QuickBooks for Small Business

I know you are ready to go out there and start selling! Nothing can be more fun than seeing revenue! But first, you will need to set up products and services. In this lesson you learn how to set up both a product and service. Some businesses sell merchandise. That would be the product setup. Some businesses sell a service. Some do both. Therefore, you will get an example of how to set up both. You will also learn to set up a new customer.

This lesson is exciting because it starts you off into using sales. What could be more exciting for a small business owner than getting actual sales! You will learn how sales are recorded when a payment is received immediately

What happens if the business owner provides a customer with a service or product but does not receive payment right away? For example, a landscape architect completes a back yard project for a customer’s house but does not get paid until after the job is over. In those cases, the business owner will need to invoice the customer. In this lesson you will see how easy it is using QuickBooks Online go through the invoice process.

What is more exciting than a sale? Collecting payment for a sale! This lesson explores how you will close an invoice when a payment is received on a sale you have made previously.

Perhaps you have been collecting cash and checks from customers over the course of the week. That is great news! Getting payments can really help you with cash flow to pay your other bills. But you will need to bring that cash and/or checks to the bank. Once you make the deposit your funds will show up in the bank account of your choice.

Have you made a sale to new customer while at a trade show? Did you just finish playing with the band at a gig and need to invoice your client? What if sell some of your produce at the farmer’s market? These transactions can be completed and then later added to QuickBooks Online via your laptop. Or here is another idea. You can instead complete these transactions right there on the spot using the QuickBooks App. By inputting the sale when it happens, it is already in the system. Then later you can spend time on something else like marketing or spending time with the family.

Vendors supply a business with needed resources such as inventory, supplies, etc. When you decide to work with a new vendor, you can set that vendor up in QuickBooks Online ahead of time to make it easier later when it is time to purchase from that vendor. This lesson takes you through the steps to add the needed information for a vendor. Now you are ready to buy your supplies!

Purchase orders are used by managers when more inventory or supplies are needed. To order more inventory or supplies, you will often send a Purchase Order that is sent to the vendor of choice. The Purchase Order form communicates to the vendor what you need, when you need it, and how much you want. This lesson shows you how to create a purchase order and some tricks to help you make the purchase order a more helpful and flexible tool.

Paying bills is NOT what most business owners or managers find to be fun or exciting. However, it is still very important to the success of the organization. You can use QuickBooks Online to pay your bills directly or you can pay the bills yourself and then go into QuickBooks OnlineO to let the system know you paid the bill. In this lesson you will see how quickly you can get this task completed so you can go make more sales!

Suppose you want to pay for lunch with your client. The restaurant is not going to send a bill. Instead, you pay with the company credit card and now you need to input this into QuickBooks Online. That is one example of the many instances when you will need to use the Expense feature. Whenever you pay for a cost of doing business but are not billed, you pay on the spot, you will need to set up an expense. This lesson also covers writing checks. You will learn how you record the check into the QuickBooks Online system.

As a business leader or manager, you will be busy! The mundane task of putting expenses into the accounting system is what often frustrates an entrepreneur. Many business owners procrastinate and just collect their expenses. You may have heard of people that stack their expenses in a shoe box to give to the accountant at the end of the year. This can be a problem because the small business owner has no idea how much he or she has spent. There is no way to determine profitability. Also, this will result in a huge accounting bill when the shoe box is turned over to the accountant to spend countless hours of input.

QuickBooks provides a mobile app that allows the business owner or manager to input the expenses immediately and easily. You will see how the expense can be input right away. You will also learn how to use the snap feature to snap a copy of the receipt. The information is automatically populated. All you have to do is a review to make sure it is correct and you are done. Now you can run profitability reports. Also, you no longer need to pay an accountant for inputting receipts!

Tracking miles can offer an important tax deduction for many businesses. However, tracking mileage is a challenge. The person driving may forget to add the trip, so a lost deduction. Some businesses keep a spreadsheet that has to be updated. That means lost productivity. Why not use the powerful QuickBooks app to help us automate this task!

Just putting the transactions into QuickBooks will not help you as a manager, owner, or accountant. To understand the business, you need to turn that data into information. QuickBooks Online has a robust feature of reports. You can find out anything you need. You can customize the reports to suite you! You can create your own. This lesson will show you that and more.

Thank you for joining me in this course. We have covered so much ground! You now have the knowledge to begin using QuickBooks Online for your business needs or to begin helping others in that capacity if you so choose!