QuickBooks 2011 For Dummies

Bestselling author Stephen Nelson returns with big help for small businesses Offering expert advice, bestselling author Stephen Nelson returns with updated coverage of the latest revisions and enhancements to the leading small business accounting software package: QuickBooks. After a quick review of bookkeeping basics, you’ll discover how QuickBooks can help you build the perfect budget, process payroll, simplify your tax return prep work, create invoices, manage inventory, generate income statements, balance accounts, and much more. Veteran author Stephen Nelson updates his perennial bestseller and offers you easy-to-understand coverage of the newest release of QuickBooks Encourages you to take control of managing your own business accounting and financial management tasks so you can avoid having to hire expensive outside help Provides expert advice for building the perfect budget, processing payroll, creating invoices, managing inventory, tracking job costs, generating income statements, balancing accounts, creating financial reports, and more QuickBooks 2011 For Dummies helps you handle your financial management tasks more effectively so that you can effectively manage your business!

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1 About QuickBooks 1 About This Book 2 What You Can Safely Ignore 2 What You Should Not Ignore (Unless You’re a Masochist) 3 Three Foolish Assumptions 4 How This Book Is Organized 4 Part I: Quickly into QuickBooks 4 Part II: Daily Entry Tasks 5 Part III: Stuff You Do from Time to Time 5 Part IV: Housekeeping Chores 5 Part V: The Part of Tens 5 Part VI: Appendixes 6 Conventions Used in This Book 6 Part I: Quickly into QuickBooks 7 Chapter 1: QuickBooks: The Heart of Your Business 9 Why QuickBooks? 9 Why you need an accounting system 10 What QuickBooks does 10 What Explains QuickBooks’ Popularity? 12 What’s Next, Dude? 13 How to Succeed with QuickBooks 14 Budget wisely, Grasshopper 14 Don’t focus on features 15 Outsource payroll 16 Get professional help 17 Use both the profit and loss statement and the balance sheet 17 Chapter 2: Answering Mr. Wizard 19 Getting Ready for the Big Interview 19 The big decision 20 The trial balance of the century 21 The mother of all scavenger hunts 24 Doing the EasyStep Interview 25 Tip 1: Get to know the interview protocol 27 Tip 2: Take your time 28 Tip 3: Get industry-specific advice 28 Tip 4: Accept the suggested filename and location 29 Tip 5: Go with the suggested Chart of Accounts 30 Tip 6: Consider tracking all your expenses with your checkbook 30 Tip 7: Add accounts you need 31 The Rest of the Story 32 Should You Get Your Accountant’s Help? 33 Chapter 3: Populating QuickBooks Lists 35 The Magic and Mystery of Items 35 Adding items you might include on invoices 37 Creating other wacky items for invoices 45 Editing items 47 Adding Employees to Your Employee List 48 Customers Are Your Business 50 It’s Just a Job 54 Adding Vendors to Your Vendor List 58 The Other Lists 62 The Fixed Asset list62 The Price Level list 63 The Sales Tax Code list 63 The Class list 64 The Other Names list.64 The Sales Rep list 65 Customer, Vendor, and Job Types list 65 The Terms list 66 The Customer Message list 66 The Payment Method list 66 The Ship Via list 66 The Vehicle list.67 The Memorized Transaction list 67 The Reminders list 67 Organizing Lists 67 Printing Lists 68 Exporting List Items to Your Word Processor 68 Dealing with the Chart of Accounts List 69 Describing customer balances 69 Describing vendor balances 70 Camouflaging some accounting goofiness 70 Supplying the missing numbers 75 Checking your work one more time 76 Part II: Daily Entry Tasks 79 Chapter 4: Creating Invoices and Credit Memos 81 Making Sure That You’re Ready to Invoice Customers 81 Preparing an Invoice 82 Fixing Invoice Mistakes 88 If the invoice is still displayed onscreen.89 If the invoice isn’t displayed onscreen 89 Deleting an invoice 89 Preparing a Credit Memo 90 Fixing Credit Memo Mistakes 94 History Lessons 94 Printing Invoices and Credit Memos 95 Loading the forms into the printer 95 Setting up the invoice printer 96 Printing invoices and credit memos as you create them 98 Printing invoices in a batch 99 Printing credit memos in a batch 102 Sending Invoices and Credit Memos via E-Mail 102 Customizing Your Invoices and Credit Memos 103 Chapter 5: Reeling In the Dough 107 Recording a Sales Receipt 108 Printing a Sales Receipt 112 Special Tips for Retailers 114 Correcting Sales Receipt Mistakes 115 Recording Customer Payments 116 Correcting Mistakes in Customer Payments Entries 120 Making Bank Deposits 121 Improving Your Cash Inflow 124 Tracking what your customers owe 124 Assessing finance charges 126 Dealing with deposits 128 Chapter 6: Paying the Bills 131 Pay Now or Pay Later? 131 Recording Your Bills by Writing Checks 132 The slow way to write checks 132 The fast way to write checks 138 Recording Your Bills the Accounts Payable Way 140 Recording your bills 140 Entering your bills the fast way 144 Deleting a bill 146 Remind me to pay that bill, will you? 147 Paying Your Bills 148 Tracking Vehicle Mileage 152 Paying Sales Tax 153 A Quick Word on the Vendor Center Window 154 Chapter 7: Inventory Magic 155 Setting Up Inventory Items 155 When You Buy Stuff 156 Recording items that you pay for upfront 157 Recording items that don’t come with a bill 157 Paying for items when you get the bill 159 Recording items and paying the bill all at once 160 When You Sell Stuff 161 How Purchase Orders Work 162 Customizing a purchase order form 162 Filling out a purchase order 163 Checking up on purchase orders 165 Receiving purchase order items 165 Assembling a Product 166 Identifying the components 167 Building the assembly 167 Time for a Reality Check 168 Dealing with Multiple Inventory Locations 170 Manually keep separate inventory-by-location counts 170 Use different item numbers for different locations 170 Upgrade to QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 171 The Lazy Person’s Approach to Inventory 171 How periodic inventory systems twork in QuickBooks 172 The good and bad of a periodic inventory 173 Chapter 8: Keeping Your Checkbook 175 Writing Checks 175 Writing checks from the Write Checks window 175 Writing checks from the Checking register 177 Changing a check that you’ve written 179 Packing more checks into the register 179 Depositing Money into a Checking Account 181 Recording simple deposits 181 Depositing income from customers 182 Transferring Money between Accounts 184 Setting up a second bank account 185 About the other half of the transfer 186 Changing a transfer that you’ve already entered 186 Working with Multiple Currencies 188 To Delete or to Void? 188 Handling NSF Checks from Customers 189 The Big Register Phenomenon 190 Moving through a big register 190 Finding that darn transaction.191 Chapter 9: Paying with Plastic 193 Tracking Business Credit Cards 193 Setting up a credit card account 194 Selecting a credit card account so that you can use it 195 Entering Credit Card Transactions 196 Recording a credit card charge 197 Changing charges that you’ve already entered 199 Reconciling Your Credit Card Statement and Paying the Bill 200 So What about Debit Cards? 201 So What about Customer Credit Cards? 201 Part III: Stuff You Do from Time to Time 203 Chapter 10: Printing Checks 205 Getting the Printer Ready 205 Printing a Check 208 A few words about printing checks 209 Printing a check as you write it 209 Printing checks by the bushel 211 What if I make a mistake?213 Oh where, oh where do unprinted checks go? 214 Printing a Checking Register 214 Chapter 11: Payroll 217 Getting Ready to Do Payroll without Help from QuickBooks 217 Doing Taxes the Right Way 218 Getting an employer ID number 218 Having employees do their part 218 Getting Ready to Do Payroll with QuickBooks 219 Paying Your Employees 220 Paying Payroll Liabilities 222 Paying tax liabilities if you use the full-meal-deal Payroll service 222 Paying tax liabilities if you don’t use the full-meal-deal Payroll service 223 Paying other nontax liabilities 224 Preparing Quarterly Payroll Tax Returns 224 Using the QuickBooks full-meal-deal Payroll service 224 Using the other QuickBooks Payroll services 225 Filing Annual Returns and Wage Statements 225 Using the QuickBooks full-meal-deal Payroll service 226 Using the QuickBooks economy Payroll services 226 The State Wants Some Money, Too 226 Chapter 12: Building the Perfect Budget 229 Is This a Game You Want to Play? 229 All Joking Aside: Some Basic Budgeting Tips 230 A Budgeting Secret You Won’t Learn in College 231 Setting Up a Secret Plan 232 Adjusting a Secret Plan 235 Forecasting Profits and Losses 235 Projecting Cash Flows 235 Using the Business Planner Tools 236 Chapter 13: Online with QuickBooks 237 Doing the Electronic Banking Thing 237 So what’s the commotion about? 237 A thousand reasons not to bank online 238 Making sense of online banking 240 Signing up for the service 241 Making an online payment 241 Transferring money electronically 243 Changing instructions 244 Transmitting instructions 244 Message in a bottle 245 A Quick Review of the Other Online Opportunities 247 Part IV: Housekeeping Chores 249 Chapter 14: The Balancing Act 251 Balancing a Bank Account 251 Giving QuickBooks information from the bank statement 251 Marking cleared checks and deposits 253 Eleven Things to Do If Your Non-Online Account Doesn’t Balance 257 Chapter 15: Reporting on the State of Affairs 261 What Kinds of Reports Are There, Anyway? 261 Creating and Printing a Report 264 Visiting the report dog-and-pony show 267 Editing and rearranging reports 267 Reports Made to Order 270 Processing Multiple Reports 272 Last but Not Least: The QuickReport 272 Chapter 16: Job Estimating, Billing, and Tracking 275 Turning On Job Costing 275 Setting Up a Job 276 Creating a Job Estimate 276 Revising an Estimate 279 Turning an Estimate into an Invoice 280 Comparing Estimated Item Amounts with Actual Item Amounts 281 Charging for Actual Time and Costs 282 Tracking Job Costs 283 Chapter 17: File Management Tips 285 Backing Up Is (Not That) Hard to Do 285 Backing up the quick-and-dirty way 286 Getting back the QuickBooks data you backed up 291 Accountant’s Copy 293 Working with Portable Files 294 Using an Audit Trail 294 Using a Closing Password 295 Chapter 18: Fixed Assets and Vehicle Lists 297 What Is Fixed Assets Accounting? 297 Fixed Assets Accounting in QuickBooks 299 Setting Up a Fixed Asset List 299 Adding items to the Fixed Asset list 299 Adding fixed asset items on-the-fly 302 Editing items on the Fixed Asset list 303 Tracking Vehicle Mileage 304 Identifying your vehicles.304 Recording vehicle miles 306 Using the vehicle reports 307 Updating vehicle mileage rates 307 Part V: The Part of Tens 309 Chapter 19: (Almost) Ten Tips for Business Owners 311 Sign All Your Own Checks 311 Don’t Sign a Check the Wrong Way 312 Review Canceled Checks Before Your Bookkeeper Does 312 Choose a Bookkeeper Who Is Familiar with Computers and Knows How to Do Payroll 313 Regularly Review Your Financial Statements 313 Choose an Appropriate Accounting System 314 If QuickBooks Doesn’t Work for Your Business 314 Keep Things Simple 315 Chapter 20: Tips for Handling (Almost) Ten Tricky Situations 317 Selling an Asset 318 Selling a Depreciable Asset 318 Owner’s Equity in a Sole Proprietorship 319 Owner’s Equity in a Partnership 320 Owner’s Equity in a Corporation 320 Multiple-State Accounting 321 Getting a Loan 322 Repaying a Loan 322 Chapter 21: (Almost) Ten Secret Business Formulas 325 The First “Most Expensive Money You Can Borrow” Formula 326 The Second “Most Expensive Money You Can Borrow” Formula 328 The “How Do I Break Even?” Formula 328 The “You Can Grow Too Fast” Formula 331 How net worth relates to growth 331 How to calculate sustainable growth 332 The First “What Happens If    ?” Formula 333 The Second “What Happens If    ?” Formula 335 The Economic Order Quantity (Isaac Newton) Formula 337 The Rule of 72 338 Part VI: Appendixes 341 Appendix A: Installing QuickBooks in Ten Easy Steps 343 Appendix B: If Numbers Are Your Friends 347 Keying In on Profit 347 Let me introduce you to the new you 347 The first day in business 348 Look at your cash flow first 348 Depreciation is an accounting gimmick 349 Accrual-basis accounting is cool 350 Now you know how to measure profits 351 Some financial brain food 352 In the Old Days, Things Were Different 353 What Does an Italian Monk Have to Do with Anything? 356 And now for the blow-by-blow 357 Blow-by-blow, Part II 360 How does QuickBooks help? 362 Two Dark Shadows in the World of Accounting 363 The first dark shadow 363 The second dark shadow 364 The Danger of Shell Games 365 Appendix C: Sharing QuickBooks Files 367 Sharing a QuickBooks File on a Network 367 User permissions 368 Record locking 369 Installing QuickBooks for Network Use 370 Setting Up User Permissions 371 Specifying Multi-User Mode 374 Working in Multi-User Mode 374 Index 375

About the Author :
Stephen L. Nelson, MBA, CPA provides accounting, business advisory, tax planning, and tax preparation services to small businesses. He belongs to the American Institute of CPAs and holds an MBA in finance and a master's in taxation. His 100-plus books have sold more than four million copies.