would you like to spend less time physically writing out checks so you could manage your
sore throat or cold in that case you should use the QuickBooks online printing checks feature if
you have any questions about this topic you can leave them in the comment section below and I'll
do my best to help you and of course if you feel the video helped you I hope you will click like
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you're spending time physically writing the checks as well as spending time physically recording the
checks into QuickBooks now when you physically write the checks by hand it usually takes about
one to two minutes per check but if you have 500 checks per week then most of a workday is spent
just physically sitting and writing the checks and when you're finished you have to record
them into QuickBooks regardless of whether you wrote them by hand or printed them out wouldn't
it be better if you could only record the checks into QuickBooks and not have to spend any time
writing the checks by hand it would be great to just record them and print them from QuickBooks
that would save you at least half a day's work and that's what we're going to learn right here
printing checks from QuickBooks Online involves the following steps first you have to purchase
the checks from Intuit you know the company that makes QuickBooks and these checks are compatible
with printing them from QuickBooks Online quite frankly they're usually about the same purchase
cost as buying a box of checks from a typical bank when you record the checks into quickbooks
online you record them the same way that you would record a handwritten check except you will click
the little check mark that says print later now after that all the checks that you click to print
later will accumulate in the print checks window and then you open up the print checks window
to print the checks now before we demonstrate this there are two very important points that
you must keep in mind first the balances change when the check is recorded not printed so your
quickbooks records will be the same in fact you can physically reprint the checks as many times
as you want and printing them will have no effect on the transaction that's recorded or
the balances of any of the accounts or any of the areas of data printing the checks is not the same
thing as recording them secondly you should know that check numbers are actually assigned at the
moment of printing not when you're recording the check to be printed in the future so you
must make sure that the check number you enter into quickbooks online when you're printing the
check is the same as the check the number on the check that you physically place into the printer
that is an extremely important point for example let's imagine on April 5th we're recording paying
Staples $100 with a printed check for equipment and then the next day on April 6th we actually
print the check and the number that we put in for the printed check was checked number 61 let's back
up and just record the check and see what it looks like when we use the print later option
and here in the new transaction window go to the column of vendors and click check now we already
learned how to fill out the form for a check but don't forget the date that we're doing is April
15th of 2017 which is the example year that we're using in our course the payee is Staples and we
already discussed why the previous bills show up here we can disregard this on the right because
this check is not related to those bills this is a new set of equipment that we're buying so we
will scroll down to the category or the account of equipment and the money amount that we're paying
is $100 now the most important point is that you have to make sure that in this check we click the
print later button notice when we click the print later button we are no longer physically able to
put a number in the check number field that's because quickbooks online knows if we're going
to print this later we have no idea what the check number will be until we put the checks into the
printer and that's all we have to do that's the only difference between the way we recorded checks
before and the way we record checks that were going to physically print from QuickBooks click
Save and close and let's see what it looks like after it's recorded we click the reports menu and
we click trial balance and the account and the trial balance that record in this check as the
last entered transaction is right up here cash and bank we double click the balance to get a list of
every transaction and when we scroll to the very bottom we see that the April 5th check to Staples
was the last one we recorded for $100 notice it did change the balance even though we did not
print it but also notice there is no check number assigned to the April 5th check to Staples for
$100 and that's because we have not yet printed it on the very next day April 6th we actually print
the check for staples and we put cheque number 61 physically into the printer remember there are
no transactions or changes to the accounts or any area of data on April 6th we're simply printing a
transaction that we have already recorded so we go to quickbooks online in the new transaction menu
in the column of vendors we click print checks now this will give us a list of every check that
we indicated in the little box that we're going to print later but have not yet printed now in
our example the only one that we have is this April 5th check so what we would normally do is
plate you know click the check mark in the margin for any check that we're actually going to print
and the reason it says starting check number is because sometimes we're printing several at
once and all it needs to know is the number of the first check in the printer and will it will
assume all the other checks are in consecutive order so I'm going to type in the check number
check 61 and now I'm going to click preview and print now I do not have a printer hooked up to
my computer I'm just clicking preview so that we can see what it would look like if it printed and
then the printed preview does not actually include all the other things that are on the pre-printed
check sitting in the printer it'll only show you what will what it will physically print out as if
it were printing on a blank page but again it's not it's really printing on a prefilled form and
everything fits into place now when we click close it's asking us did everything print okay
if not then we would reprint or use one of these options here now we still have to sign the checks
but again if you get a little signature stamp it's much easier if you're printing 500 checks a week
click done and now let's take a look at what the check looks like in the account we click again
reports trial balance and then we go to the cash in bank account double click and when we scroll
all the way to the bottom you can see that this check that we made from April 5th has now been
assigned check number 61 here in the computer it may help you to see a second example where
checks are printed in a batch so let's imagine on April 6 we recorded these three checks to be
printed later and make sure you choose the print later box now of course you could pause the video
and record these because you already know how to record checks but as you do that please remember
to make sure that you click the print later button on each of these three checks go ahead and pause
the video and I will pause and enter them myself and I will see you in a moment and now that we've
both recorded the checks let's take a look at what they look like in the accounts reports
trial balance go to the bank account where we wrote the checks from click the money amount and
scroll to the very bottom notice these very last three checks that we just wrote for these correct
amounts these are the correct amounts the correct accounts the correct vendors and the correct date
the only thing to notice is right now they do not have a check number assigned that's because
we have not yet printed them so now let's print them and let's imagine that the first check that
we put into the printer is check number 62 and you must put the checks into the printer in the order
in which they come in the box from QuickBooks so you will see it will be checked number 62 63 and
64 in the vendor column we go down to where it says print checks notice there are three checks
available to be printed because these are the only three checks we recorded where we put the
little check mark in the two print later box and these are checks that we check mark that box that
we have not printed yet that's why they're still here so here we are starting with check number 62
and it will assign it in order now when we click preview and print again it shows us what it would
look like if we printed it on blank paper but we know whatever is missing here is really what's
already printed on the check we click the X in the corner to close the window and we get this
message did everything print correctly and again if you need to reprint you would click here and if
the entire thing was a mess you would click here but we're going to imagine everything's fine so
we leave the choice on top and we click done now let's take a look at what they look like in the
account we come back to the cash and bank and scroll to the very bottom you can see that they
assigned check number 62 63 and 64 to the three checks that we just recorded and printed another
important point to note is that you must put the checks in the printer in the order that they came
in the box when you order them from quick books if you do not then the check numbers on the printed
checks will be different from what's recorded into QuickBooks for those very same checks and
that my friends is a reconciliation nightmare you would have to wait for the checks to clear
in order to open them up after logging into your bank and see the photocopy of the clear cheque and
go through them one by one and reassign the check numbers by opening up each check and typing in the
correct check number believe me it's a nightmare be very careful after the checks print that the
numbers on the printed checks are the same on the very same checks in QuickBooks and one final note
you can always reprint a check and it will not have any effect on your accounts or any area of
data in QuickBooks Online all you have to do is just reopen the check and click the to print box
so here we are back at the three checks that we just printed but let's imagine we want to print
this one again number 64 so all you have to do is double click to open it up scroll over here
now it thinks that it should be checked 64 but let's imagine right as soon as we mailed it out
somebody spilled coffee on it so we shredded it up and put in the garbage we reopen what we already
print but what we told QuickBooks we already printed now just click this box to print that's
all you have to do and again click Save that's it now when you come here and you go down to print
checks you can see that only that check has been put back on the list and QuickBooks assumes that
it's the next consecutive check you would type in here whatever check number is on the check that
you physically put into the printer let's assume it's Czech 65 print and preview again this is what
it would look like if it plinth prints on blank paper but we know there's more stuff on the check
because you put that in the printer and when we come back ask if it's if it printed ok click done
and now when we go back to the accounts we can see there's a new check number assigned to that check