurance Agency as the vendor.

On the Home page, click Enter Bills. In the Vendor Center, select a vendor from the Vendors list, and then select New Transactions > Enter Bills from the menu bar.

The Bill Due date defaults to 10 days from the invoice date, unless you specify a different date or unless you entered payment terms when setting up the vendor. 1. Enter invoice number 57859 in the Ref. No. field. If you use voucher checks, this field prints on the check you send to the vendor. 2. Enter an amount of 250.00. 3. Leave the Bill Due field as 2/10/2008. 4. On the Expenses tab, the account has already been filled in for you: Insurance Expense: General Liability Insurance. Leave this alone. 5. Leave all other fields empty for now. It should look like Figure 3-5.

1. Enter 1/31/2008 as the date of the bill. This is important because it's the date the expense occurs.

Figure 3-5: Enter Bills window. Enlarge image Each invoice you receive should be entered as a separate bill with the respective invoice number on the bill. This enables you to print the invoice number on each check you send to a vendor. This simplifies tracking payments, minimizes vendor errors, and best of all, allows QuickBooks to alert you if you've entered the same invoice number twice -- no more duplicate payments. 1. Click Save & Close.

Pay bills

See how to enter bills. (.5 MB file)

In the next section, you will learn how to take the next step: paying the bills. To pay your bills, click the Pay Bills icon on the Home page. This opens the Pay Bills window, as shown in Figure 3-6.

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Figure 3-6: Pay Bills window. Enlarge image

If you have bill reminders set up to appear automatically when QuickBooks starts, a reminder will appear in that window when it's time to pay them. To select whether or not to have reminders appear automatically for certain activities, click the Reminders button on the toolbar, and then click Set Preferences.

Let's take a quick tour of the Pay Bills window:

To try this feature in your XYZ Company, in the Pay Bills window:

Your current checking balance is displayed at the bottom of the window. As you check off each bill to pay, the balance decreases by the amount of the bill. This enables you to keep track of your checking account balance as you select bills to pay.

At the top, you can select which bills to show: those due on or before a certain date, or show all bills. In the Payment Method area, you can select how to pay the bills (Check or Credit Card) and, if a check, whether the check will be printed or assigned a check number. In the Payment Account area, you can select which bank account the funds will be debited from. In the Payment Date field, you can enter the date on which this batch of bills will be paid.

Now look at the Accounts Payable register, which lists all bills and payments, to be sure the bill was recorded as paid. To access that register, open the chart of accounts and double-click Accounts Payable. There it is, the check you just printed. You can also cross-check it in your check register by double-clicking Checking in the Chart of Accounts window.

1. Set the Show Bills setting to Show all bills. 2. Place a check mark next to the bill for JBB Insurance that you entered earlier. 3. Change the Payment Date field (in the lower-right corner of the Pay Bills window) to 2/6/2008. 4. Make sure the Payment Method is Check and that To be printed is selected. 5. Make sure that the Payment Account field is set to Checking. 6. Click Pay Selected Bills. 7. In the Payment Summary window, click Print Checks. The Select Checks to Print dialog box appears. 8. Set the starting check number to 2007. 9. Click OK to print the check. The Print Checks dialog box appears. 10. Leave the default print options selected, and then click Print. (Because this is just an exercise, don't worry that you don't have real checks loaded in your printer.) 11. In the Print Checks - Confirmation window, click OK.

Memorize bills

See how to pay bills. (1.2 MB file)

Next, learn how to memorize recurring bills.

Businesses often receive bills for the same amount each month. Rather than entering the transactions every month, you can use a QuickBooks feature that memorizes the transactions. You can then have QuickBooks automatically enter the transaction and list it with your outstanding bills each month. You can select a date for QuickBooks to remind you to enter the transaction, or decide to enter the transaction manually each time. To set up this feature for XYZ Company, follow these steps:

1. Click Enter Bills on the Home page. 2. Click the Previous button in the upper-left corner of the bill to look at the last bill that was entered. It should be the bill from JBB Insurance dated 1/31/2008. 3. With the bill on the screen, select Edit > Memorize Bill from the main menu, or press Ctrl+M. The Memorize Transaction dialog box appears. 4. Select to automatically enter the transaction monthly, and set the next payment date to 2/28/2008, as shown in Figure 3-7.

Figure 3-7: Memorize Transaction dialog box. Enlarge image When you open QuickBooks on 2/28/2008 (or the next time you open the program after that date), QuickBooks will alert you that memorized transactions are scheduled to be entered. Click Save & Close, and QuickBooks will enter the bill from JBB Insurance Agency. In the next section, you'll learn how to run an Accounts Payable report. 1. Click OK.

Run accounts payable reports

After you've entered bills, but before you pay them, you may want to run some reports and use the information to decide which bills to pay. Open the Report Center by clicking the icon on the Navigator bar. Select Vendors & Payables from the list on the left, and then click Summary in the A/P Aging section. The A/P Aging Summary report lists the amounts owed to each vendor, broken out according to whether the bill is current or 30, 60, or 90 days overdue. (If you try this now for XYZ Company, the report will be empty because there are no outstanding bills currently.) The Dates field defaults to Today; you can set it to some other date to see bills that are due in the future, or you can set it to All to see bills for all dates. Be sure to press Tab after changing the date to refresh the report. Other frequently used accounts payable reports include:

In addition to those already listed, you can access other reports relating to Vendors & Payables from the Report Center. Position your mouse over the report icon to the left of the report name to see a sample of its output, as shown in Figure 3-8.

Unpaid Bills Detail: Sorts the bills due by vendor. If bills have been paid, they don't appear on this report. Vendor Balance Detail: Lists all transactions that have been entered for each vendor through the bill-paying feature. These reports include both bills and bill payments. This report is useful when you're researching questions you or the vendor might have about a vendor's account. Vendor Balance Summary: Lists the vendors with outstanding bills and their balances.

Figure 3-8: A sample report in Report Center.

Print the report(s) of your choice, and then close the Report Center.

Assignment #3

Moving on

In this lesson, you learned about the accounts payable features of QuickBooks. In Lesson 4, you'll find out about the more pleasant part of the billing equation: accounts receivable. Finish up the lesson by completing the assignment and quiz now. Enter the following bills in your XYZ Company data file: 1. You purchased a dishwasher from Sears Appliances (P.O. Box 500, Austin, TX 78700) on 1/15/2008 for $300.00. If you pay the bill within 10 days, you get a 1 percent discount. The invoice number is 988-125. Code to Office Supplies & Expenses. 2. Texas Utilities (344 Conner St., Austin TX 78721) billed you $265.50 on 1/15/2008 for Utilities. The invoice number is 58431. Assign it to the Utilities account. 3. Rent is due on the first of each month (beginning with the current month) for $825.00. You pay the rent to MC Property Management, 1123 First Street, Austin, TX 78700. Use the category Rent Expense. Because this is due at the same time and for the same amount each month, you should memorize this transaction to automatically enter it each month. 4. A bill from Texas Oil Company for Automobile Expense:Gas is dated 1/18/2008. The total for the bill is $350.00, and the invoice number is 6482142. 5. You hired River Construction Company, 300 Main Street, Austin, TX 78700 (set them up as a Service Providers type) to come to your office and remodel part of your kitchen area. They sent you this bill: invoice number 1-345, $500.00, dated 1/05/2008, net 30 terms. Code to the Repairs and Maintenance account. 6. Federal Express sent you three bills this month for delivery (account: Postage and Delivery, which you need to create). The bills are as follows:

You can Quick Add this vendor because they send you an envelope with each bill, so you don't need to have the address in QuickBooks.

Invoice 845-12345 for $35.00 dated 1/6/2008 Invoice 845-56789 for $16.50 dated 1/13/2008 Invoice 846-11200 for $54.00 dated 1/20/2008

1. Print an A/P aging report, listing all of the bills that you owe. 2. You also need to transfer money from the Savings account to the Checking account to cover the bills you're planning to pay. Select Banking > Transfer Funds from the main QuickBooks menu. Make a transfer for $2,500.00 on 1/20/2008. 3. River Construction Company has not yet completed the job to your satisfaction; therefore, you want to pay them only $250.00 until they complete the job. Pay them $250 with the State Bank MasterCard on their outstanding invoice. (To do this, change the Amt. to Pay column's entry.)

Quiz #3
A) B) A) B) A) B) A) B) A) B)

Question 1: True or False: A vendor is any person or company that pays you for goods and services. True True True True True False False False False False

4. Pay the bill to Sears Appliance on 1/25/2008. You'd like to take the discount by paying early. Click the Set Discount button, open the Discount Account drop-down list, and then create a new Income account called Earned Discount to use for this discount. When you return to the Pay Bills screen, notice that the Amount to Pay value has changed. Pay the bill with the State Bank MasterCard. 5. Pay the bills that are due on or before 1/25/2008. Any bills that are due after that date are not to be paid. Date the checks 1/25/2008. Print the checks. 6. Print the Vendor Balance Detail report, listing all transactions for all vendors.

Question 2: True or False: The vendor name always appears as the payee name on the checks you print.

Question 3: True or False: When a vendor is marked as Inactive, and you view a list of active vendors, the inactive entries have red circles next to their names. Question 4: True or False: To memorize a bill, display it in the Enter Bills window, and then select Edit > Memorize Bill. Question 5: True or False: Reports can be customized to show any date range, not just today's status.

Understand customer lists

Access customer information

QuickBooks tips: working with accounts receivable

Welcome back. In Lesson 3, you learned how to handle vendors -- that is, those to whom you owe money. In this lesson, you'll look at the other side of the coin: customers, the people who pay you.

If you use accounts payable, you need accounts receivable! This lesson walks you through tracking your customers, sales and income through QuickBooks' customer lists and accounts receivable features.

Like the Vendor Center from Lesson 3, the Customer Center tracks information about people and companies. In this case, it's the people and companies who patronize your business. To access the Customer Center, click Customers on the Home page or click the Customer Center button on the Navigation bar. The Customer Center is shown in Figure 4-1.

Figure 4-1: Customer Center. Enlarge image

Each customer you previously entered is listed on the Customers & Jobs tab, as shown in Figure 4-1. When a customer is selected, any transactions involving them appear in the bottom of the window, in the Transactions area. For example, in Figure 4-1, you can see that John Jones made a payment on 1/6/2008 that was deposited into checking. One of the key interface differences between the Customer and Vendor centers is that with a customer, you can track individual jobs. Later in this lesson you'll learn how to create jobs for a customer.

Add a customer

In Lesson 2, you learned how to Quick Add a customer as you're entering a transaction. In the next section, you'll learn how to add a customer via the Customer Center.

To add a new customer, select New Customer & Job > New Customer. The New Customer window appears. The New Customer window separates customer information onto four tabs:

To try this feature on your XYZ Company records, enter Ed's Greenhouse in the Customer Name field, and then enter the following information on the Address Info tab: The New Customer window should look similar to Figure 4-2. Company Name: Ed's Greenhouse First and Last Names: Ed Wooten Bill To: 3000 North Main St., Austin, TX 78700

Address Info: This tab contains basic information about your customers, including their names, addresses, and telephone numbers. This is very much like the vendor information you entered in Lesson 3, with a few additions (such as separate addresses for billing and shipping). Additional Info: This tab contains more information about a customer including customer type as well as tax and terms information. You can assign default terms and a type, as with vendors; you can also specify a default representative, sales tax information, and pricing level (for example, if you offer better pricing to certain types of customers). Payment Info: This tab contains payment information about a customer including their account number, credit limit (if any), and credit card information (if any). Job Info: This tab contains project tracking information. You'll learn more about this later in the lesson.

Importing customer data

Just as with vendor data, you can import customer data from an Excel or CSV file. Consult the QuickBooks Pro 2008 Help system for details on setting up an Excel or CSV file for importing customer data. You'll use the File > Utilities > Import command to import the data.

Figure 4-2: Address Info tab for Ed's Greenhouse. Enlarge image

On the Additional Info tab, set his payment terms to Net 15 (his bills are due 15 days after the invoice date). For the Type, choose Retail. Click Define Fields to set up a custom field for Customers:Jobs labeled Spouse, and then click OK. (Click OK again in the Information dialog box.) Enter Betty in the Spouse field, as shown in Figure 4-3. Click OK to save the new customer.

Figure 4-3: Additional Info tab for Ed's Greenhouse. Enlarge image

Add a job

In the next section, you'll learn how to set up a job for a customer. Each customer can have multiple, separately tracked jobs.

The Go to Customer Manager button takes you to a separate program that Intuit sells as an add-on to QuickBooks. If you don't have that program installed, a page appears when you click that button advertising the program and offering to sell it to you.

Customers have jobs -- or the work you do for their company -- associated with

them. Follow these steps to see how to associate a job with a customer:

After you've created a new job for Ed's Greenhouse, the display in the Customers & Jobs list looks slightly different. In Figure 4-4, the job is shown as a subaccount of the customer. You can then assign that job to a transaction the same way you would assign a customer's account. Any reports you run for that customer will include activities for each of the customer's jobs.

1. In the Customer Center, select Ed's Greenhouse. 2. Select New Customer & Job, and then select Add Job from the menu. The New Job dialog box appears. 3. Click the Job Info tab. 4. In the Job Name field, type Ed's Office Space. 5. Enter a Start Date of 1/5/2008 and a Projected End of 4/28/2008. 6. Enter a job description of Office Space Consultation. 7. Click OK to save the job.

Figure 4-4: The Customers & Jobs tab lists jobs as subaccounts of customers. Enlarge image

Edit and delete customers and jobs

To edit a customer or job, use the same processes you used with other lists. From the Customer Center, select the entry in the Customers & Jobs list, and then select Edit > Edit Customer:Job from the main menu.

Deleting a customer or job is allowed in QuickBooks as long as no transactions have been made with that customer or job. To delete a customer, select that customer in the Customers & Jobs list, and then select Edit > Delete Customer:Job from the main menu. If you can't delete the job and want to hide it from the screen, make it inactive. To use the Make Inactive function, right-click the account you want to make inactive in the Customers & Jobs list, and then select Make Customer:Job Inactive. To see a list of all customers, including inactive customers, open the View drop-down list in the Customer Center and select All Customers.

Combine jobs

As with vendors and the chart of accounts, you may find it necessary to merge two customers or jobs. In the Customers & Jobs list, double-click the customer or job you want to merge, and then change the name to the exact name of the customer or job that you want to merge it with. QuickBooks warns you that you're about to combine two items. Click Yes to complete the merge.

Set up sales items

Next, learn how to set up sales items.

QuickBooks uses the Item List to keep track of specific goods or services you buy or sell and other special items such as sales tax. To view it, click the Items & Services icon on the Home page or select Lists > Item List. When you set up your company in the EasyStep Interview, QuickBooks entered a few items into the list based on the information you provided; however, you may need to apply price levels to those items, as well as add other items. In the XYZ Company file, there is currently only one item: Out of State. (It's a sales tax item, not a real product or service for sale.) Follow these steps to add another: 1. Display the Item List. 2. Click the Item button, and then select New. The New Item dialog box appears. 3. Fill out the dialog box as shown in Figure 4-5, and then click OK to save the new entry.

Figure 4-5: Creating a new item. Enlarge image

Now let's add another sales tax item, because they have somewhat different options: 1. From the Item list, click the Item button and select New. 2. For the Type, select Sales Tax Item. 3. Fill out the dialog box as shown in Figure 4-6, and then click OK.

Figure 4-6: Adding a sales tax item. Enlarge image

In the next section, you'll learn how to invoice customers and how to receive

1. In the Vendor Not Found dialog box, click Quick Add, and then click OK. 2. Close the Item List window.

Invoice customers

and process their payments.

QuickBooks Pro 2008 offers several methods to collect and record payments from your customers. The same flexibility that was a feature of bill paying also enables you to customize invoicing and payment systems for your business. QuickBooks provides three ways for you to record sales. The method that's right for you depends on how and when you expect to be paid for your goods and services. The three methods are: Sales Receipts: Use a sales receipt if you expect payment at the time of the sale. Under this method, no accounts receivable entry is recorded for the sale. You make the sale and deposit the money in the bank. To enter sales receipts, click the Create Sales Receipts button on the Home page. Invoices: Record sales with an invoice when you expect payment to come later rather than at the time of the sale. The quickest way to create an invoice is to click the Create Invoices icon on the Home page. Credit Memos and Refunds: Use this form when a customer returns merchandise, or when you want to give a customer a credit for any reason. To create a credit memo, click Refunds & Credits on the Home page.

All three forms are formatted in almost exactly the same way. Each form, however, has a few unique features. For example, with the credit memo, you have the option to write a refund check to your customer.

Invoice customers

To try out the invoice function with the XYZ Company data, follow these steps: The Template drop-down list offers several invoice templates for a variety of businesses. You can use a pre-existing template, customize one for your business, or download additional templates from the QuickBooks Template Gallery online. In Lesson 5, you'll learn how to customize a template for your own company. 1. In the Customer:Job field, select Ed's Greenhouse:Ed's Office Space. 2. Date the invoice 1/16/2008. It's your first invoice of the year 2008, so enter 2008001 as the invoice number.

1. Click Create Invoices on the Home page. An invoice form appears. 2. Make sure the Template setting (in the upper-right corner) is set to Intuit Product Invoice.

QuickBooks automatically increments the invoice number by 1 as each new invoice is entered after this point.

1. You spent seven hours working on this consultation project between 1/5/2008 and 1/15/2008, so enter 7 as the Quantity, and then select Consulting as the Item Code. In the Description field, type Development Consultation. In the Tax field below the Description field, select Texas State Sales Tax. 2. Make sure the To be printed checkbox is marked. When you're done with your invoice, it should look similar to Figure 4-7.

You can print the invoice from this screen if you like (using the Print button on the window's toolbar). However, you checked the To be printed checkbox at the bottom of the invoice, which adds it to the print queue. This enables you to queue up a number of invoices before printing -- as you did when entering checks -- and then print all of them at one time.

Figure 4-7: Enter an invoice when a sale takes place and payment will be made later. Enlarge image See how to create an invoice. (.3 MB file) 1. Click Save & Close to accept this invoice. 2. If you see a warning about having changed the tax, click Yes.

Memorize an invoice

Print invoices
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Many companies have routine sales -- they perform the same service and charge for the same amount on a continual basis. QuickBooks can memorize these sales, just as it memorizes bills. To memorize an invoice, open an invoice and then select Edit > Memorize Invoice from the main menu. Enter a name for the invoice and then select how and when you want to be reminded. In the next section, you'll create another invoice for more practice, and you'll print your invoices.

For a little more practice, create a new invoice for an out-of-state customer for a service:

Start a new invoice. Select Intuit Service Invoice from the Template drop-down list. Date the invoice 1/3/2008. Enter Cosper, Mike in the Customer:Job field, and then press Tab. (Click Quick Add when prompted to set up the customer.) For the Item, select Consulting. For the Quantity, enter 1. For the Description, type Initial Consultation. For the rate, override the default and type 845.00. In the Tax column (not the Tax field as noted previously), select Non for Non-Taxable Sales because this customer is out of state.

Printing your receipts

When printing hard copies of your receipts, choose an HP color LaserJet that will print for quality results. HP Color LaserJet 3600

Ordinarily, you set a customer tax code for the entire invoice from the Customer Tax Code list. However, the way you did it in Step 8 illustrates how you could make individual line items on an invoice taxable or not.

Printing invoices

Follow these steps to print the invoices you have generated so far for the XYZ Company:

1. Click Save & Close.

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You can also preview the invoice in the Create Invoices screen by clicking the arrow next to the Print button and then selecting Preview.

1. Click File > Print Forms > Invoices. The Select Invoices to Print dialog box appears. 2. Make sure there's a check mark next to the invoice(s) you want to print, and then click OK. 3. In the Print Invoices dialog box, review the settings. If you'd like to preview the layout, click the Preview button. Click Close when you're done previewing. 1. Click Print to print the invoice. 2. A confirmation box appears. If the invoices printed correctly, click OK. If one or more didn't, click to check their entries in the Reprint column and click OK.

Send invoices

Receive payments from customers

QuickBooks Pro 2008 also enables you to e-mail invoices to your customers. As you're viewing the Create Invoices window, with the invoice completed, click the Send icon near the top of the window. (The button also has a drop-down list, but click directly on the button in this case and not its down arrow.) This opens a new e-mail message in your default mail program, with a generic message entered and with the invoice attached as a PDF (Portable Document Format) file. If you don't have an e-mail address on file for the recipient, the name of the customer or job appears in the To field. You'll need to change it to a valid e-mail address in your mail program, and then click Send. In the next section, you'll learn what to do when you receive a payment from a customer (besides rejoice!).

When you use invoices to record sales, QuickBooks keeps track of all the information necessary to determine who owes you and how much money they owe. To keep this information accurate, you need to record payments as well as invoices. To access the Receive Payments window, click the Receive Payments icon on the Home page. Try this feature now on the XYZ Company records:

1. From the Home page, click Receive Payments. The Receive Payments dialog box appears. 2. Open the Received From list and select Cosper, Mike. A list of his

outstanding invoices appears. 3. In the Amount box, enter 845.00. 4. Place a check mark next to the invoice. The dialog box should look like Figure 4-8 at this point.

Figure 4-8: Receiving a payment. Enlarge image

Payments are automatically grouped in the Undeposited Funds account, which is explained in the next section of this lesson. This way, QuickBooks groups the payments on one deposit slip for your bank.

1. Click Save & New. 2. Open the Received From list and select Ed's Greenhouse. Notice that the invoices from all of this company's jobs appear (at this time, there's only one); you didn't have to select the job separately. 3. In the Amount box, enter 300.00. 4. Place a check mark next to the invoice. Notice that Ed didn't pay his entire invoice amount. An underpayment is reported in the lower-left corner of the dialog box. 5. Make sure that the Leave this as an underpayment option is selected. 6. Click Save & Close.

Make deposits

See how to receive a payment from a customer. (.4 MB file)

In the next section, you'll learn how to record the bank deposit.

As you enter deposits, QuickBooks keeps track of them and holds them in an account called Undeposited Funds. You may have noticed this account in the chart of accounts. When you're ready to take the payments to the bank, you must record the deposit in QuickBooks to transfer the amount from Undeposited Funds account to the bank account. To open the Payments to Deposit window and make a deposit in your bank account, click Record Deposits on the Home page. QuickBooks lists the two payments that XYZ Company has received. To deposit these two checks, either put check marks in the left column by clicking beside each deposit or click the Select All button to select all of the payments for deposit, and then click OK.

When you're receiving deposits with a credit card, you can view the payment method type and select only the payments that you have received from that particular credit card.

The Make Deposits window, shown in Figure 4-9, lists the payments you've decided to deposit. Make certain the bank and deposit dates are correct. If you want to add other checks that were not invoiced, just add them under the last line.

Figure 4-9: Make Deposits window. Enlarge image

Click Save & Close to deposit the money.

When you deposit checks, QuickBooks automatically updates your customer data, your accounts receivable register, and your check register. To verify the deposits you made for XYZ Company, check the new entries in the Accounts Receivable register. Go to the chart of accounts and double-click the Accounts Receivable account. Your register should look similar to Figure 4-10.

QuickBooks can print a deposit slip for the bank, but you must order blank slips with the correct bank codes on the bottom, just as you order checks.

Figure 4-10: QuickBooks updates the accounts receivable register. Enlarge image Close the Accounts Receivable and Chart of Accounts windows. In the next section, you'll learn how to display Accounts Receivable reports.

Run accounts receivable reports

Collecting the money owed by customers is a critical function for any business. QuickBooks provides many reports to help you manage your accounts receivable. Access these reports from the Customers & Receivables section of the Report Center. Some of the most important accounts receivable reports are:

Another handy customer report is the Collections report. It's also accessible from the Customers & Receivables section of the Report Center. This report adds some extra information, such as contact person and telephone number, to help you collect outstanding invoices.

Assignment #4
Background

Moving on

A/R Aging Summary: Similar to the A/P Aging Summary report but for accounts receivable aging. The invoices due from customers are sorted alphabetically and by due date. Open Invoices: Lists only invoices that are open (unpaid) and sorts by customer. Customer Balance reports: These reports include all invoices and payments that have been entered for every customer and job. This report is useful when you're researching a question that you or a customer might have about a customer's account.

In this lesson, you learned all about accounts receivable in QuickBooks. In Lesson 5, you'll learn more about reports. You'll also learn how to set up templates that are tailored to your business. Before you move on, do the assignment and take the quiz for this lesson.

For XYZ Company, you need to set up items that are appropriate for a consulting business. It's best if you read this assignment thoroughly before entering the data into QuickBooks. XYZ Company offers the following types of consultation for clients, plus four types of implementation of each project: XYZ Company also sells hardware. Consulting Implementation Software Hardware Space Management Personnel Management

XYZ Company charges a different rate for each type of consultation and implementation, and you'd like to keep track of your earnings for each one separately. To begin, you need two items:

Assignment

Software Consultation at $95/hour Hardware Consultation at $95/hour Space Consultation at $60/hour

1. Set up two new Income accounts in the chart of accounts: Implementation Income and Hardware Sales. 2. In the Item List, under the Consulting item, set up four sub-items (each one a taxable service) and assign them to the Consulting Income account.

Personnel Consultation at $90/hour

Software Implementation at $75/hour Hardware Implementation at $75/hour Space Implementation at $60/hour Personnel Implementation at $75/hour

1. In the Item List, create a new item called Implementation (a taxable service). Don't assign a rate. Assign the Implementation Income account to it. 2. Set up four sub-items under Implementation, each taxable and each assigned to the Implementation Income account: 1. Create a new item called Computer. The type should be Non-inventory Part, and it should be assigned the Hardware Sales account. 2. Close the Item List. 3. Invoice the following customers:

If prompted to change the customer information based on new tax information, click Yes. Make certain that, in the Tax field, these items are taxable. 1. Receive payments from the following customers: Jones Contracting (a new customer, Quick Add) on 1/15/2008 for 15 hours of Hardware Consultation. Apply Texas State Sales Tax, and the total invoice is $1,542.56. Jones Contracting for a Computer on 1/20/2008 for $980. This is a taxable sale (Texas State Sales Tax) and the total invoice should be for $1,060.85. Ed Warner for $450.00 on 1/25/2008 Ed's Greenhouse for $381.98 on 1/24/2008 (applied to the 1/16/2008 invoice) Jones Contracting for $2,603.41 on 1/29/2008

Ed's Greenhouse Shop (this is a Customer:Job) on 1/15/2008 for Space Consultation for 5 hours. Total invoice will be $324.75. You will need to set up a new job named Shop. Ed Warner on 1/15/2008 for 30 hours of Software Implementation. Apply Texas State Sales Tax, and the total invoice is $2,435.63.

Quiz #4
A) B) A) B) A) B)

Question 1: True or False: Every job must be assigned to a customer; you can't have a job without a customer associated with it. True False

1. Make a deposit to the bank on 1/30/2008 with the three checks you received. 2. Print an A/R Aging Summary to see how much you still have outstanding in receivables. 3. Print a Customer Balance Detail report to check each customer's account.

Question 2: To make a job inactive, right-click the account you want to make inactive in the Customers & Jobs list, and then select __________. C) D) Question 3: True or False: QuickBooks stores all your customer information by default in the Customer Manager section of the program. True False Make Customer: Hide Job Make Customer: Inactive Make Customer: Job Inactive Customer > Job > Inactive

Question 4: True or False: If you create a sales receipt for a sale, you don't have to create an invoice for the sale in addition to the receipt. A) B) A) B) Question 5: True or False: You view and manage sales items from the Item List in QuickBooks. True False

QuickBooks reports

How to use QuickBooks customized reports and templates

Welcome back. When you worked with accounts receivable in Lesson 4, you learned how to generate accounts receivable reports. In this lesson, you'll learn about the wide variety of reports that QuickBooks can generate to help you understand and manage your business. In addition, you'll learn how to customize reports and create report templates you can use time and time again. QuickBooks provides many reports, each designed to be a tool for managing your business. The Report Center, shown in Figure 5-1, centralizes access to all of the reports available in QuickBooks, as well as to a variety of useful tools. In addition to the predefined reports listed here, you can also customize reports. If you use certain customized reports on a regular basis, you can instruct QuickBooks to memorize them and save their parameters for future use.

True

False

A highly useful feature in QuickBooks 2008 is its powerful reporting function. This lesson teaches you how to run reports and customize reports and templates for your own needs. You'll see at a glance where your money is, goes and how it flows.

Figure 5-1: Report Center. Enlarge image

You can also access a complete list of reports and reporting tools through the Reports menu on the menu bar.

Another way to access particular reports is through the Customer, Vendor, and

Employee centers. Each Center offers links to reports that are commonly used for those areas, such as QuickReport and Open Balance for customers and vendors. Figure 5-2 (upper-right corner of the window) shows the reports available when viewing a customer in the Customer Center.

Run a report

Figure 5-2: Reports for this Customer section. Enlarge image

In the next section, you'll learn how to run one of these reports.

To run a report, just click its link in either of the locations discussed in the previous section. For example, one of the most common reports is Standard Profit & Loss. This report shows a big-picture view of the business's profitability over a specified date range. It's in the Company & Financial section of the Report Center. Run it now for XYZ Company. The date range defaults to This Month-to-date. You can open the Dates dropdown list on the report and select some other interval, if desired. For example, try setting it to All to see all the transactions you entered in previous lessons, regardless of today's date. Figure 5-3 shows this report with the date set to All.

Figure 5-3: The Standard Profit & Loss report for XYZ Company. Enlarge image

For a custom date range, enter dates in the From and To fields instead of selecting from the Dates drop-down list.

In addition, you can use the Columns and Sort By drop-down lists to change the level of detail on the report and the order in which the information appears. To try this with the XYZ Company report, set Columns to Month. The report changes to show each month individually in its own column, in addition to

showing a summary column. Then open the Sort drop-down list and select Total. This sorts the order of the items within each category according to the dollar amounts. Figure 5-4 shows the report from Figure 5-3 with the columns and sorting changed.

Figure 5-4: Profit & Loss report with monthly columns and sorting by total. Enlarge image

If a report doesn't change after you alter the settings, click the Refresh button.

View the underlying details of a report

When you move your cursor around within the report, the arrow changes to a magnifying glass (with a Z inside) as it moves over the top of the numbers. This cursor means that you can view details for the item underneath it. For example, if you double-click the dollar amount for Hardware Sales in the Total column, a Transaction Detail by Account report appears listing the transactions that comprised that value, as shown in Figure 5-5.

Figure 5-5: Transaction Detail By Account report. Enlarge image

Collapse and expand reports

QuickBooks can run reports with subaccounts listed or with only the main accounts shown. The Collapse button in the top row of the report collapses the subaccounts into their main accounts. After you click the Collapse button, the name of the button changes to Expand. Click this button to expand the report again so you can view the subaccount information.

This magnifying glass feature is very useful for looking up entries, editing reports, and correcting errors. When a source document is on the screen, you can make corrections to it and see your change reflected on the report after you refresh it.

Print, export and email reports

Print a report

The Hide Header button offers a way of collapsing the title at the top of the report, so there is more room onscreen for viewing the report's details. In the next section, you will learn various ways of sharing the report with others. Now let's look at some ways of distributing reports to others.

After you modify any report settings, such as the date range, and then attempt to close the report, QuickBooks prompts you to memorize the report. You'll learn about memorizing reports later in this lesson. For now, click No.

The most common and traditional way of distributing a report is to print the report and distribute the hard copy. To print a report, click the Print button in the row of buttons at the top of the report. The Print Reports dialog box opens. It enables you to specify how you want the report to be printed.

Print your reports

The Print Reports dialog box has two tabs: Settings and Margins. On the Settings tab, shown in Figure 5-6, you can select a printer, a page orientation, a page range, and other settings typical of a Print dialog box in an application. On the Margins tab, you can set the top, bottom, right, and left margins for the printout. From either tab, you can click the Preview button to use Print Preview. This is a helpful step, because the report may not look exactly as you would like, or the way you expect it to.

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Figure 5-6: Printing options available in the Print Reports dialog box.

Try it now with the XYZ Company report that we've been looking at in this lesson. Print one copy of it to your default printer, using the default settings or making changes to them as you wish.

Export a report

You can export a report either to Excel or to a CSV text file. The latter can then be exported into any program that divides data into rows and columns, such as Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, most database programs, or a Word table. If you have Excel on your PC, try the following:

Email a report

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

You can mail the report to other people either in Excel format (same as the exported format you just saw) or in PDF format. PDF format more closely resembles the formatting of the original report, but the report is not editable from the PDF version. To send the report via e-mail, follow these steps: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Display a report. Click the Export button. In the Export Report dialog box, select a new Excel workbook. Click Export. Excel opens and the data from the report appears there. Examine the data in Excel, and then close Excel without saving the changes.

Customize reports

In the next section, you'll learn how to further customize your reports.

Click the E-mail button at the top of the report. Click Send Report as Excel or Send Report as PDF. If you see a warning about security, click OK to bypass it. A new e-mail opens, with the subject and the attachment filled in and a sample message. Enter the recipient(s) in the To box, and then click Send.

One of QuickBooks' great features is that you can tailor the program to your own business needs. You can modify its reports to provide you with the specific information you need to manage your business. Once you tweak these custom reports so they present the exact data you need, you can memorize and save them so you won't have to redesign the reports each time you want to run them. You already learned some basic customization earlier in the lesson, with the Date, Columns, and Sort drop-down lists. You can also click the Modify Report button to open a Modify Report dialog box with even more options. This dialog box contains four tabbed sections: Display: The options on this tab are different for different reports. For example, on the Display tab for the Customer Balance Detail report, shown in Figure 5-7, you may select which columns you want to appear. You can also select the date range for the report and select how you want the report sorted, among other options.

Figure 5-7: Display tab. Enlarge image

To report information for two or more customers, select Multiple names from the Name drop-down list to open the Select Name dialog box. Press and hold Ctrl, click the names you want to select, and then click OK. Click the Tell me more button in the Names Filter section for more information.

Filters: This tab enables you to filter data and present only the information that meets certain criteria. For example, if you click Name in the Filter list, and then select Ed's Greenhouse from the Name drop-down list, QuickBooks filters all data except information relating to Ed's Greenhouse.

Memorize reports

On the display screen for any given report, you can change the column widths to view more of the report (and less extraneous information) onscreen. Click the small diamonds between the column headings, and then drag one of the diamonds to the left or right. When you release the mouse button, the column width changes. Delete columns by dragging the diamond on the right side of a column past the diamond on the left side of the column -- effectively resizing the column so small that it doesn't exist anymore. To restore a column that you just deleted this way, go to the Display tab in the Modify Report dialog box, put a check mark in front of the deleted column, and then click OK. These formatting changes are part of report customization, so make them before you memorize any reports, discussed in the next section.

Header/Footer: This tab enables you to change the header and footer of the report. Check the boxes on the left to add or delete the different lines of information, from Company Name to Time Prepared. You can also change the wording of the header and footer lines by typing the text you want to see in the fields beside each check mark. Fonts & Numbers: This tab enables you to change the fonts the report uses and the numeric representation of the data (such as the formatting of negative numbers).

After you've customized a report, you can memorize it for easy access in the future. To memorize a report, click the Memorize button at the top of the report screen and give the report a name. Try this feature with XYZ Company's data. Create a new Customer Balance Detail report and memorize it under the name My Customer Balance Detail. Check the Save in Memorized Report Group checkbox, select Customers from the drop-down list, and then click OK. To view a list of memorized reports, do one of the following: Display the Report Center, and then click Memorized in the upper-right corner. Select Reports > Memorized Reports > Memorized Report List. Remember to give your report a new name. If you don't, the customized version replaces the standard report on which it is based.

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The Memorized Report List, shown in Figure 5-8, lists several reports that QuickBooks comes "pre-memorized" with, plus any reports you have memorized yourself. You can double-click any of the reports to view them, or select one and then click the Memorized Report button for a menu of options (including renaming, deleting, and printing).

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Figure 5-8: Memorized Report List.

Notice in Figure 5-8 that the memorized reports are grouped into categories, such as Accounting and Banking. You can drag memorized reports between groups, or create a new group by selecting Memorized Report > New Group.

If you have a set of reports you frequently have to print at the same time, such as all your end-of-the-month reports, set up a group, and set up each one as a memorized report. Then, from the Memorized Report List, right-click the group name and select Process Group. In the Process Multiple Reports dialog box that appears, clear the check mark from any that you want to exclude, and then click Print to print them all at once.

Customize templates

See how to display, customize, and memorize a report. (.8 MB file)

Now that you know something about reports in QuickBooks, let's finish up the lesson in the next section by shifting to another topic: templates.

Most of the transaction forms in QuickBooks that generate some type of printout, such as invoices, sales receipts, purchase orders, and so on, are based on templates. QuickBooks comes with several templates for each transaction form, so you can include the fields that are appropriate for the activity at hand. For example, for an invoice, you might want a service invoice that included number of hours worked at a certain rate, or you might want a product invoice that included the number of units sold at a certain price.

You can customize template or even design your own. I'll show you how to do that here for invoices, but the process is the same for all types of forms, so once you know how to do it for invoices you will also be able to do it for the others as well. Follow these steps in the XYZ Company file to try out the process:

1. Select Lists > Templates. The Templates window appears, listing the templates that came with QuickBooks. 2. You shouldn't edit original templates; make copies of them and edit the copies. Therefore, select Intuit Product Invoice, click the Templates button, and then select Duplicate. The Select Template Type dialog box appears. 3. Leave the default selection marked -- Invoice -- and click OK. A new template called Copy of: Intuit Product Invoice appears on the list. 4. With the copy selected, click the Templates button and select Edit Template. The Basic Customization dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 5-9.

Figure 5-9: Customize the template here. Enlarge image

1. Add the company's phone number to the invoice by marking the Phone Number checkbox. If you see a message about the Layout Designer, click OK. 2. Notice that a blank Phone # box appears near the lower-left corner of the invoice, but no phone number is in it. That's because you haven't entered a phone number yet for this company. To fix this, click Update Information. In the Phone # field, type 555-123-1234 and click OK. Now that box has the number in it. 3. The current location for that Phone # field is not very attractive, is it? Let's move it. To do that, you need to use the Layout Designer. Click the Layout Designer button, and the Layout Designer window appears. 4. Scroll down to the bottom of the invoice in the Layout Designer window, and then select the two boxes that comprise the Phone # field you just inserted. The upper box contains the Phone # label, and the lower box contains the placeholder for the number. To select both boxes, click one, and then hold Ctrl as you click the other. See Figure 5-10.

Figure 5-10: Use the Layout Designer to position fields.

1. Drag the two selected boxes to the top of the page and place them to the left of the Date boxes, as shown in Figure 5-11.

Figure 5-11: Place the Phone # field next to the Date field.

1. Resize and reposition the two boxes so they're the same vertical heights and positions as the boxes next to them, as shown in Figure 5-12.

Figure 5-12: Move and resize the boxes to match the surrounding ones.

The pale blue boxes show where the windows would be on a business-size window envelope. You can use these to make sure the return address and the mailing address on your invoices show through the windows.

There are three other tabs in this dialog box -- Columns, Footer, and Print. They each contain the fields for different parts of the invoice. Browse these tabs to become familiar with them on your own.

1. Click OK to accept the change and return to the Basic Customization dialog box. 2. Click the Additional Customization button. A list of possible content appears for an invoice, as shown in Figure 5-13. Each one has three options: Screen (determines whether it will appear when the invoice displays onscreen), Print (determines whether it will appear when the invoice prints), and Title (determines the title text that will appear above the field content).

Figure 5-13: Additional customization options. Enlarge image

1. Remove the Ship To field by clearing both of its checkboxes. Click OK if prompted. 2. Clear the Print checkbox for Ship Via. The field is removed from the preview. 3. Reselect the checkbox. A warning appears. Click OK, and then click Continue. Look on the sample; notice the Via field has shifted when it was re-inserted. 4. Click the Layout Designer button, and then resize/reposition the Via field so that it's consistent with the surrounding fields and doesn't overlap them. 5. Click OK to save the changes. 6. Click the Manage Templates button. The Manage Templates dialog box appears. 7. In the Template Name text box, change the name to Product Invoice No Billing and click OK. 8. Click OK again to close the Basic Customization dialog box, and then close the Templates window.

The example you just completed just scratches the surface; there are many more types of customization you can perform on templates. You'll practice other customizations in the assignment for this lesson, and you may want to try others on your own as well.

Assignment #5

Moving on

In this lesson, you learned how to customize reports. In Lesson 6, you'll learn about classes, budgets, credit cards, and sales tax. Before you move on, do the assignment and take the quiz for this lesson to get more practice using QuickBooks 2008. To reinforce what you learned in Lesson 5:

Quiz #5
A) B) A) B) A) B)

Change the font used for the Company Name and Company Address to Arial. Add the Ship To field to only the printed version. Add the Account Number field to only the printed version, and change the Title for that field to Account. Use the Layout Designer to modify the layout so that the Account field doesn't overlap any other fields and is consistent in placement and size with the others in its row. 1. Create another duplicate copy of one of the invoice templates, and name it anything you like. Modify it using the Layout Designer and the other tools in any way you see fit. True True True

1. Run the Transaction List by Vendor report, and filter it so that it shows only Federal Express and activity for All dates. 2. Customize the report so that it shows only the following information: Type, Date, Num, and Amount. 3. Widen the Num column so that the numbers aren't truncated. 4. Memorize this report and call it FedEx Transactions. Save it in the Customers group. 5. Print a check register for your checking account for the dates 1/1/2008 to 1/31/2008. 6. Print a collections report to help your accounts receivable clerk call to collect the outstanding invoices. 7. Create a duplicate copy of the Intuit Service Invoice template, and name the copy My Custom Service Invoice. 8. Customize the new invoice template in the following ways:

Question 1: True or False: The Reports menu lists only reports you have memorized or customized. False False False

Question 2: True or False: When e-mailing a report, you can send it in one of two formats: Excel or PDF. Question 3: True or False: The Collapse button in a report's window hides subaccounts.

Question 4: True or False: You can export reports as Excel, CSV, Word, or Access files.

A) B) A) B)

Question 5: True or False: To customize the layout of an invoice, edit its template. True False

Use classes

Working with classes, budgets, credit cards and more

Now that you know how to handle chart of account changes, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and report printing, you're ready to move on to some of the finer details in QuickBooks Pro 2008. Business accounting is a compilation of many small tasks that must be performed on a regular basis. Some of these seem very simple, like paying a vendor with a credit card, budgeting, or paying sales tax, but it is essential that they be done correctly and in a timely manner. In this final lesson of the course, you'll how QuickBooks handles many of these activities.

True

False

In this lesson, you'll learn to use classes, set up budgets and run class and budget reports. You'll also find out how to manage credit card accounts, reconcile bank accounts and pay sales tax.

Use classes

Many companies need to track their profit or loss by department. QuickBooks provides for departmental or class tracking by enabling you to enter a class for each transaction. The first thing you need to do is make sure the class tracking feature is enabled. You can turn this option on or off at any time by accessing the Preferences window from Edit > Preferences. Select Accounting from the list on the left, click the Company Preferences tab, and then make sure the Use class tracking checkbox is marked, as shown in Figure 6-1. Click OK.

Figure 6-1: Accounting Company Preferences tab. Enlarge image

When this box is checked, all of your transaction entry screens display a field labeled Class. Whenever you enter a check, bill, invoice, or other record, you can specify the class to which that the record belongs.

Set up classes

After making sure class tracking is enabled, you can set up new classes. From

the main menu, select Lists > Class List.

This window looks pretty empty initially, but once you add a few classes to the list, it'll look and function very similar to the chart of accounts. To add a new class, select Class > New. The New Class dialog box appears. Try this feature on the XYZ Company's records. Add these three new classes: Administrative, Communication, and Computer. Figure 6-2 shows the Class List and the New Class dialog box with the additions in progress. Once you enter the classes you need, you can track how you're earning and spending money in each class. You can assign any bill or payment to any of these classes.

Run class reports

Figure 6-2: Adding classes to the Class List.

In the next section, you'll learn how to use these classes to run reports. There are several reports you can run from the Class List window.

If a particular class is selected, you can select Reports > QuickReport: classname, where classname is the selected class. This isn't available when no class is selected. You can also select Reports > Reports on All Classes, and then select Profit & Loss by Class or Profit & Loss Unclassified. Finally, there are some graphical reports (graphs) you can run by selecting Reports > Reports on All Classes > Graphs. You can assign classes to transactions retroactively. An easy way of doing this is to generate a report by class, and then double-click unclassified amounts to open their transactions. Let's give that a try for the XYZ Company: 1. Set up the three classes in Figure 6-2 if you haven't done that yet. 2. In the Class List window, select Reports > Reports on All Classes > Profit & Loss Unclassified. 3. Set the Dates drop-down list to All. 4. Double-click the amount next to Consulting Income. A Transaction Detail by Account window opens. 5. Double-click the first invoice on the list. It opens in the Create Invoices window. Notice that there is now a Class drop-down list at the top of the invoice. 6. Open the Class list, and then select Administrative. 7. Notice that there's also a Class column in the line items on the invoice. Open the drop-down list for the Class column, and then select Administrative. 8. Click Save & Close, and then click Yes to confirm. The invoice disappears from the report you were viewing because it's no longer unclassified. 9. Double-click the first Deposit item on the report to open it in the Make Deposits window. Notice there's now a Class column here too. Classify

Troubleshooting your own problems

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Create a budget

You could work through the entire report in this same way until everything you have entered to date had been classified, but in the interest of time, let's move on. In the next section, you'll learn about creating a budget.

it as Administrative, and then click Save & Close. 10. Repeat the process for all the other transactions until the Transaction Detail by Account report is empty, and then close it. 11. On the Profit & Loss Unclassified report, notice that the whole category you were working with before is now gone because there's nothing unclassified in it.

QuickBooks enables you to set up one or more budgets for your company. You can compare your actual income and expenses to these budgets for a specific time period. Follow these steps to get to the Set Up Budgets window:

If your fiscal year is other than the calendar year, the budget's months will follow the fiscal year, not the calendar year.

1. From the main menu, select Company > Planning & Budgeting > Set Up Budgets. 2. In the Create a New Budget window, make sure the year is correct in the year field. 1. Select Profit and Loss, and then click Next. 2. Select No additional criteria, and then click Next. 3. Select Create budget from scratch. Once you've been using QuickBooks for a while, it'll be more useful to select Create budget from previous year's actual data. 4. Click Finish. The Set Up Budgets window appears. 5. Enter the budget by month, if you'd like to have monthly comparisons included in your budget reports. 6. Continue to fill in the budget amounts for each income and expense account for which you need a budget.

To try this feature with XYZ Company's records, use the year 2009 and enter a budget for Consulting Income of $7,500.00 per month. Enter 7500.00 for the month of January, and then click Copy Across at the bottom of the screen to have QuickBooks automatically fill in that amount for each month. You can also instruct QuickBooks to increase or decrease this $7,500.00 by any percentage or amount each month using the Adjust Row Amounts button. Figure 6-3 shows how this looks in the window when you're done. Click OK to accept the budget.

Figure 6-3: Enter a budget for consulting income of $7,500.00 per month. Enlarge image

If you were doing this for your actual company data, you would fill in all the budget amounts for each account. However, for purposes of this course, there's no need to take the time to do that -- you get the general idea of how budgeting works.

Run budget reports

Once you set up your budget, you can run reports on it to see how you're doing. To run budget reports, open the Report Center and select Budgets from the list on the left. You can select from a few different types of reports. The Profit & Loss Budget Performance report, for example, prints your budget broken down by account for the time you select. Only income and expense accounts are included. Figure 6-4 shows an example. There's no actual data because our sample company has no transactions yet for 2009.

Figure 6-4: Profit & Loss Budget Overview report. Enlarge image

Reconcile bank accounts

The Budget vs. Actual report lists actual income, budgeted amounts and expenses, and the variance for the time you select. The Budget vs. Actual Graph report presents this information in a colorful bar graph format. In addition, you can view a Profit & Loss Budget Performance, which prints the actual expenses versus the budget broken out by the period you select, and compares to the fiscal year to date and annual year to date. Next, learn how to reconcile bank accounts.

When you reconcile your records against your bank statement, you ensure that all of the transactions that have cleared your bank accounts are recorded correctly in QuickBooks. Reconciling is essential to keeping your financial information accurate and timely. It reveals any errors made either by you or by your bank in entries for checks, deposits, service charges, automatic drafts, transfers, or other banking activities. You can reconcile all types of accounts,

including savings, money market, brokerage, and as you'll see in the next section, credit cards.

To reconcile the checking account for the XYZ Company, follow these steps:

1. Select Banking > Reconcile. The Begin Reconciliation dialog box opens. 2. Select Checking from the Account drop-down list. 3. Enter 1/15/2008 in the Statement Date field. 4. Enter 3,027.35 as the Ending Balance. 5. Enter 4.00 as the service charge, as of 1/14/2008. Assign it to the Bank Service Charges account and the Administrative class. The dialog box should look like Figure 6-5 at this point.

Figure 6-5: Begin Reconciliation dialog box. Enlarge image

1. Click Continue. If you see a warning about a class not being assigned, click Save Anyway. 2. In the Reconcile - Checking dialog box, click to place a check mark next to all the transactions with dates before 1/15/2008. (If you were doing this against a paper statement, you would verify that each one was matched on the statement.) When you finish, the Difference field should display 0.00, as shown in Figure 6-6.

Figure 6-6: The Reconcile - Checking window. Enlarge image

If you find an error on any of the transactions, you can double-click the transaction, and the check or deposit appears on the screen. You can then edit the transaction so that it's correctly recorded. 1. Click Reconcile Now. A Select Reconciliation Report dialog box appears. 2. If you want a report, click Summary, Detail, or Both, and then click either Display or Print. Or if you don't need a report, click Close. For our example, click Summary and then click Display. 3. After viewing the report, close it.

Find reconciliation errors

In the next section, you'll learn what to do if you can't make the reconciliation balance so that the difference is zero.

If you've checked off all the deposits and payments, and the difference still is not zero, go back through your statement and double-check every entry in QuickBooks:

Click Leave if you want to leave the Reconcile - Checking window without completing a reconciliation. You can come back later and finish it.

If the error is small, and you can't find it, you might want to enter an adjustment. This is not good accounting practice, but for a very small amount and a very small business, it can sometimes be preferable to spending hours tracking down the entry error. To do so, go ahead and click Reconcile Now even though the Difference is not 0.00. A Reconcile Adjustment dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 6-7. From here you can click Enter Adjustment.

Make sure that each QuickBooks entry equals the amounts that actually went in or out of the bank account. Check the beginning and ending balances to make certain you didn't make a typing error. Confirm service charges, interest, and any automatic drafts or deposits that affect your bank account. If necessary, select Banking > Write Checks or Make Deposits to add checks and deposits.

Figure 6-7: The Reconcile Adjustment dialog box. Enlarge image

View cleared checks and deposits in the check register

After you reconcile an account, QuickBooks displays each reconciled check or deposit as cleared in your check register. Figure 6-8 shows a portion of the check register with cleared items in it. Notice the column of check marks.

Figure 6-8: In the check register, check marks indicate which transactions have

cleared.

Enlarge image

Use credit cards

In the next section, you'll learn how to track the usage of your business credit cards.

You should never edit the amount of a reconciled transaction, because that throws off the beginning balance for the next reconciliation.

If your company uses a credit card for purchases or to pay bills, you can enter your charges, reconcile your credit card statements, and pay your credit card bills with QuickBooks' credit card feature. This feature is great when you keep a balance on your credit card. If you pay off your credit card each month, you may alternately enter the payment as a check and split the accounts, or enter a bill, and then pay the bill.

Enter charges

QuickBooks merchant services for PCs

Many businesses pay for expenses with a credit card rather than a check. QuickBooks sets up and records credit card transactions with a separate type of liability account, called a Credit Card account. You set up a State Bank MasterCard account for the XYZ Company earlier in the course, for example.

A credit card account in QuickBooks enables you to track the credit card and the paying vendor when you make a credit card charge. For example, you may incur a charge on your Visa for gasoline to Texaco. When you use the credit card feature to record this transaction, you can run vendor reports that track expenses to Texaco, as well as charges and payments to Visa. Try this feature with XYZ Company's records by doing the following: Reports show credit card transactions dated on the day you enter the charge, whether you run your reports on a cash basis or accrual basis.

If your company accepts credit card payments from customers, you can use QuickBooks Merchant Services for PCs to validate and pre-authorize funds on customer credit cards. Then, once you know the final amount of a bill, you can go back to the credit card and enter the full, final amount. Next, learn how to pay your sales tax.

1. From the main menu, select Banking > Enter Credit Card Charges. 2. Enter a charge on your State Bank MasterCard to Texaco (you'll need to Quick Add this company as a vendor) for Automobile Expense:Gas on 1/16/08 for $50.00. Code this to the Administrative class. Figure 6-8 shows what the Enter Credit Card Charges - State Bank MasterCard dialog box should look like when you're done.

Figure 6-9: Enter Credit Card Charges - State Bank MasterCard dialog box. Enlarge image

Reconcile a credit card statement

When you receive your credit card statement each month, compare it to your QuickBooks records and reconcile the statement. You do this the same way you reconcile any other account against a statement:

1. Click Save & Close.

In the next section, you'll learn how to pay a business's sales tax owed to the state or local tax authorities.

QuickBooks keeps track of any unpaid balances to the credit card company in the liability account for that credit card. Your balance sheet always reflects the outstanding balance on the credit card.

1. From the main menu, select Banking > Reconcile. 2. In the Begin Reconciliation window, select State Bank MasterCard from the Account drop-down list. 3. Enter the credit card statement date of 1/31/2008 in the Statement Date field. 4. Enter an Ending Balance of 8,657.15. 5. Enter a Finance Charge of 60.15 on 1/31/2008 with the Bank Service Charges account and the Administrative class. 6. Click Continue. The Reconcile Credit Card - State Bank MasterCard window appears. 7. Place a check mark next to all charges that appear on the credit card statement. In this example, there's one charge to Texaco, so put a check mark in the left column next to this transaction. 8. Place a check mark next to all three items in the Charges and Cash Advances section. The Difference should now show 0.00. 9. Click Reconcile Now. The Make Payment dialog box appears. 10. Click Write a check for payment now, and then click OK. The Write Checks - Checking window appears, and the Select Reconciliation Report dialog box appears. 11. In the Select Reconciliation Report dialog box, click Close. 12. In the Write Checks - Checking window, in the Pay to the Order of field, type State Bank, press Tab, and then Quick Add it as a vendor, when prompted. 13. Change the amount of the check to 1000.00. 14. Mark the To be printed checkbox. 15. Confirm that the Account is set to State Bank MasterCard, and set its Class to Administrative. 16. Click Save & Close.

Pay your sales tax

If you collect sales tax from your customers, you owe the state taxing authority when you invoice or receive customer payments. QuickBooks has two options to remit these taxes: you can pay them when you invoice the customer or when you receive payment. Your accountant or the state should help you determine which one to use. To specify which method to use in QuickBooks, select Edit > Preferences from the main menu, and then click Sales Tax in the left pane. Click the Company Preferences tab, select the method that's best for your company in the When do you owe sales tax? section, and then click OK.

Run a sales tax report

QuickBooks includes reports that can help you determine what sales tax to pay and check to make sure tax accounts and status codes have been appropriately assigned to all transactions. Let's run these reports for the XYZ Company: 1. Open the Report Center, and then click Vendors & Payables in the left pane. 2. Select the Sales Tax Liability report. 3. Change the Dates setting to All. A warning appears that you have some taxable sales with 0% rate. Click OK. 1. Double-click 845.00 in the Out of State line of the report. A Sales Tax Revenue QuickZoom report appears. 2. Double-click the Invoice transaction on the report. Its invoice appears. 3. At the bottom of the invoice form, change the Customer Tax Code field to Non.

Let's fix the problem the warning was referring to:

If the Switch Tax Codes warning dialog box appears, click OK.

Pay the sales tax

Sales tax reports may be useful, but you don't really need them to determine

1. On the invoice itself, change the Tax setting to Texas State Sales Tax. (This is okay because you marked the customer and the item as nontaxable. Setting this to Texas State Sales Tax will make it appear on the tax report as a non-taxable sale for reporting purposes to the Texas state tax authority.) 2. Click Save & Close. A warning appears about payments being applied to the transaction; click Yes. A warning appears asking if you want the sales tax code to appear next time for this customer; click Yes. In the Report needs to be refreshed dialog box, click Yes. 3. Close the Sales Tax Revenue QuickZoom report. 4. In the Report needs to be refreshed dialog box, click Yes. The Sales Tax Liability report now shows the $845.00 in the Non-Taxable Sales column, which is correct. 5. Look in the rightmost column of the Sales Tax Liability report. It lists the amount of sales tax the company owes. 6. Close the report window. When asked whether you want to memorize this report, click No.

what amount to pay because QuickBooks tracks that information for you via the Pay Sales Tax feature. Let's pay the sales tax for the XYZ Company for the month of January 2008: 1. Select Vendors > Sales Tax > Pay Sales Tax. The Pay Sales Tax dialog box appears. 2. In the Show sales tax due through field, enter 1/31/2008. Press Tab to display the amount due.

Some tax authorities give you a discount for paying before the due date. If this applies to you, multiply the tax authority's discount rate (such as 0.083%) by the amount due to determine the discount. To enter the discount:

1. Click Adjust. The Sales Tax Adjustment dialog box appears. 2. In the Adjustment Account field, type Sales Tax Rebate and press Tab. When prompted that it's not on the Account list, click Set Up. 3. In the Add New Account dialog box, accept the defaults and click Save & Close. 4. Back in the Sales Tax Adjustment dialog box, select Reduce Sales Tax By and enter the discount amount in the Amount box. 5. In the Memo field, type Sales Tax Rebate. In the Class list, select Administrative. 6. Click OK. 7. A message appears about the amount changing; click OK. Now there are two entries in the Pay Sales Tax dialog box: one for the tax payment and one for the rebate, as shown in Figure 6-10.

Figure 6-10: The Pay Sales Tax window. Enlarge image 1. 2. 3. 4.

Notice there are two checks ready to print -- one for the credit card payment you set up earlier in the lesson, and one for the sales tax. Go ahead and print these, as you learned earlier in the course.

Click to place a check mark next to each of the two items. Make sure the To be printed checkbox is marked. Click OK. A check is now ready to be printed for the sales tax. Select File > Print Forms > Print Checks.

See how to pay sales tax and adjust the amount of sales tax due. (1.2 MB file)

Moving on

In this lesson, you learned how to assign classes, work with budgets, reconcile accounts, pay bills with credit cards, and pay sales tax. Your final assignment will help you practice a multitude of skills that you have picked up in these

Assignment #6

lessons. Great work! Before you move on, complete the assignment and take the quiz for this lesson, and be sure to finish any quizzes you might have skipped in previous lessons. To reinforce what you learned in Lesson 6 and throughout this course: 1. Run a Detail Profit & Loss report for XYZ Company by class for the dates 1/1/2008 through 1/31/2008. Notice that many of your earlier entries don't have a class. 2. Correct the following:

Code the Ed's Greenhouse invoices to the class Communication. (Assign the classes at the line item level, not just to the whole invoice.) Code the Ed Warner invoice and deposit to the class Computer. Consulting Income: $1,500.00 per month Hardware Sales: $1,000.00 per month

1. Code all the transactions under Automobile Expense to the Administrative class. 2. Create a new budget for the year 2008, copying the monthly expenses across to all months: Bank Service Charges: $15.00 per month Automobile Expense: $600.00 per month Insurance Expense: $200.00 per month Professional Fees: $200.00 per month Rent Expense: $600 per month Office Supplies & Expenses: $100.00 per month 1. Run a Budget vs. Actual report for January 2008, comparing your budget to your income and expenses. 2. Enter the following credit card charges to your State Bank MasterCard credit card on 2/1/2008:

The splits for the previous transaction for this payee appear automatically on the Expenses tab. Right-click one of them, and then select Clear Splits to reset the grid. Bill's Bookkeeping (this is a new vendor, Quick Add it) for Professional Fees, $200.00, Administrative class

BJ Office Supply, for Office Supplies, $183.26, Administrative class

Quiz #6

1. Reconcile the State Bank MasterCard statement as of 2/29/2008. The ending balance on the statement is $8,102.53 and the finance charge is $62.12. The payment to MasterCard for $1,000.00, and the charges to BJ Office Supply for $183.26 and to Bill's Bookkeeping for $200.00, are listed on the statement. Write a check to State Bank for $500.00 dated 2/29/2008. 2. Print the check.

Question 1: True or False: If you assign classes, you don't have to assign accounts to transactions. A) B) A) B) A) B) A) B) A) B) True True True True True False False False False False

Question 2: True or False: Budgets enable you to compare actual income and expenses to projections.

Question 3: True or False: To reconcile an account is to balance it against the paper or electronic bank statement you receive to ensure your records are accurate.

Question 4: True or False: When reconciling, you must manually enter service charges as if they were checks, using the check register. Question 5: True or False: The credit card feature in QuickBooks requires that you pay your bill in full each month. 2003 - 2008 Powered, Inc.