Mastering QuickBooks Desktop: A Comprehensive Guide
What you'll learn
- Master the navigation of QuickBooks Desktop, becoming familiar with its numerous features and functionalities.
- Identify and comprehend the relationship between data input and the resultant financial statements and related reports.
- Analyze transactions using a transactional analysis approach, categorizing them into vendor, customer, and employee accounting cycles.
- Examine each cycle's data input forms in detail and their respective impacts on financial statements and related reports.
- Set up a new company file in QuickBooks Desktop, mastering foundational components like the chart of accounts, service items, and starting balances.
- Execute common transactions over a span of two months, analyzing each transaction's impact on financial reports.
- Perform bank reconciliations, ensuring financial integrity through demonstrated reconciliation procedures using sample bank statements.
- Master the integration of bank feeds, learning how to connect to the bank, download and incorporate bank data into the accounting system.
- Learn to apply bank rules efficiently for effective incorporation of banking transactions into QuickBooks Desktop.
- Create and apply adjusting entries at the month or year-end, aligning financial statement reports to their accounting basis.
- Develop an understanding of various accounting bases such as accrual, cash, or tax basis and their application in QuickBooks Desktop.
- Master best practices for budget construction, QuickBooks budget entry, and budget report generation.
- Dive into specialized topics such as the use of account numbers, form customization, and class tracking.
- Explore efficient transaction memorization for repeat entries in QuickBooks Desktop.
- Handle multiple currencies in QuickBooks Desktop, managing and reconciling foreign transactions.
- Develop strategies for handling complex accounting scenarios, utilizing QuickBooks Desktop to devise efficient solutions.
- Reflect on the pros and cons of QuickBooks Desktop, justifying the choice of accounting software for specific tasks based on their functionalities.
- Develop a comprehensive skill set to expertly navigate and utilize QuickBooks Desktop for a variety of accounting tasks and scenarios.
- Integrate the knowledge acquired to optimize the use of QuickBooks Desktop in real-world accounting scenarios.
- Showcase proficiency in QuickBooks Desktop by resolving complex accounting problems using the software.
Requirements
- Computer and Stable Internet: A reliable computer with a stable internet connection is necessary to access course materials and the QuickBooks Desktop software.
- Time Commitment: This comprehensive course requires time to engage fully with the materials and practice exercises provided.
- A Willingness to Learn: A positive attitude towards learning will greatly enhance your experience with the course and enable you to make the most out of it.
Description
Disregard any notion of becoming a QuickBooks expert in an hour. True proficiency takes time and comprehensive learning, which this course is designed to provide. Catering to both beginners and experienced users, our course initiates with the basics and progresses to in-depth software analysis.
This course is structured to enable learners to follow a start-to-finish path or jump directly to relevant sections. Serving as a dependable, up-to-date reference guide, it is ideal for ongoing consultation. We remain committed to course updates to ensure continued relevance and usefulness.
We understand that software-focused courses can become outdated swiftly, which is why we are dedicated to updating the material regularly. Additionally, we include lectures relevant to prior software versions, useful for those utilizing older QuickBooks versions.
This course provides backup files, an invaluable tool for learners wishing to progress ahead or revisit specific sections. These files ensure learners have identical data to the examples provided, facilitating an easy, step-by-step following of the presentation and task execution.
The course begins with accessing, downloading, and installing the QuickBooks software, potentially free of charge. Using a sample file provided by QuickBooks, learners will explore the software, identify frequently-used areas, and understand the correlation between data input and the generation of financial statements and related reports.
Our transaction analysis by accounting cycle – vendor, customer, and employee – enables learners to appreciate the flow of data input forms in each cycle and their consequent impact on financial statements and related reports.
A critical course component is the creation of a new company file, a vital step in understanding the setup of fundamental accounting system elements such as chart of accounts, service items, revenue items, and starting balances. Learners will practice data input for two months, using a variety of common transactions, supported by instructional videos, and evaluate each transaction's impact on financial statements and related reports.
Upon completion of data input, learners will carry out bank reconciliations using sample bank statements, mastering the procedure and understanding the reasoning behind it. An expansive section on bank feeds demonstrates how to connect to the bank, download bank data into QuickBooks, create or verify financial transactions, and apply bank rules for efficiency. Data input using bank feeds for checking, credit card, and PayPal accounts will also be demonstrated.
Subsequently, learners will enter adjusting entries, used to align financial statement reports to their accounting basis at the month or year-end. Various accounting bases such as accrual, cash, and tax will be examined.
The course provides an understanding of the role of budgets in the accounting process, best practices for budget construction, QuickBooks budget entry, and generation of budget reports.
Additionally, specialized topics such as account number usage, form customization, class tracking, transaction memorization, fixed asset tracking, tax mapping, and multiple currency handling are included, offering a rounded understanding of QuickBooks Desktop.
Upon completion of this course, learners will have cultivated a comprehensive skill set, enabling proficient navigation and utilization of QuickBooks Desktop for all their accounting needs.
Who this course is for:
- Aspiring Accountants and Finance Students: If you're studying or planning to pursue a career in accounting or finance, this course will help you become proficient in one of the industry's leading software tools.
- Accounting Professionals: For those already working in the field, this course serves as a comprehensive refresher or a chance to update your QuickBooks Desktop skills.
- Small Business Owners & Entrepreneurs: If you're running your own business and want to manage your own accounts or gain a better understanding of your financials, this course will serve as a detailed guide to using QuickBooks Desktop.
- Freelancers and Self-Employed Individuals: Those handling their own finances and needing an effective way to track their income and expenses will benefit from this course's extensive exploration of QuickBooks Desktop.
- Bookkeepers: This course is beneficial for bookkeepers in charge of financial records, helping them organize and manage these records more effectively using QuickBooks Desktop.
- Consultants and Financial Advisors: If you provide businesses with financial management advice, this course can enhance your understanding of one of the most popular accounting platforms, thereby improving your consultancy services.
- Any Individual Interested in QuickBooks Desktop: Whether you're considering a career change or are simply curious about understanding accounting software, this course offers an exhaustive understanding of QuickBooks Desktop.
Instructor
- 4.5 Instructor Rating
- 49,447 Reviews
- 902,673 Students
- 150 Courses
Through working with students from many different schools, Mr. Steele has learned best practices for helping people understand accounting fast. Learning new skills and finding the best way to share knowledge with people who can benefit from it is a passion of his.
Mr. Steele has experience working as a practicing Certified Public Accountant (CPA), an accounting and business instructor, and curriculum developer. He has enjoyed putting together quality tools to improve learning and has been teaching, making instructional resources, and building curriculum since 2009. He has been a practicing CPA since 2005. Mr. Steele is a practicing CPA, has a Certified Post-Secondary Instructor (CPI) credential, a Master of Science in taxation from Golden Gate University, a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Economics with an emphasis in accounting from The University of California Santa Barbara, and a Global Management Accounting Designation (CGMA) from The American Institute of CPA (AICPA).
Mr. Steele has also authored five books that can be found on Amazon or in audiobook format on Audible. He has developed bestselling courses in accounting topics including financial accounting and QuickBooks accounting software.
In addition to working as an accountant, teaching, and developing courses Mr. Steele has helped create an accounting website at accountinginstruction, a YouTube channel called Accounting Instruction, Help, and How Too, and has developed supplemental resources including a Facebook Page, Twitter Page, and Podcasts that can be found on I-tunes, Stitcher, or Soundcloud. Mr. Steele's teaching philosophy is to make content applicable, understandable, and accessible.
Adult learners are looking for application when they learn new skills. In other words, learners want to be able to apply skills in the real world to help their lives. Mr. Steele’s formal accounting education, practical work experience, and substantial teaching experience allow him to create a curriculum that combines traditional accounting education with practical knowledge and application. He accomplishes the goals of making accounting useful and applicable by combining theory with real-world software like Excel and QuickBooks.
Many courses teach QuickBooks data entry or Excel functions but are not providing the real value learners want. Real value is a result of learning technical skills like applications, in conjunction with specific goals, like accounting goals, including being able to interpret the performance of a business.
Mr. Steele makes knowledge understandable by breaking down complex concepts into smaller units with specific objectives and using step by step learning processes to understand each unit. Many accounting textbooks cram way too much information into a course, making it impossible to understand any unit fully. By breaking the content down into digestible chunks, we can move forward much faster.
Mr. Steele also makes use of color association in both presentations and Excel worksheets, a learning tool often overlooked in the accounting field, but one that can vastly improve the speed and comprehension of learning accounting concepts.
The material is also made understandable through the application of concepts learned. Courses will typically demonstrate the accounting concepts and then provide an Excel worksheet or practice problems to work through the concepts covered. The practice problems will be accompanied by an instructional video to work through the problem in step by step format. Excel worksheets will be preformatted, usually including an answer tab that shows the completed problem, and a practice tab where learners can complete the problem along with a step by step presentation video.
Mr. Steele makes learning accounting accessible by making use of technology and partnering with teaching platforms that have a vision of spreading knowledge like Udemy.