before you start entering transactions you should prepare the reports so that
you can check the results of your transactions immediately there are only two reports that you
need if you're using QuickBooks for your home and personal finance the trial balance is the
first one the trial balance and and the profit and loss are the only two reports that you need
and I will explain each of them separately right here in this video the results of the accumulated
totals in your chart of accounts will all show up on your main report the trial balance so when you
record transactions it will be recorded into one or more of these accounts each of these accounts
is a record of transactions that relate to that account and the accumulated totals show up here
in the trial balance as the ending balance let's take a look how to open it up from the main menu
click reports accountant & taxes trial balance notice the trial balance opens up with only one
number zero and that's because we have not yet recorded any transactions into the file as soon
as we start recording transactions the numbers will show up here and accumulate you might also
notice that you're able to put in a from date and a to date in the top of the trial balance
in a future video I will show you how to set a from date and a to date so that you can see
in the body of the report only the results of transactions between those days for example I
would click from May 10 to May 17 and then if I click to refresh I would see accumulated totals
from only transactions that have a date between the from in the two date and again we'll review
this later the best way to set up your trial balance now is to ask QuickBooks to show you
the results of all transactions regardless of date the way to do that is to click the
top left pull down arrow and scroll all the way up to the very top choice and click all
now the trial balance will show you the results of all transactions regardless of date and you
can change the dates later now let's go ahead and add it to the icon bar in the top left of the main
menu click view and then click add trial balance to the icon bar then click OK and notice we have
our shortcut when you click to close the trial balance you will get a one time pop up message
asking you to memorize the report we will not need this so click the don't bother me box and
then click no and that message will no longer pop up you will notice if we click to open the trial
balance from the icon bar it looks exactly the way it looked at the moment we saved it to the
icon bar now let's take a look at the profit and loss from the main menu click reports company and
financial profit & Loss standard notice this also has a from date and a to date that you can adjust
the best way to save this to your icon bar is to click the date pulldown choice and scroll all
the way to the top click a for all this way the profit & loss will show you the results of all
transactions regardless of date to save it to the icon bar click view add profit & loss to the icon
bar and then click OK now all you have to do was click the shortcut and the difference between your
income and expenses will show here in the profit & loss before you enter your first transaction
you really should adjust the icon bar for your convenience I suggest the following order to
the left you should have your setup windows this is where your permanent information is like your
chart of accounts your customer information and your vendor information right in the middle you
should have your transaction windows those are the different registers that you would record
transactions into to the right of those you should have your reports so you can check your results
immediately after you record transactions then all the way to the right you should have windows that
we will open in a future video that are tools for helping you find things like past transactions or
mistakes let's take a look how to do this in the icon bar from the main menu click view customize
icon bar now notice we want to move the vendors and customer window all the way to the left by
the chart of accounts so you can have all your permanent setup information in one place if you
scroll up just a little bit you will be able to move right next to the word vendors click on the
diamond in the left margin and you'll do a click and drag motion click and drag it up notice as you
drag it up well hold on let's try it again click now notice as you drag it up you get the different
shape mouse pointer and the line if you go all the way up above Chase Bank and lift up your
finger you will notice that vendors has moved all the way to the left and if you scroll up a little
more you can see that this order corresponds to the order in the icon bar you must click OK to
save the change if you click cancel will close the window the change will not save so again
view customize icon bar scroll up just a little it click to the left of vendors and drag it all the
way click and drag all the way above Chase Bank and click ok now vendors is next to the chart of
accounts now we'll move the customer window next to the vendor window click view customize icon
bar and then scroll up a tiny bit then click on customers drag it all the way up between vendors
and Chase Bank and lift up your finger now when you click OK you have your three permanent windows
with the permanent information that you use to set up the file and you could always go back to
you can add two separators here between customers and Chase Bank to tell your eyes it's a different
section of the icon bar click list so you click view view customize icon bar click right above
where you want the separators to be and click Add separator twice then click OK and you can see
this is your permanent setup information and here are all the windows you will open when you record
transactions let's put two separators before and after the reports click view customize icon bar
click right above you're actually clicking on the cash on hand which is the last transaction
window and then twice click Add separator and you can see there's a little partition between your
register windows and your reports let's scroll down to the bottom of the customize icon bar
click the last icon and click Add separator twice this way when we get to future videos and add the
tools you need for searching we can put them right at the end here and everything will be
organized and clear click OK and congratulations you're ready to record your first transaction