DIY Bookkeeping for Small Businesses and Startups

Understand bookkeeping as recording financial transactions and categorizing money in and out into buckets that generate balance sheets and PNLs, guiding business health and decisions.

Explore the balance sheet's three parts: assets, liabilities, and equity, driven by the formula assets minus liabilities equals equity, with short- and long-term categories and owner contributions.

Explore the income statement, or P&L, showing sales (revenue) minus expenses to reveal net income or loss. Understand sections like cost of goods sold and operating expenses.

Set up a business bank and credit card, separating personal funds to simplify bookkeeping. Decide how you’ll get paid, pay bills, and pay yourself before starting accounting.

Choose the right QuickBooks Online package—from simple start to advanced—and progress from quick setup to essentials with three users to plus with inventory, project profitability, analysis, and KPIs.

Set up your QuickBooks Online company settings, including company info, billing, usage limits, sales and expenses, payments, and enable class and location tracking, plus configure fiscal year and accounting method.

Learn to set up the chart of accounts in QuickBooks, linking balance sheet and profit and loss, including asset, liability, equity, income, cost of goods sold, and expenses with numbering.

Connect your bank and credit card feeds in QuickBooks Online, pull transactions from the year’s start, and set rules to automatically categorize for accurate, organized financials.

Customize invoice templates in QuickBooks by adjusting design, content, and emails, including logo, colors, and company details. Configure item visibility, terms, and automatic reminders before saving.

Set up vendors in QuickBooks Online by adding new vendors with contact details, addresses, tax information including 1099 readiness, then set default payment terms, create bills, and monitor accounts payable.

Set up payroll in QuickBooks Online to pay employees and contractors, manage tax withholdings, file taxes electronically, run payroll reports, and enable employee pay stubs.

Set up product and service lines in QuickBooks by adding non-inventory services or inventory items, linking each to income accounts, and categorizing to track items in the P&L.

Learn how to consistently enter and categorize transactions in QuickBooks Online, set a monthly (or higher) cadence, and reconcile bank and credit card statements for accurate finances.

Create invoices from the dashboard, fill in customer and service details, set payment terms, and enable online payments. Then record payments and match deposits to invoices.

Learn to reconcile bank and credit card accounts in QuickBooks by matching statements with transactions, ensuring accurate income, expenses, and an audit trail.

Generate and customize essential financial reports, including balance sheet, profit and loss, and aging summaries, to monitor cash flow and business health.

Use the pnl to analyze sales, expenses, and margins, identify seasonality and revenue sources, optimize cost of goods sold and operating expenses, and improve net income through informed adjustments.

analyze the balance sheet to assess liquidity by comparing short-term assets to short-term liabilities, compute the current ratio, and monitor asset trends and equity.

Keep receipts organized and stored electronically by year and month, and note sales tax, payroll, including W-2s, and 1099 obligations for easy reference.

Apply the course takeaways to own your accounting, understand your key financial numbers, and use accounting as the backbone for growing a successful business.