In this video I'm going to show you how to navigate your way around the
QuickBooks Online interface so that you can quickly get started with this software.
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Hey guys, I'm James and welcome
to Accounting Stuff. The channel that teaches you all
you need to know about Accounting and Bookkeeping.
In today's video I'm going to take you on a journey as together we
explore the QuickBooks Online interface so that you can learn where
everything is and find your feet in this accounting software.
It can be rough times getting to grips with new software.
Believe me, I know.
I've had to work with a whole bunch of different accounting
software packages during my time in public and private accounting.
It feels like I've been through it all
from...
How come everything's in different places?
to...
Why is it so hard to run a single report?
and the dreaded...
OMG it's crashed! I’ve lost everything!
Wait have I?
Yes!
Anyway these issues can often
lead to hours spent roaming the internet trying to find a solution.
So I decided to create this video to help budding QuickBooks users
like yourself learn how to use the software as part of a playlist
that you can find linked up here and down below in the comments.
I'm going to keep adding to this over time so subscribe, and hit the bell to be
notified when the next video is out. Like I mentioned, today we're going
to cover navigating the QuickBooks Online interface.
Your going to find out where to go to set up all of your company
information, to create new transactions, search for old ones, and how to run
reports to help you make informed business decisions.
This is going to be a relatively
quick tutorial so we're not gonna have too much time to get into
depth on all of the features.
You can think of it more as a general overview
to help give you an idea of how the software works.
Let's jump right in.
First off I want to make sure that we're all on the same page.
If you’re already setup with
QuickBooks Online then ace!
But if not, no worries it's really easy
to set up an account and if you use my link down in the description
then you'll get yourself a free 30-day trial.
There are three choices to pick from.
Simple start, essentials and plus
that offer varying levels of features. I'm not going to get into the
nitty-gritty right now but I think most people go for essentials
because it allows QuickBooks to manage your bills and payments.
Which can be a big time saver.
Something that I'll touch on later. If you'd like me to make a video
reviewing each of these choices let me know down in the comments.
Pick what's right for you.
Try it out using the link
and remember QuickBooks makes it really easy to upgrade in the
future if you end up needing extra features.
Great now we’re all setup.
Let's crack on.
Welcome to the QuickBooks Online dashboard.
This is going to be your default home page each time you log in.
So let's take a look around. Up here you'll have your
company name and logo. Today I'm using the US version of the
sample company so all of the information that you can see in here is made up for
test purposes.
On the left side of the screen we've got the navbar and above me
all lined up in a row we've got the create menu, the search function,
and the gear icon.
These are what we'll be discussing
today and together they'll give you access to everything you need
in QuickBooks Online.
The dashboard also contains some
nice handy summaries of your invoices, expenses, sales, profit and loss,
and finally your bank accounts on the right which will get into shortly.
And by the way, if at any time you find yourself wanting
a bit more space on the screen then you can click on these three
little horizontal lines to minimise the nav bar.
This can be helpful if you're working off a laptop.
The first menu item that I'd like to show you is the gear icon.
This is super important when you're getting started because it's here that
you'll need to set up your company account and settings which will affect
your QuickBooks Online experience.
From the gear menu you can also
manage your users which basically means who can access your
QuickBooks account.
The user limits change depending on
which package you're using.
This can be really handy to share
some of your workload. Over here you can also access
your chart of accounts.
Which is basically the list of all of the accounts in your general ledger.
These vary a lot from business to
business so it might be worth your while
getting an Accountant or QuickBooks Online Pro Advisor
to help you tailor these for your purposes.
I can't emphasise it enough, that getting these right from the start
will save you so much time and headaches down the road.
The gear menu is also where you can access your bank reconciliation which
I'd recommend you do at least once a month.
This is where you reconcile the
transactions between QuickBooks Online and your bank account to make sure that
the information contained in here is accurate and up-to-date.
I've made a video explaining the theory behind bank recs that you can
find up in the corner. And I'll link to it below as well.
If we click through to account and settings this is where you can change
your company name and logo.
Bear in mind that these will be
displayed on your invoices that your customers are going to see.
Below that you can update your employer identification number if you're
running a corporation or your social security number if you're
a sole proprietor.
These are used when filing your taxes so again care is required
when filling out this information. Beneath this you can change
your company type.
So whether you're a sole proprietor,
a partnership, or a corporation, there is a tax form just for you.
Select an option and enter your industry.
Hit save and down we go. Here is where you can enter all of your
business contact information. Your email, phone number, website
and address. QuickBooks Online lets you put
in more than one if you've got a separate email or address that you want
your customers to see.
Again it's crucial to fill this out correctly
because these contact details are going to show up on your invoices.
So your customers will use them to contact you.
If we exit out and
head back to the dashboard then we can
take a look at the create menu next.
The create menu is where you go to create
new transactions.
In QuickBooks Online there are many types to choose from and
to help us narrow them down Intuit have split them out into four categories
based on who the transactions are with. We've got the people we're selling to...
Our 'customers'.
The people we're buying from...
Our 'vendors'.
Employees for payroll, and 'other'.
I'll run you through some of the most common transactions that are
worth knowing about.
Number one on everyone's list should be invoices.
We all want to get paid for
the work we've done so this is your go-to place for billing clients.
We click through to access the create new invoice form.
Or alternatively, if you like using shortcuts.
Hit ‘Ctrl Option I’ for Macs,
or ‘Ctrl Alt I’ for PCs to get here from the dashboard.
This invoice form contains all
of the fields that you need to create and send
invoices to your customers or clients.
We won't linger here for too long
because I've made a video covering invoices already that you can find
linked in the top corner of the screen and down below in the description as well.
A useful thing to note here is that QuickBooks Online can be set up to
automatically email your invoices directly to your customers as soon as
they're completed. This will help speed up your cash
collection process. X out of here or hit escape to return to
the dashboard and we'll dive back into the create menu.
So we can invoice customers
but next we need to manage our
own bills and expenses.
These options are both found under
the vendor column and whilst they might sound similar they're
actually different.
You should use expenses for
transactions where you've already paid for a good or service.
For instance, if your expensing fuel that you bought from a gas station.
You’ve filled up your tank and you've already paid for it
so it goes in here.
The shortcut for this form is
‘Ctrl Option X’ or ‘Ctrl Alt X’. It can be worth learning to use these
shortcuts because they can save you so much time.
I've made a video on QuickBooks Online shortcuts that I’ll
link to down below.
Bills on the other hand are for
situations where you've received a bill but you haven't made the
payment yet.
I prefer to call them supplier invoices
because you owe the supplier money.
But maybe that's just me.
Usually the bill or supplier
invoice will give you a due date which is when
you're expected to make the payment by. Here in the form you can fill out all of
the relevant details before hitting save and close to enter it into the system.
QuickBooks can also save you a bunch of time by allowing you to batch pay your
bills and get all of those payments out in one go.
Super-duper handy.
Right the moment we've all been waiting for....
It's navbar time!
You've updated your company account and settings using the
gear icon, and you've entered some transactions in the create menu.
You can now start extracting some meaningful information out
of QuickBooks Online. This is where the software really comes
into its own.
We already discussed the dashboard earlier so let's head to
the banking tab next.
This is by far one of the best features
of QuickBooks Online. Here you can add your business's bank
account and then each day QuickBooks will download all of your banking
transactions and allow you to categorise these as different expense types.
Which will help you out when it comes to running reports.
Simply pick an uncategorised transaction,
select a category, and hit add.
It's that simple.
Within this tab you can also match each transaction that appears on the bank
statement to the bills that you've entered using the create menu.
This is a big time saver when it comes to doing your monthly bank rec.
Especially since QuickBooks will suggest matches based on date
and dollar value.
No more wasting time trawling through
spreadsheets trying to do this manually.
You can also create Bank rules
to automatically classify transactions that happen on a regular basis to save
yourself even more time.
Moving swiftly on to the sales tab.
Here you'll find a list of all of your sales invoices that you've sent to
your customers who you sold stuff to.
We can easily see the customer names,
due dates and balance outstanding.
Which is how much they still
owe you for each invoice.
At the top of this list we have all of the
open invoices that you're still owed money for and below that we can see all of the
closed ones that have been fully paid. QuickBooks Online highlights overdue
invoices in orange to make them easy to spot.
You can give them a call or send
them a reminder to chase the payment if you're short on time.
Moving on down the nav bar we have a tab for expenses.
This is where you can find
how and where you've spent your money.
You have a list of all of your expense transactions and if we go to the
vendors tab then you can see a list of everyone that you've
bought things from, and how much you owe them in the open balance column.
I can see that we have four bills overdue.
If you click on the orange bar we can
filter down to show these overdue bills and you can make the payments directly from here.
This is an alternative to using the
pay bills feature in the create menu.
If we head back to the navbar,
the workers tab is where you're able to manage your payroll
for employees and contractors.
This can be purchased as a
separate add-on through the link that I've put in the description.
Below that we have reports which is another of my favourite areas of
QuickBooks Online.
Here you can easily run a profit and loss to
check on your business's performance. Which you can easily customise to change
the periods that you want to look at and add a comparative column to help you
analyse your results.
If we go back to the report list
you can also run a balance sheet to check on your financial position,
an accounts receivable ageing summary to help you spot overdue
invoices that need to be chased, and many many other useful business reports.
Bear in mind though that you won't have access to all of these unless you're
using the QuickBooks Online plus version. Having these reports at your fingertips
is a real game-changer when it comes to understanding your business and
gathering evidence to help you make informed decisions.
There are many more useful things going on in the navbar but we won't be able to get
into all of them today.
You can manage your sales tax within the taxes tab.
The accounting tab is just another way to
access your chart of accounts and bank rec.
And in my accountant you can
connect with your accountant if you have one and share important files with them.
I also want to point out the search function at the top of the page.
This is a great way for you to get a breakdown of all of your
recent transactions that you can drill into to check and make
changes if necessary.
You can also search for, and quickly find
older ones using transaction number, date or amount.
Thanks for watching!
If you found this video useful, give it a like ,share it and don't
forget to subscribe for more QuickBooks Online tutorials.
I also have a whole playlist of accounting basics videos with new ones
being added each week.
So you can check those out too.
If you've got any questions let me know down below in the comments
or message me directly on instagram
@accountingstuff
And if you've made it this far and you've
decided that QuickBooks Online is the right fit for you then remember to sign
up using the link in the description for that free 30-day trial.
Good luck keeping those books in order. Til next time!
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