QuickBooks 2015 For Dummies E-Book

Stephen L. Nelson

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 559

Beschreibung

Keep your business finances under control easily with QuickBooks If you're like most people involved with a small business, accounting is the last thing you want to spend a lot of time on. Luckily, QuickBooks For Dummies makes it easy to get all the confusing finance stuff out of the way so you can concentrate on other aspects of your growing business. Inside this fun, easy-to-read guide, you'll find out how to manage your financial records, track sales and inventory, pay bills, figure out job costs, and more. With easy-to-follow guidance and plain-English explanations that cut through the financial jargon, this resource shows you how to get started with QuickBooks, populate QuickBooks lists, create invoices and credit memos, record sales receipts, set up inventory items, record and pay bills, track business checkbooks and credit cards, print checks, build a budget, generate financial reports, and so much more. * Walks you through installing the software and configuring QuickBooks for your business needs * Shows you how to write checks, set up payroll reminders, and keep the payroll rolling * Covers how to securely download bank and credit card transactions, as well as how to pay bills online * Provides easy-to-follow steps for keeping track of your checkbook, credit and debit accounts, inventory, payroll, and budgets Written by a CPA who knows QuickBooks and understands your unique business needs, QuickBooks For Dummies is your go-to guide for getting past the paperwork and putting the program to work.

Leseprobe

QuickBooks® 2015 For Dummies®

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Trademarks: Wiley, For Dummies, the Dummies Man logo, Dummies.com, Making Everything Easier, and related trade dress are trademarks or registered trademarks of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and may not be used without written permission. QuickBooks is a registered trademark of Intuit, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2014940496

ISBN 978-1-118-92015-2 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-92016-9 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-92030-5 (ebk)

Manufactured in the United States of America

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QuickBooks® 2015 For Dummies®

Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/quickbooks2015 to view this book's cheat sheet.

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Foolish Assumptions

Icons Used in This Book

Beyond the Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Quickly into QuickBooks

Chapter 1: QuickBooks: The Heart of Your Business

Why QuickBooks?

Why you need an accounting system

What QuickBooks does

What Explains QuickBooks’ Popularity?

What’s Next, Dude?

How to Succeed with QuickBooks

Budget wisely, Grasshopper

Don’t focus on features

Outsource payroll

Get professional help

Use both the profit and loss statement and the balance sheet

Chapter 2: The Big Setup

Getting Ready for the QuickBooks Setup

The big decision

The trial balance of the century

The mother of all scavenger hunts

Stepping through the QuickBooks Setup

Starting QuickBooks

Using the Express Setup

The Rest of the Story

Should You Get Your Accountant’s Help?

Chapter 3: Populating QuickBooks Lists

The Magic and Mystery of Items

Adding items you might include on invoices

Creating other wacky items for invoices

Editing items

Adding Employees to Your Employee List

Customers Are Your Business

It’s Just a Job

Adding Vendors to Your Vendor List

The Other Lists

The Fixed Asset Item list

The Price Level list

The Billing Rate Levels list

The Sales Tax Code list

The Class list

The Other Names list

The Sales Rep list

Customer, Vendor, and Job Types list

The Terms list

The Customer Message list

The Payment Method list

The Ship Via list

The Vehicle list

The Memorized Transaction list

The Reminders list

Organizing Lists

Printing Lists

Exporting List Items to Your Word Processor

Dealing with the Chart of Accounts List

Describing customer balances

Describing vendor balances

Camouflaging some accounting goofiness

Supplying the missing numbers

Checking your work one more time

Part II: Daily Entry Tasks

Chapter 4: Creating Invoices and Credit Memos

Making Sure That You’re Ready to Invoice Customers

Preparing an Invoice

Fixing Invoice Mistakes

If the invoice is still displayed onscreen

If the invoice isn’t displayed onscreen

Deleting an invoice

Preparing a Credit Memo

Fixing Credit Memo Mistakes

History Lessons

Printing Invoices and Credit Memos

Loading the forms into the printer

Setting up the invoice printer

Printing invoices and credit memos as you create them

Printing invoices in a batch

Printing credit memos in a batch

Sending Invoices and Credit Memos via Email

Customizing Your Invoices and Credit Memos

Chapter 5: Reeling in the Dough

Recording a Sales Receipt

Printing a Sales Receipt

Special Tips for Retailers

Correcting Sales Receipt Mistakes

Recording Customer Payments

Correcting Mistakes in Customer Payments Entries

Making Bank Deposits

Improving Your Cash Inflow

Tracking what your customers owe

Assessing finance charges

Dealing with deposits

Chapter 6: Paying the Bills

Pay Now or Pay Later?

Recording Your Bills by Writing Checks

The slow way to write checks

The fast way to write checks

Recording Your Bills the Accounts Payable Way

Recording your bills

Entering your bills the fast way

Deleting a bill

Remind me to pay that bill, will you?

Paying Your Bills

Tracking Vehicle Mileage

Paying Sales Tax

A Quick Word on the Vendor Center Window

Chapter 7: Inventory Magic

Setting Up Inventory Items

When You Buy Stuff

Recording items that you pay for upfront

Recording items that don’t come with a bill

Paying for items when you get the bill

Recording items and paying the bill all at once

When You Sell Stuff

How Purchase Orders Work

Customizing a purchase order form

Filling out a purchase order

Checking up on purchase orders

Receiving purchase order items

Assembling a Product

Identifying the components

Building the assembly

Time for a Reality Check

Dealing with Multiple Inventory Locations

Manually keep separate inventory-by-location counts

Use different item numbers for different locations

Upgrade to QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions

The Lazy Person’s Approach to Inventory

How periodic inventory systems work in QuickBooks

The good and bad of a periodic inventory

Chapter 8: Keeping Your Checkbook

Writing Checks

Writing checks from the Write Checks window

Writing checks from the register

Changing a check that you’ve written

Packing more checks into the register

Depositing Money into a Checking Account

Recording simple deposits

Depositing income from customers

Transferring Money between Accounts

Setting up a second bank account

Recording deposits into the new account

About the other half of the transfer

Changing a transfer that you’ve already entered

Working with Multiple Currencies

To Delete or to Void?

Handling NSF Checks from Customers

The Big Register Phenomenon

Moving through a big register

Finding that darn transaction

Chapter 9: Paying with Plastic

Tracking Business Credit Cards

Setting up a credit card account

Selecting a credit card account so that you can use it

Entering Credit Card Transactions

Recording a credit card charge

Changing charges that you’ve already entered

Reconciling Your Credit Card Statement and Paying the Bill

So What about Debit and ATM Cards?

So What about Customer Credit Cards?

Part III: Stuff You Do from Time to Time

Chapter 10: Printing Checks

Getting the Printer Ready

Printing a Check

A few words about printing checks

Printing a check as you write it

Printing checks by the bushel

What if I make a mistake?

Oh where, oh where do unprinted checks go?

Printing a Checking Register

Chapter 11: Payroll

Getting Ready to Do Payroll without Help from QuickBooks

Doing Taxes the Right Way

Getting an employer ID number

Signing up for EFTPS

Employees and employers do their part

Getting Ready to Do Payroll with QuickBooks

Paying Your Employees

Paying Payroll Liabilities

Paying tax liabilities if you use a full-meal-deal Payroll service

Paying tax liabilities if you don’t use the full-meal-deal payroll service

Paying other nontax liabilities

Preparing Quarterly Payroll Tax Returns

Using the Basic Payroll service

Using a Full-Meal-Deal Payroll service

Using the QuickBooks Enhanced Payroll service

Filing Annual Returns and Wage Statements

The State Wants Some Money, Too

Chapter 12: Building the Perfect Budget

Is This a Game You Want to Play?

All Joking Aside: Some Basic Budgeting Tips

A Budgeting Secret You Won’t Learn in College

Setting Up a Secret Plan

Adjusting a Secret Plan

Forecasting Profits and Losses

Projecting Cash Flows

Using the Business Planner Tools

Chapter 13: Online with QuickBooks

Doing the Electronic Banking Thing

So what’s the commotion about?

A handful of reasons to be cautious about banking online

Making sense of online banking

Signing up for the service

Making an online payment

Transferring money electronically

Changing instructions

Transmitting instructions

Message in a bottle

A Quick Review of the Other Online Opportunities

Part IV: Housekeeping Chores

Chapter 14: The Balancing Act

Balancing a Bank Account

Giving QuickBooks information from the bank statement

Marking cleared checks and deposits

Eleven Things to Do If Your Non-Online Account Doesn’t Balance

Chapter 15: Reporting on the State of Affairs

What Kinds of Reports Are There, Anyway?

Creating and Printing a Report

Visiting the report dog-and-pony show

Editing and rearranging reports

Reports Made to Order

Processing Multiple Reports

Your Other Reporting Options

Last but Not Least: The QuickReport

Chapter 16: Job Estimating, Billing, and Tracking

Turning On Job Costing

Setting Up a Job

Creating a Job Estimate

Revising an Estimate

Turning an Estimate into an Invoice

Comparing Estimated Item Amounts with Actual Item Amounts

Charging for Actual Time and Costs

Tracking Job Costs

Chapter 17: File Management Tips

Backing Up Is (Not That) Hard to Do

Backing up the quick-and-dirty way

Getting back the QuickBooks data you backed up

Accountant’s Copy

Working with Portable Files

Using an Audit Trail

Using a Closing Password

Chapter 18: Fixed Assets and Vehicle Lists

What Is Fixed Assets Accounting?

Fixed Assets Accounting in QuickBooks

Setting Up a Fixed Asset List

Adding items to the Fixed Asset list

Adding fixed asset items on the fly

Editing items on the Fixed Asset list

Tracking Vehicle Mileage

Identifying your vehicles

Recording vehicle miles

Using the vehicle reports

Updating vehicle mileage rates

Part V: The Part of Tens

Chapter 19: Tips for Handling (Almost) Ten Tricky Situations

Selling an Asset

Selling a Depreciable Asset

Owner’s Equity in a Sole Proprietorship

Owner’s Equity in a Partnership

Owner’s Equity in a Corporation

Multiple-State Accounting

Getting a Loan

Repaying a Loan

Chapter 20: (Almost) Ten Secret Business Formulas

The First “Most Expensive Money You Can Borrow” Formula

The Second “Most Expensive Money You Can Borrow” Formula

The “How Do I Break Even?” Formula

The “You Can Grow Too Fast” Formula

How net worth relates to growth

How to calculate sustainable growth

The First “What Happens If . . . ?” Formula

The Second “What Happens If . . . ?” Formula

The Economic Order Quantity (Isaac Newton) Formula

The Rule of 72

Appendix A: Installing QuickBooks in a Dozen Easy Steps

Appendix B: If Numbers Are Your Friends

Keying In on Profit

Let me introduce you to the new you

The first day in business

Look at your cash flow first

Depreciation is an accounting gimmick

Accrual-basis accounting is cool

Now you know how to measure profits

Some financial brain food

In the Old Days, Things Were Different

What Does an Italian Monk Have to Do with Anything?

And now for the blow-by-blow

Blow-by-blow, Part II

How does QuickBooks help?

Two Dark Shadows in the World of Accounting

The first dark shadow

The second dark shadow

The Danger of Shell Games

Appendix C: Sharing QuickBooks Files

Sharing a QuickBooks File on a Network

User permissions

Record locking

Installing QuickBooks for Network Use

Setting User Permissions

User permissions in Enterprise Solutions

User permissions in QuickBooks Pro and Premier

Specifying Multi-User Mode

Working in Multi-User Mode

About the Author

Cheat Sheet

More Dummies Products

Guide

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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Introduction

Running or working in a small business is one of the coolest things a person can do. Really. I mean it. Sure, sometimes the environment is dangerous — kind of like the Old West — but it’s an environment in which you have the opportunity to make tons of money. And it’s also an environment in which you can build a company or a job that perfectly fits you.