Mastering QuickBooks 2014 Made Easy Training Tutorial

You can use the Express Start feature to create a new company file. This feature simplifies and segments the steps in the EasyStep Interview into more manageable sections, so you can get started with QuickBooks more quickly. When you first open QuickBooks, the option to create a company file using the Express Start feature is displayed in the “QuickBooks Setup” screen. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can use the Express Start feature to create a new company file. This feature simplifies and segments the steps in the EasyStep Interview into more manageable sections, so you can get started with QuickBooks more quickly. When you first open QuickBooks, the option to create a company file using the Express Start feature is displayed in the “QuickBooks Setup” screen. Learn this and more during this lecture.

In QuickBooks, you can also use the EasyStep Interview to create a company file. You complete the EasyStep Interview by entering information into different screens shown within the Interview. After entering information into a screen, you click the “Next >” button to proceed to the next screen and repeat the process. After answering all questions within all screens, you can click the “Go To Setup” button to start using QuickBooks. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can leave the EasyStep Interview at any point after you have saved the company file by clicking the “Leave…” button in the lower left corner of the EasyStep Interview. When you return at a later point to continue filling out the EasyStep Interview (which can be a lengthy process), just opening the company file will automatically return you to the point at which you left off in the EasyStep Interview. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You should always backup your data to prevent data loss. You must be in single-user mode to do this. QuickBooks recommends that you backup your files daily. That way, if the data in your company file becomes corrupted or lost, you can restore a copy of the file from a backup. After restoring the file, you will need to re-enter all of the transactions that you entered since that date that you created the backup file up through the current date in order to make your company file current. However, that is far less work than having to re-create the entire company file again. Learn this and more during this lecture.

If you corrupt your company’s data file and need to restore the data from a local backup copy, you can- as long as you created local backup copies. You must, however, be in single-user mode to do this. When you restore your company file, you overwrite your corrupted company data with the data that you saved when you created the local backup copy. You will then have to re-enter all of the transactions that occurred since the date that you created the backup copy up through the current day to bring your company file up to date. Learn this and more during this lecture.

QuickBooks allows you to set up users and passwords for the individuals that will access your company file. You can also decide which types of activities users can perform and what areas of the application they can access. You can set up the users by selecting “Company| Set Up Users and Passwords| Set Up Users…” from the Menu Bar. That will open the “User List” dialog box. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Some activities, like doing a backup or restoring a company file, require that you open QuickBooks in single-user mode. You must make sure that all of the other users of the application are logged off before you switch user modes. Learn this and more during this lecture.

If you want to close your company file, you can simply select “File| Close Company” from the Menu Bar. That will leave the QuickBooks application open so that you may open up another company file if you would like. Learn this and more during this lecture.

If you would like to open a company file in QuickBooks, you can select “File| Open or Restore Company…” from the Menu Bar. Alternately, if the “No Company Open” dialog box is showing onscreen, you can click the “Open or restore an existing company” button to launch the same dialog box. Learn this and more during this lecture.

In QuickBooks, you store much of the information for your company file in lists. In QuickBooks you keep lists for all of your vendors, customers, inventory items, and accounts. They are there so that you will not need to retype information that you use frequently every time you want to place it into a form. You also don’t need to enter all of your information into the lists at startup. You can add additional information into all of your lists as you use QuickBooks. Learn this and more during this lecture.

One of the most important lists in QuickBooks is the chart of accounts. You can open this list by selecting “Lists| Chart of Accounts” from the Menu Bar. The chart of accounts lists all of the accounts within your company file. These accounts track all incoming and outgoing money, and tell you how much you currently own and owe. When you set up your business in QuickBooks, you get a default list of accounts. Once that has been done, you will probably need to make some changes. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can perform all activities associated with your customers through the Customer Center. While there are a great many features available in the Customer Center, one of the most important parts of it is the “Customers & Jobs” list. This list is where you can add, edit, and display all of your customer’s information as well as information for any jobs that you create for each customer, if you use the “Jobs” features in QuickBooks. You may notice that this list is called the “Customers & Jobs” tab within the Customer Center, and called the “Customer:Job” list within forms. Sometimes it is simply called the “Customers” list. It really doesn’t matter what you call it- as long as you realize that it’s all the same listwithin QuickBooks. Learn this and more during this lecture.

If you are using QuickBooks to handle payroll and indicated that you have employees during the EasyStep Interview, you can later setup payroll for your company file and then enter employees into the Employees tab in the Employee Center. The Employee Center allows you to handle all transactions that involve your employees and payroll. You can open the Employee Center by selecting “Employees| Employee Center” from the Menu Bar. To view the Employees tab within the center, click the tab at the left side of the window that says “Employees.” You can add, edit, and delete or inactivate employees in the list. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You keep information about the companies and people from whom you purchase goods or services in the Vendors tab within the Vendor Center. In QuickBooks, you keep parts supply vendors, utility companies, subcontractors and more within this list. The list of vendors tends to be one of the larger lists that you maintain. QuickBooks uses the information you enter to fill out purchase orders, bills, and checks as you make purchases for your company. You can open the Vendor Center by selecting “Vendors| Vendor Center” from the Menu Bar. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You have the ability to add your own customized fields to the “Customers & Jobs,” “Vendors,” “Employees,” and “Item” lists in QuickBooks. This feature allows you to create fields that you want to have appear for each record in a list. This lets you track information that is specific to your particular business. For example, you could add fields for “Color,” “Size,” and “Style” to your “Item” list that would allow you to create items with the same general description in your inventory, and then differentiate between them by color, size and style. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can sort information in your QuickBooks lists manually or automatically. If you want to manually sort the items within a list, you can simply click and drag on the small diamond at the left side of any list entry and drop it in a new location within the list. However, it is important to note that you cannot manually arrange items in a list when you have automatic sorting applied to the list. Learn this and more during this lecture.

In QuickBooks lists, you can only delete list items if you have not used them in any transactions. If you try to delete a list item that has been used in a transaction, QuickBooks will warn you that the item cannot be deleted. If you don’t want to use a list item but you can’t delete it, you can make it inactive instead to hide its display by default within the list. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To print a list, open the list to print and click the button in the lower left corner of the list. From the pop-up menu that appears, select “Print List.”If, however, you are trying to print either the “Customers & Jobs,” “Vendors,” or “Employees” lists, then instead click the “Print” button at the top of the respective Center, and choose the name of the list from the drop-down that appears. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Although there is no specific “Rename” command available within the QuickBooks lists, to rename a list item you simply open up the “Edit [list item]” window for the selected item from the desired list. Then type a new name for the entry into the “Name” field at the very top of the window, and the entry will adopt the new name after you click the “OK” or “Save & Close” buttons to save your changes. Learn this and more during this lecture.

A feature that can really improve the speed of company file creation is the ability to copy and paste data into lists within QuickBooks from Microsoft Excel. You can easily copy and paste data from an Excel worksheet into the “Customers,” “Vendors,” “Service Items,” “Inventory Part,” and “Non-inventory Part” lists within your company file. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Collecting and paying sales tax can be complicated for some companies. For example, a company may have to collect and pay more than one sales tax. Many companies have a mix of taxable and non-taxable products and services to sell, and many also have some customers that are taxable while other customers are not. Learn this and more during this lecture.

The first thing to do when setting up QuickBooks to collect sales tax is to create the agencies for whom you collect sales taxes, and to whom you pay the sales taxes collected, as vendors within the Vendors List. This will allow you to remit checks for the sales taxes that you have collected to the selected vendors when the time comes for you to pay your sales tax within QuickBooks. If you would like to review the process of adding a new vendor record to the Vendors list, please review lesson “3.5- The Vendors List.” Learn this and more during this lecture.

After creating the vendor records to indicate the agencies for whom you are collecting sales taxes, you can then create the actual sales tax rates within the QuickBooks Item list. You can open the Item list by selecting “Lists| Item List” from the Menu Bar. Learn this and more during this lecture.

If you have to collect a combination of sales taxes that you reportseparately, like a county sales tax and a city sales tax, you don’t want to possibly confuse customers by itemizing the sales taxes as separate line items within your sales forms. Many customers may mistakenly assume they are being taxed twice. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You should inspect your sales tax preferences within QuickBooks before you begin collecting sales taxes through your sales forms, in case you wish to edit any of the default settings. To do this, select “Edit| Preferences…” from the Menu Bar to open the “Preferences” dialog box. In the scroll box at the left side of this screen, click the “Sales Tax” icon and then click the “Company Preferences” tab that appears to the right to set your company defaults for sales tax. Learn this and more during this lecture.

To collect sales taxes in QuickBooks, you must indicate who and what gets taxed within your company file. So, in the Customer:Joblist you enter which customers are taxable and non-taxable on the “Sales Tax Settings” tab within the “New Customer” or “Edit Customer” windows. On this tab, you select the default tax code for the customer from the “Tax Code” drop-down by choosing either “Tax” for taxable customers or “Non” for non-taxable customers. Learn this and more during this lecture.

For many companies, inventory is enabled if you create your company file using the “EasyStep Interview.” However, if you did not enable inventory when you created your company file, you can enable it at a later point in time. You can enable inventory within your company file and view the default inventory preferences, by selecting “Edit| Preferences…” from the Menu Bar. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can set up “Inventory Part” items within the Item List to create items for which you want to track the quantity and value in QuickBooks. You cannot show inventory value for a manufacturing company or where the inventory value is changed as it goes through a process, as it is simply too complex for QuickBooks to compute. However, if you have items that you purchase from a vendor, hold as inventory, and then resell to customers, you can set up those items as “Inventory Parts” for ease of tracking in QuickBooks. Learn this and more during this lecture.

After entering inventory parts into the Item list, you need to order the items to keep your inventory parts stocked. While QuickBooks doesn’t require that you use purchase orders, it is recommended. If you use purchase orders, you can see what items you have ordered and when they are due to be received. You will also be able to compare the items you receive against the items listed in the purchase order. Learn this and more during this lecture.

After creating and submitting a purchase order to a vendor, you will either receive the inventory parts that you ordered along with a bill for those parts, or you will receive the inventory ordered while the bill for the inventory arrives separately. In QuickBooks, you must receive the inventory ordered in order to sell the inventory. Learn this and more during this lecture.

When you receive inventory items from a purchase order, you have to enter the items into inventory in order to sell them in your sales forms. Sometimes you receive these items without a corresponding bill for them. In this case, you create an item receipt that you can match up to the vendor bill when it finally arrives. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Once the vendor bill for items already received finally arrives, you must match the vendor bill to the item receipt that was created for the items when you received them. To do this, select “Vendors| Enter Bill for Received Items” from the Menu Bar to open the “Select Item Receipt” window. Learn this and more during this lecture.

When you have loss, spoilage, or send out samples of your products, you will need to adjust your inventory levels manually. QuickBooks allows you to do this in the “Adjust Quantity/Value on Hand” window. To view this window, simply select “Vendors| Inventory Activities| Adjust Quantity/Value on Hand” from the Menu Bar. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can set up “Service” items in the Item List for services that you provide. This helps you avoid having to enter new line item information repeatedly into sales forms. Like all items, you create “Service” items by first opening the “Item List.” To then create a new item, click the “Item” button in the lower left corner of the list window and then select the “New” command. In the “New Item” window that appears, you can then select “Service” from the “Type” drop-down. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can set up “Non-inventory Parts” in the Item List. A non-inventory part is used to create items that are bought and/or sold, but that are not tracked as “inventory parts.” QuickBooks tracks neither the quantity on hand nor the value of “non-inventory part” items. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can set up “Other Charge” items within the Item List. An “Other Charge” could be used to collect amounts for things such as freight charges or photocopying charges in an invoice. You could also use it to collect membership dues or assess some other type of miscellaneous fees to customers. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can set up “Subtotal” items in the Item List. A subtotal will total all of the items in the invoice up to the last subtotal entered, if there was one. This can be handy for totaling all of the previous line items in an invoice before applying a discount to the subtotal amount. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can create “Groups” in your Item List for items that you may purchase individually, but want to display as a single line item in a sales form. For instance, if you sold gravel by the ton and also assessed a service charge for the delivery, you could create both the gravel (a “non-inventory part”) and the service charge (an “other charge”) and then create a “Group” (like “Gravel Delivery”) that consists of gravel and the delivery charge. You can then display a single line item in the invoice, instead of two separate line items. However, you can also show the component items, if you prefer. Note that before you can create a group, you must first create all of the necessary items that will be included as parts of the group in the Item List. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can create “Discount” items in your Item List to discount the previously entered line item within your sales forms. If you create a discount and then use it in an invoice, it will apply the discount to the line item amount directly above it- but not to any other line items entered. Therefore, this item is often used in conjunction with the “Subtotal” item in your sales forms. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can create “Payments” in your Item List to subtract the amount of a customer payment from the total amount shown in an invoice while you are creating the invoice. You need a payment item when you receive a partial payment that you need to apply to an invoice at, or before, the time you create the invoice.Note that this is not what is used when receiving full payment at the time of sale. In that case, you simply fill out a “Sales Receipt.” Learn this and more during this lecture.

While you can always edit an item’s price in the Item List by opening up the “Edit Item” window and changing the price directly in that window, you can also change the price of multiple items in the Item List simultaneously. If you’d like to do that, just select “Customers| Change Item Prices” from the Menu Bar to open the “Change Item Prices” window. Learn this and more during this lecture.

When you sell anything for your company, you have to fill out one of the sales forms in QuickBooks. The sales form that you use will depend on whether you expect payment in the future, or at the time of the sale. If you expect to be paid in the future, you will fill out an invoice for sales. Later on, you will be able to match the customer payment to the associated invoice. Learn this and more during this lecture.

When a customer agrees to make a purchase for which payment will be made at a later point in time, you enter the sale into an invoice. The invoice lists the customer’s information, along with an itemized list of how much that customer owes for the goods or services purchased. Learn this and more during this lecture.

If you are taking payment from the customer at the time of sale for a purchase they have made, you enter the transaction into a sales receipt. You can create a sales receipt by selecting “Customers| Enter Sales Receipts” from the Menu Bar. In the “Enter Sales Receipts” screen, you enter information much the same way you use an invoice. Also, just as with invoices, you can select which sales receipt template to use by selecting one from the “Template” drop-down that is available in the upper right corner of the form. Learn this and more during this lecture.

If you want to find any transaction form at a later point in time, you can use the “Find” feature of QuickBooks to locate it. To find an invoice, or any other type of transaction, open the associated form for which you want to search. So using the example of finding an invoice, you would open the “Create Invoices” window. Learn this and more during this lecture.

If you would like to see how the sales form that you are currently entering information into will look in its printed version, you can click the drop-down arrow below the “Print” button in the “Main” tab of the Ribbon at the top of the sales form, and then select the “Preview” command from the drop-down menu that appears. Learn this and more during this lecture.

When you want to print your invoices or sales receipts, just open the form that contains the information that you would like to print, and then click the “Print” button in the “Main” tab of the Ribbon at the top of the invoice. That will open the “Print” dialog box, where you can set the printing parameters. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Sometimes businesses want to vary an item’s price when selling the item to different customer types. For instance, you may charge different rates for residential customers versus commercial customers. You can associate price levels with specific customers so that each time you create a sales form for that customer, QuickBooks will use the appropriate price level when calculating rates and amounts for the line items listed within the sales form for the selected customer. Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can set your preferences for finance charges that you assess in customer statements through the “Preferences” window in QuickBooks. You can access this window by selecting “Edit| Preferences…” from the Menu Bar. That will then open the “Preferences” window where you can set the default behaviors of your currently opened company file. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Entering statement charges is the first step in preparing billing statements that you can then send to customers. This can be a more effective way to collect customer charges over a period of time for certain types of businesses that do not need to send out an invoice for each charge assessed to a customer. Learn this and more during this lecture.

A QuickBooks statement prints information already recorded by statement charges and other receivables transactions. Therefore, you can’t edit the statement’s information directly through the statement window. A typical statement covers a time period and shows the customer’s previous balance, any new charges, any payments or credits that you’ve received and applied to the account, and the new balance for the customer during the period specified. A statement can simply show information- like invoices sent to and payments received from a customer over a time period, or they can be used for billing- showing statement charges due and requesting payment of those charges. Learn this and more during this lecture.

If you’re receiving payment at the time of sale and fill out a sales receipt, QuickBooks records a customer payment. When you invoice a customer and you receive payment on that invoice at a later point in time, you enter the payment into the QuickBooks “Receive Payments” window. This allows you to match the customer payments to the customer invoices. You can open this window by selecting “Customers| Receive Payments” from the Menu Bar. Learn this and more during this lecture.

If entering a partial customer payment, begin by selecting “Customers| Receive Payments” from the Menu Bar to open the “Receive Payments” window. Then select the name of the customer or customer:job from the “Received From” drop-down. Enter the partial payment date, amount and method by using the fields available at the top of this window. The unpaid invoices will appear at the bottom of the window. If you want QuickBooks to attribute the payment to anything other than the oldest invoice, click the “Un-Apply Payment” button in the “Main” tab of the Ribbon at the top of the window to clear the checkmark(s) from the selected invoice(s). Learn this and more during this lecture.

You can also apply the amount that a customer pays you to multiple outstanding invoices by simply placing a check in front of the invoices to which you want to apply the cumulative payment amount received, until the total payment is attributed to the correct invoices. Learn this and more during this lecture.

If the customer pays you more than is due, you can enter the entire amount received into the “Receive Payments” window. The amount that is left over after you have applied the amount due to outstanding invoices will be shown in the “Overpayment” area at the bottom left corner of the “Receive Payments” window. You can select the option button to indicate what you want QuickBooks to do with this overpayment. Learn this and more during this lecture.

Just as when you receive an overpayment, if a customer gives you a down payment or prepayment which you want to take and then invoice them at a later date, you can enter the entire payment received for the customer or customer:job into the “Receive Payments” window. Since they have no outstanding invoice against which to apply the amount entered, the entire amount will be saved as a customer credit when you click either the “Save & Close” or “Save & New” buttons. Learn this and more during this lecture.

When a customer overpays you or gives you a down payment or a prepayment, you record the amount that you received in the “Receive Payments” window. Doing this creates a credit for the customer or customer:job specified. Later on, after you have created an invoice for the specific customer or customer:job, you can return to the “Receive Payments” window to apply the customer’s existing credit. Learn this and more during this lecture.

When you receive funds from customers in the “Receive Payments” window and place the funds into the “Undeposited Funds” asset account, QuickBooks tracks that money until it is actually deposited into the bank. Later on, when you’re ready to take your payments to the bank, you can record the deposit in QuickBooks and group the various payments that you received and placed into the “Undeposited Funds” account into a single amount that is shown as being deposited into your selected bank account. This makes the amounts recorded as deposits for the bank account match the amounts recorded by your bank statements, which makes account reconciliation much easier. Learn this and more during this lecture.

QuickBooks 2014 has introduced an easy way to handle bounced checks that you receive from customers and take as payment. This feature will mark the previously paid invoice or sales receipt as “Unpaid,” remove the funds received from your bank account, allow you to enter any bank service fees assessed by your bank, and also create a new invoice for these fees that you can pass on to the customer who bounced the check. This is a terrific feature that allows you to easily deal with a situation that often caused many headaches in the past when it occurred. Learn this and more during this lecture.