Your customers are the heartbeat of your business. QuickBooks Online helps you keep them happy.

Do you remember how you used to keep track of information about your customers before you started using a computer for your accounting? A file folder containing paper transaction forms and other communications? A card in your Rolodex? A list on paper?

It’s hard to imagine going back to those days once you start using QuickBooks Online. The site provides detailed record forms for your customers. It also offers multiple ways to get a snapshot of their current status with you. And there are numerous paths you can take to create sales forms for them.

Besides helping you complete the work you must do with each customer, all of these tools can help you achieve a key goal for your business: exceptional customer relationships. Here’s a look at what you can do to build those relationships.

A Central Clearinghouse

The easiest way to find these tools is to simply click the Customers tab in the navigation pane. This will take you to a comprehensive page that will eventually contain a list of your customers. To add a new customer, click New Customer in the upper right corner.

Note: If you already have a database of customers in an Excel or .csv format, you should be able to import it into QuickBooks Online. We can help you make this happen.

Figure 1: QuickBooks Online helps you create thorough profiles for each of your customers.

You’ll see an empty screen with predefined fields like the one above. Complete as many fields as possible can for your customer; you’ll be using this information later in transactions and reports.

When you’ve finished, look in the lower left corner, where you’ll see four tabs. You can use the blank screen that opens when you click Notes to enter miscellaneous information. Click on Tax info to supply a Tax Resale No. and select a Default Sales and Use Tax Rate. If you need to set up sales tax and haven’t yet, we can work with you on that.

Completing the fields in the screen under the fourth tab, Payment and billing, will save you a lot of time when you start creating transactions. Any of the customer’s current, unpaid obligations should be entered in the field labeled Opening balance…as of. You can also select default (preferred) Terms, payment method (cash? check? credit card?), and delivery method (print or send later).

If you haven’t yet signed up for a merchant account, which lets you accept credit/debit cards and bank transfers, let us tell you what’s involved. You’ll find that invoices are paid faster if a customer can do so electronically.

Viewing and Acting

Once you’ve entered information for one or more customers, their names and some additional details will appear in the list that’s displayed when you click on Customers. You’ll see a horizontal colored bar at the top of the screen; this updates you on the status of your sales transactions. Below that is your table of customers.

Figure 2: You can do more than simply access information about each customer from the master page; you can also launch activity and transaction forms.

Select a group of customers and click the arrow next to Batch actions, and you’ll be able to send emails or create statements for them. When you’ve created records for multiple customers, the search box will come in handy.

Your list can also contain columns for each customer’s email and address; you’d make this change by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right corner. And when you click on the arrow next to Receive payment in the far right column, a drop-down list will display the other activities you can do from there, like creating invoices and sending reminders.

Critical Care Required

Keep your customer records updated whenever there’s a change. You want every detail of your communications with your customers to be correct — down to the spelling of their street names. Seemingly little things like this can have impact on your customers’ perception of their value to you.

Filed under: Newsletter, QuickBookss Online by Katie Bluhm
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Payroll requires countless details about each employee. QuickBooks Online will walk you through the process of entering them.

If you’ve only been on the receiving end of a paycheck, you may not know just how much prep work went into your neatly-organized paystubs. Those official-looking columns of numbers that described how much you earned and how much was taken out – and for what purpose – were the result of a tremendous amount of data entry when you were hired.

Now it’s your turn to discover how complex that recordkeeping task is. QuickBooks Online was designed for small businesspeople who weren’t schooled in the intricacies of double-entry accounting, so it simplifies the process of preparing for payroll as much as possible. Still, it will probably be the most challenging element of your web-based bookkeeping.

We can help you navigate these sometimes-choppy waters so that you’ll be ready to run your payroll with confidence. Here’s an overview, though, of one of the most critical steps: creating employee records comprehensively and accurately.

Just the Facts

The left vertical toolbar in QuickBooks Online contains a link for Employees. This is where you’ll add and edit staff records. Once you’re set up and have begun running payrolls, the page that this link opens will display your current year’s payroll cost totals. There will also be a list of employees and their pay rates and payment methods; you’ll be able to click on their entries to view and edit their record details.

To get started, though, you’ll click on Add Employee. This opens a page that asks for the individual’s:

• Full name,
• Withholdings (you’ll enter W-4 information here),
• Pay frequency,
• Pay type and amount (multiple options are available here besides salary and hourly),
• Deductions (retirement, health care, etc.), and
• Pay method (check or direct deposit).

Figure 1: QuickBooks Online and its payroll component contain many screens like this that employ common data entry conventions. The mechanics are easy, but 100 percent accuracy is required.

Some of these requests for information have a small pencil icon next to them. This means that there are additional screens where you can provide the needed details. In the example above, you’re defining pay types that will be available to the employee, like sick pay and vacation pay.

Depending on your company’s benefits, entering deduction information may be the most detailed and time-consuming task. QuickBooks Online first lets you choose between entering a deduction/contribution or garnishment. If it’s health insurance, for example, you’ll have to indicate how much money will be deducted from employees’ earnings each pay period (in dollars or a percentage) and what the company-paid contribution will be (if any). If there’s an annual maximum, you’ll also enter it here, and you’ll indicate whether the premium amount is taxable or pre-tax.

A sample check is displayed in the right column of this page. As you enter information, the check will be filled in with the correct amounts. If you don’t have a particular detail at hand, you can save what you’ve done and come back later to finish the record. And you can always return to edit data you’ve supplied.

When you’ve completed all of this and clicked Done, you’ll be back at the Employees screen. Click on the name of the staff person whose records you just created, and you’ll see something like this:

Figure 2: Once you’ve created an employee’s record, you can view all of its details and edit it as needed.

There will undoubtedly be times when you’ll want to see your employee data in report form rather than clicking through numerous individual records. QuickBooks Online offers several report templates that accommodate this. You’ll click on Reports in the left vertical toolbar, and then All Reports | Manage Payroll. The most relevant here in terms of viewing employee-related information are:

• Vacation and Sick Leave,
• Employee Details,
• Payroll Deductions/Contributions,
• Workers’ Compensation, and
• Employee Directory.

Running your first payroll can be daunting. We hope you’ll let us help you prepare for it.

Filed under: Newsletter, QuickBookss Online by Katie Bluhm
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Like QuickBooks Online but miss some of the desktop version’s features? You can have both now.

QuickBooks Online has grown tremendously since its introduction more than a decade ago. It’s not quite as mature as the top-of-the-line desktop versions, but it’s not far behind anymore.

No matter which version of QuickBooks you first used, there may be elements of Windows functionality that you miss in the application, like:

• The traditional file menus,
• Keyboard shortcuts, and
• The ability to open the software and let it stay open all day, minimizing it when you didn’t need it.

The recently released QuickBooks Online for PC (and Mac) App offers all of those features. It may also be faster than the browser-based version because it loads the whole application at once and keeps the pages cached. It’s free; here’s the download link.

A Hybrid Approach

Figure 1: The old Windows menus are back in the new QuickBooks app.

Getting started is easy. You click the download link and then install the app like you would any Windows or Mac software. When the download is complete, you’ll find a new shortcut icon on your desktop’s home screen. Click on it, and you can either sign into an existing account or register for a new one.

The first thing you’ll notice is that it still looks like QuickBooks Online – because it is. But if you look at the upper left of the screen, you’ll see what looks like a series of Windows desktop menus – because it is. But the menu options don’t match Windows desktop menus. Instead they’re designed to mirror the navigation tools in QuickBooks Online. You can use either or both.

Note: Windows that open when you click on one of these menu options can act in one of two ways. They can either replace the current window, which is the default in QuickBooks Online, or they can open in a new window. To change the current setting, open the Window drop-down menu and check or un-check Menu Items Open New Windows.

Multiple Updated Windows

It’s not difficult to switch screens in the browser-based version of QuickBooks Online. But it’s time consuming if you need to consult two or three different pages. You find yourself switching back and forth and probably having to make notes about what you learned from the other screen(s).

The new QuickBooks Online for Windows App makes this process easier and faster. Some navigation links now have a small arrow-in-a-box icon to their right, called a Detach icon. Click on one of those, and the item opens in a new window. Any changes you make in one window are automatically reflected in the other open windows.

Figure 2: Click on the new Detach icon wherever it appears to open the page in a new window.

This new functionality isn’t available everywhere in the app. You’ll see the Detach icons when you hover over transaction types by clicking on the + sign at the top of the screen, with the exception of Pay Checks, Single Time Activity, Weekly Timesheets, Pay Bills, and Statements. To open a transaction form in a new window, you must click directly on the icon. You can also open most reports in new windows; the new icons appear when you open a list of them.

So if you’re looking at a report that you don’t want to close and you want to enter a related transaction, you’d simply click on the + sign and select the transaction type by clicking directly on the Detach icon. The new window opens; you fill out the form and save it, and you’re back at your report, where you can see the new entry in the report.

If you have a transaction open and you want to consult a report, though, you’d need to select it from the Reports menu at the top, after making sure that the Menu Items Open New Windows entry in the Window menu was checked.

And if you’re still a fan of keyboard shortcuts and miss them in QBO, you’ll find them active in the app.

Figure 3: You can use dozens of keyboard shortcuts when you install the new QuickBooks app.

Only an Option

The QuickBooks Online for Windows App is totally optional; you can keep using the browser-based version if you prefer. The ability to keep the app running without signing in and out all day may appeal to you – if there’s no chance someone else could access your computer while you’re away from your desk.

You may or may not experience faster performance, depending on your system configuration. And the app’s other capabilities are a matter of personal preference. Let us know if you need help working with this new option – or if you have other questions about QuickBooks Online.

Filed under: Newsletter, QuickBookss Online by Katie Bluhm
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Are you paying the correct amount of sales tax to the proper agencies? QuickBooks Online can help.

It’s hard to imagine that small businesses used to have to manage sales tax manually. It was quite a time-intensive process, and it was so easy to make mistakes.

QuickBooks Online can handle the mechanics for you. Its sales tax tools are quite simple; they help set up both single and combined (up to five) rates. Then when you create invoices and other sales forms, you can select the appropriate rate(s). The site does the necessary calculations and includes sales tax in the totals. It also keeps a running tally of how much you owe to taxing agencies.

Bear in mind, though, that absolute accuracy is required for this often-confusing process. States have their own individual requirements, and in some geographical areas, you’ll have to charge county and/or municipal sales tax. So before you start entering rates and charging customers, we should sit down and go over issues like:

• Whether you need a sales tax permit,
• How to handle sales in other states,
• What transactions are exempt from sales tax, and
• How often – and to whom – you submit the money you’ve collected from customers.

Figure 1: QuickBooks Online simplifies the mechanics of charging sales tax. But let us work with you before you start using them.

This element of accounting is so critical that QuickBooks Online includes a special section devoted to it. To get to the Sales Tax Center, you’d click on Sales Tax in the site’s toolbar. The page that opens will eventually display information about the sales tax you owe for a specific period and recent payments you’ve made.

It’s the Related Tasks over to the right that we’ll address first. The Edit sales tax settings link opens a small window that asks whether you charge sales tax. It also wants to know whether you want to specify one rate as your default – the rate that fills in automatically when you enter a taxable item on a sales form – and whether all customers, products, and services should be considered taxable.

Note: Even if you choose a default tax rate, you’ll be able to change it on individual forms as needed.

Figure 2: One of the things we’ll do as we help you get started with sales taxes is to make sure that your site settings are correct.

QuickBooks Online will now include a Tax column on sales forms like invoices. After you’ve entered all of your taxable items, you’d look below the line over to the right that says Taxable subtotal. Directly below that is a field where the sales tax rate should appear.

If you’ve created rates and they aren’t showing, you’d click the up-and-down arrow to display the list. Either select the appropriate one or click +Add new. QuickBooks Online would then multiply the taxable subtotal by your tax percentage and enter the result in the box to the right.

Figure 3: Once you’ve entered all of your items and/or services and you have a taxable subtotal, QuickBooks Online will calculate the sales tax payable based on the rate selected.

When you want to see where you stand with your sales tax obligation to date, you can run three reports designed to display this information:

• Taxable Sales Summary shows a summary of all of the sales to which you’ve assigned a tax rate in your sales forms.
• Sales Tax Liability Report tells you what you’ve collected in sales tax, as well as what you owe to taxing agencies.
• Taxable Sales Detail is a more comprehensive version of the Taxable Sales Summary report. Its columns include Date, Transaction Type, Customer, Quantity, Rate, Amount, and Balance.

When sales taxes are due, you will pay them directly from the Sales Tax Center. Its Sales Tax Owed table will display the amounts you owe and to whom. If they’re recorded as a paid bill or a check, they won’t appear in the Recent Sales Tax Payments table.

We can’t emphasize strongly enough the importance of correctly setting up your sales taxes from the start or of meeting the deadlines that your local taxing agencies enforce. Let us know when you want to start implementing this element of QuickBooks Online.

Filed under: Newsletter, QuickBookss Online by Katie Bluhm
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Managing Users in QuickBooks Online    A multi-user accounting application needs good tools for assigning access permissions. QuickBooks Online has it covered.   You trust your employees, or you wouldn’t have hired them. But you also have a grave responsibility to your customers and vendors: to keep their data safe, and to ensure that records and transactions remain accurate and unchanged throughout their lives.   For that reason, QuickBooks Online offers you the option of restricting users to specific areas of the site and to individual activities. Each time you invite a new user to work on your accounting information, you should go through the process of assigning these rights.   To get started, click on your company name in the upper right of the screen, and then click on Manage Users. Click New to open the mini-interview.     Figure 1: You have four access level options when you’re setting up a new user in QuickBooks Online.   The first screen of the mini-interview explains the four user types available. They are:   Regular or custom user. You’d assign this to staff who will be working with accounts receivable and/or payable but don’t need access to anything else.   Company administrator. This will be you or a trusted employee. The individual with this role has access to the entire site and all actions.   Reports only. Just like the name says, users at this level can only view reports. They cannot, however, see payroll reports or any that contain contact information for customers, vendors, or employees.   Time Tracking only. You can give employees and vendors access to timesheets only, so that they can complete and edit their own.   Note: The latter two designations do not count toward the user limit you chose when you signed up for QuickBooks Online. In addition, you can invite up to two accounting or bookkeeping firms.   Select Regular or custom user, then Next. This is the only access level that allows you to set limits. Other levels are already established.   Figure 2: If you’ve selected Regular or custom user for an employee, you have some control over the areas he or she can access. If you click the button in front of Limited, then put a check mark in front of Customers and Sales, the employee will be able to access all add, edit, and delete QuickBooks Online records. In addition, he or she can work with some transactions and forms, as well as view reports and registers. There are many restricted areas and functions at this level, including check-printing, inventory adjustments, and payroll data access. Employees who will be working with Vendors & Purchases have a similar role on the vendor side. If you want an employee or vendor to be able to access his or her own timesheet but no other areas of QuickBooks Online, you would choose None. The All designation is reserved for users who have all of the access rights described above. They can also, for example, do some payroll tasks, make deposits and transfer funds, and work with budgets. Click Next after you’ve selected an access level. The next window will display the user’s administrative rights, unless he or she is an employee or vendor who will only have access to timesheets. In those cases, there will be an additional window first that contains a drop-down list consisting of employee and vendor names.  Figure 3: Administrators should be very careful when assigning their users’ administrative rights. Once you’ve assigned administrative rights, click Next to “invite” the individual to QuickBooks Online in the specified role. Enter the name and email, then click Next. The user will receive an email containing a link to a page where he or she can select a user ID (or enter an existing Intuit Business Services ID).    When your users have accepted the invitation and logged in, their status on your Manage Users page will change from Invited to Active.   You may want to discuss with us your assignment of access levels. It’s one thing to see a list of permissions, but it’s quite another to determine whether a specific role can put you at risk for critical errors – or worse.

Filed under: Newsletter, QuickBookss Online by Katie Bluhm
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Reports are the payoff for all of your hard work entering records and transactions. They can help you make better business decisions.

Now that you’ve been using QuickBooks Online for your company’s accounting, it’s probably unimaginable to think about going back to manual bookkeeping. Those file folders and paper forms and scribbles on notepads — all have been replaced with a neatly organized, everything-in-its-place website.

If you’ve been in business long enough to remember the old ledger books, you’re probably especially glad to be able to rely on QuickBooks Online to handle one critical accounting element in particular: reports. You know how important they are in your regular workflow, especially when it’s time to make critical business decisions.

The old debit-and-credit calculations still exist in QuickBooks Online, but there’s no reason for you to ever work with them, since the site handles them in the background. 

Robust Reports

There are other cloud-based accounting websites, but nothing comes close to QuickBooks Online in terms of the report templates. Click Reports in the left vertical tab to see what’s available. The site’s generous collection of reports is divided into five areas to make access simpler. Individual reports may appear in more than one of these areas:

• Recommended. These reports have been hand-picked. Their data changes every time you or one of your employees work with QuickBooks Online, and they contain some of the key information you need to be tracking. The Company Snapshot,Expenses by Vendor Summary, A/R and A/P Aging Summaries should be consulted frequently by you and/or anyone else in financial management. Profit and Loss andBalance Sheet do not have to be generated as often. These are complex reports, and the information they provide needs to be analyzed for you to make sense of it. We can create these for you on a periodic basis.
• Frequently Run. This list will be generated automatically, based on your own pattern of report activity.
• My Custom Reports. QuickBooks Online offers tremendous report customization options. When you have crafted a report that you think you’ll probably run again (with refreshed data, of course), you can save that format.

Filed under: Newsletter, QuickBookss Online by Katie Bluhm
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“Account” can mean more than one thing in QuickBooks Online. Here’s a look at its multiple concepts.

Until you started doing your company’s accounting, the word “account” probably meant a checking or savings account at a bank or your identifying information at a place like a brokerage.

In QuickBooks Online, “account” can mean the same things. It can also refer to one entry in your Chart of Accounts or your Intuit payment account, a customer or vendor account, and more.

You’ll probably work with all of these in the course of your lifetime with QuickBooks Online, except one: the Chart of Accounts. Although the site allows you to modify the Chart of Accounts by adding, deleting, or renaming accounts, please talk to us if you feel a change is in order. The Chart of Accounts forms the framework of your QuickBooks Online company, and altering it could have adverse effects on your entire accounting operation.

Everyday Use

One of the first things you probably did when you created your company was to create at least one bank account, probably checking. You can set this up without connecting to a bank site; however, that defeats the purpose of QuickBooks Online, which is to have access to your web-based accounts.

Figure 1: QuickBooks Online’s home page displays balances for all of the accounts you’ve connected.

Setting up a connection to your online bank, brokerage, credit card, or other online financial service like PayPal is easy. On the home page or the Transactions | Banking page, click the Add account button in the upper right. QuickBooks will display logos for some of the most popular financial institutions. If yours isn’t there, enter its name or URL in the box at the top.

QuickBooks Online will then create a link between itself and your account, and it will download the most recent transactions (usually 90 days’ worth). Now when you click on Transactions | Banking, you’ll see all of your activity in table form with columns labeled Date, Description, Payee, Category or Match, Spent, Received, and Action.

Most of these are self-explanatory; they just provide information about the transaction. You may be unfamiliar, though, with Category or Match and Action (Add). We recommend that you let us guide you the first time you launch and work with a transaction download. It’s very important that transactions are classified correctly.

The Chart of Accounts

The Chart of Accounts, which is a standard, required element of any double-entry accounting system, is a very different set of accounts. To display it, you’d click on your company name in the upper right corner, then Settings | Chart of Accounts. We see a mini-spreadsheet that lists all of your accounts. QuickBooks Online selected these based on the information you provided when you were first setting up your company on the site.

Each account is assigned a Type that describes its accounting function.

Figure 2: Every transaction that represents money you spend on Advertising/Promotional activities should be assigned to this Expense in the Chart of Accounts.

Category Types are used by all businesses for classification purposes. There are only a few of them, such as:

• Expenses (Bad Debts, Bank Charges, Insurance, Job Materials, etc.)
• Income (Billable Expense Income, Gross Receipts, Markup, etc.)
• Cost of Goods Sold (Cost of Labor, Freight & Delivery, etc.)

You don’t have to do anything with your Chart of Accounts. In fact, we suggest you don’t try. As we’ve said, if we see a reason in your bookkeeping to add, edit, or delete an account, we’ll be happy to do it for you.

But you will encounter these accounts in numerous QuickBooks Online activities. Sometimes they’ll be pre-selected for you by the site, but other times you’ll need to make a choice. For example, when you create a Product or Service, there will be three account fields that will already be populated. They are:

Inventory Asset Account = Inventory Asset

Income Account = Sales of Product Income

Expense Account = Cost of Goods Sold

The word “account” is used in so many different ways that it can get confusing. For example, if you wrote a check at the UPS Store for some shipping charges, you’ll be asked for the Account when you enter this in QuickBooks Online. It’s an Expense, but one of its more specific sub-categories.

Figure 3: QuickBooks Online provides the correct drop-down list in form and record fields.

QuickBooks Online takes care of a lot of the background work of double-entry accounting. But it necessarily exposes you to the concept of accounts. We’re here to help if this causes confusion in your daily bookkeeping.

Filed under: Newsletter, QuickBookss Online by Katie Bluhm
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If you’re planning to do your own payroll in QuickBooks Online, you’ll need lots of setup time – and perhaps our assistance.

Payroll setup and processing is probably the most complex, challenging set of tasks you’ll encounter in QuickBooks Online.

While all of the work you do on the site needs to be thorough and accurate, you’re not just dealing with customers and vendors when you manage your payroll. Your employees, of course, count on you to compensate them correctly for work done. And external organizations like benefits providers and the IRS require absolute precision.

We don’t mean to scare you, but we do want you to understand that this is a particularly challenging process, no matter how you accomplish it (do-it-yourself, paper and Excel, software, or outsourcing). QuickBooks Online provides a whole payroll setup area, which helps you understand what information is needed and provides countless screens for entering it. But we strongly recommend that you let us step in and help with setup.

We’ll take a quick look here at how QuickBooks Online helps you get ready to start paying your employees. Click on the wheel icon in the upper left and select Payroll Settings (you’ll be allowed to use the payroll features for 30 days for free; after that, you’ll pay monthly fees).

Figure 1: This is your home base for payroll setup in QuickBooks Online.

As you can see, this will be a lengthy process. It’s not necessary to go through it in order, but the links that run horizontally across the top are a good starting place. Once you’ve completed those screens, you’ve made a good dent in your setup duties.

As you enter payrolls, QuickBooks Online calculates your federal and state payroll tax obligations and maintains a running tally. When it’s time to submit a payment, you can do so electronically if you’ve made connections with your company’s bank account(s). The preparation for this process is done by clicking the Electronic Services and Tax Setup links.

You’ll also want to tell QuickBooks Online about your Pay Policies. By filling in blanks and selecting from drop-down lists, you’ll define your:

• Pay Schedule. How often are employees paid? What is the next payday, and what period does this cover? You can create multiple pay schedules if needed.
• Vacation and Sick Leave Policies. Here, too, you can set up more than one of each type if employees have varying requirements for earning sick and vacation time.

Figure 2: If employees earn time off at varying rates, you can establish multiple policies in QuickBooks Online.

Besides calculating payroll taxes, QuickBooks Online will do additional withholding necessary to pay for benefits like health insurance and retirement plans. The site calculates what’s taken out for each employee (and from you) every pay period so that when you need to pay the benefits provider, you’ll know what’s owed. The actual process of setting up these Deductions, as well as Employee Garnishments, is similar to the one you used to define pay policies.

Some of the links displayed below this top row will take you to the same links you’ve already visited. Others let you define additional preferences in areas like Accounting, Paycheck Printing, and Time Sheets. One signals your next step, though: Overview | Employees.

Figure 3: Once you’ve set up variables like Pay Policies and Deductions, you can use that information in individual employee records.

QuickBooks Online makes it easy for you to create records for each employee once you’ve set up the background information required. You can see in the image above that you can even edit withholdings, frequency, and pay method; add additional pay types (like overtime and bonuses); and add, edit, and delete deductions by clicking the links next to each icon.

We’ve provided a very broad overview of QuickBooks Online’s Payroll Settings here. You’ll encounter a great deal of required details when you actually get in and start working with this element of the site. QuickBooks Online makes the actual mechanics easier. We can help make setup easier and ensure system-wide accuracy.

Filed under: Newsletter, QuickBookss Online by Katie Bluhm
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QuickBooks Online Plus offers the ability to create purchase orders. But they require knowledge that may be foreign to you.

If your business purchases products from vendors that you then sell, you may have occasion to use purchase orders. These forms simply tell your suppliers what items you want to buy from them.

Not all companies that you buy from will require purchase orders. However, if you place an order without one and the wrong items are delivered, you won’t be able to prove that your order was filled incorrectly.

Purchase orders add an additional layer to your bookkeeping – one that can improve accuracy and accountability, but that’s also complex. If you want to take them on, we’d like to introduce you to the concepts you’ll need to learn. You can, though, begin the process on your own to start familiarizing yourself with purchase orders.

Readying QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online Plus contains purchase order templates. You’ll fill these out much like you complete an invoice. And like invoices, purchase orders should include as much detail as is possible to ensure accuracy.

Before you can begin, though, you need to make sure that purchase orders are turned on. Click the + sign at the top of the screen and look at the Vendors list. If Purchase Order is there, click on it to open a blank template.

If not, click on the gear icon next to your company name in the upper right corner, then click Settings | Company Settings. Click the Expenses tab on the left. Click in the box to the left of Use purchase orders.

Figure 1: You may have to go to the Company Settings page to turn on purchase orders and define custom fields in QuickBooks Online.

Now the Purchase Order link will appear when you click the + sign at the top of the screen. You’ll also be able to create purchase orders by clicking Vendors in the left navigational pane, and then clicking the drop-down arrow in the ACTION column.

QuickBooks Online lets you define up to three custom fields for these forms. That is, you can add additional fields that will appear on all of your purchase orders. Consider your entries here carefully.

If you want to create your own transaction numbers, click in the box in front of Custom transaction numbers. If you don’t, QuickBooks Online will automatically assign them. When you’ve finished by entering a default message for these forms (optional), click Save.

Creating a Purchase Order

If you’re not already there, click on the + sign at the top of the page and select Vendors | Purchase Order. QuickBooks Online’s Purchase Order form will open without any fields filled in. In the upper left corner of the screen, click on the small up/down arrow to the right of the first field to open your list of vendors. Select the one you want.

Figure 2: QuickBooks Online’s Purchase Order form resembles the invoice form, except you’re ordering rather than selling here.

Directly below that, you’ll see the word Open, with a drop-down arrow next to it. A purchase order is considered Open until you pay for it, at which point the status changes to Closed.

If you want the item(s) shipped directly to a customer, click the up/down arrow to the right of the field under Ship to, and select the right one. If this remains blank, the shipment will be delivered to your business mailing address.

The date should fill in automatically, but you can change it. Enter a courier name in the Ship via box, and fill in any custom fields you’ve created.

That’s the easy part. You’ll notice in the screen shot above that there are two sections below the information you just entered, Account details and Item details. Knowing when to fill in one or the other – or both — takes some advanced understanding of purchase orders. This is where you’ll need some guidance from us.

Paying for the Goods

When you receive the items you ordered and are ready to pay for them, your purchase order information will be available. If you select the vendor from the screen shot above and want to write a check, for example, this box will appear in the right vertical pane when you select his name.

Figure 3: Purchase order information will be displayed when you pay the vendor.

The purchasing process is second only to payroll in terms of bookkeeping complexity. QuickBooks Online provides the tools you’ll need, and we can help you gain the understanding required.

Filed under: Newsletter, QuickBookss Online by Katie Bluhm
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Switching from QuickBooks desktop or starting fresh with QuickBooks Online? Here’s a quick overview of its home page.

Whether or not you’ve ever used accounting software, we think you’ll like using QuickBooks Online. It was designed for small businesses who have little or no accounting experience, and its user interface and navigation should be familiar to anyone who’s been around websites.

We do have to say, though, that if you’ve never used any accounting applications, some upfront training with us might be in order. Once you get used to how your Excel-and-paper accounting system translates to the web, you should do fine. But you’ll save a lot of time and avoid frustration if you learn the basics before you start entering your own company data. It’s easier to explain how things work before you attempt them than to try to untangle a tangled-up company file.

That said, let’s look at what you’ll see on the home page when you first sign into QuickBooks Online.

Figure 1: QuickBooks Online presents a good overview of your company’s finances on its home page.

QuickBooks Online’s home page was designed to give you a quick look at what’s happening with your company’s money. By checking it first thing every morning, you’ll know whether something needs attention immediately. If it does, you can use the links provided here to take care of business.

Using graphs and numbers, the home page gives you the bottom line on your income, expenses, and profit and loss. You can click on practically anything here to see the detail behind the totals – and to do something about it if necessary.

The left vertical pane contains your main navigational toolbar. Click on any link here, and you’ll either go straight to that section – like Customers and Reports – or you’ll get to choose from a number of sub-pages (Taxes | Sales Tax or Payroll Tax, for example). Clicking on Home always takes you back to the home page.

In the upper right corner, you’ll find the Help icon, which gives you access to QuickBooks Online’s searchable help files. If you’re a new user and we haven’t done any training with you, you’re likely to find that these brief explanations don’t answer all of your questions or don’t answer them thoroughly enough. Let us help when that occurs.

Your company’s name appears to the left of Help. When you click on it, you’ll see this:

Figure 2: Clicking on your business name in the upper right corner of QuickBooks Online opens a window containing numerous utilities and lists.

It’s a good idea to explore these options early in your QuickBooks Online life:

In Company Settings, you can make your preferences known about many aspects of the site. For example, you can establish the payment terms that will appear automatically on sales forms, and turn fields like Shipping and Discount on or off. You can set up an account with QuickBooks Payments so your company can accept credit cards, and you can choose whether or not to use Classes to categorize transactions (we can work with you on these in training).

Another important item here is Manage Users, which lets you set limits on what other staff can and can’t do in QuickBooks Online.

Directly below the two links in the upper right corner of the home page is a list of your bank accounts and their balances. Since QuickBooks Online can be connected to your online financial accounts, you may see two numbers here: your bank balance according to the bank and to QuickBooks Online.

The most recent Activities will be displayed below your account balances. You’ll see a list of all actions that have been taken by anyone with access to the site, like invoices created and/or sent, and bills paid.

Figure 3: The Activities section of QuickBooks Online’s right vertical pane displays all actions take recently by you and your staff.

Finally, QuickBooks Online includes a handy navigational tool at the top of the screen that contains three icons. The magnifying glass gives you access to the site’s search tool. Clicking on the + sign opens shortcuts to transaction screens and other commonly-used features. And the third icon displays the most recent transactions processed.

That’s it. Your accounting workflow will make use of the countless other pages within the site, but QuickBooks Online’s home page does a good job of showing you the lay of the land.

Filed under: Newsletter, QuickBookss Online by Katie Bluhm
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