now that you have created your new QuickBooks Online account let's
do the setup steps to prepare it for an amazon online store
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 and don't forget to subscribe to get updates on new videos that come out all the time here are
the basic quickbooks online account setup steps to fast-track setting up an amazon online merchant
store using quickbooks online just to remind you this video assumes that your only business in
quickbooks online is your amazon online merchant store if you do additional business you may need
to watch additional quickbooks online videos right here on this website the setup will be relatively
fast and abbreviated that means there will be a clear demonstration but not big elaboration or
detailed discussion after each step if you want more detail than again you may have to watch
additional videos so here are the four main steps to follow to prepare your new QuickBooks Online
account for a QuickBooks Amazon merchant store first you have to create the new QuickBooks Online
account I will be demonstrating everything with the accountants addition but you should be able
to follow if you're using the 30-day free trial plus version then you have to put in your company
information and I'll show you how to do that in the account settings window then we will put in
our Amazon chart of accounts and then we will set up the reports that you will need to manage your
merchants tour so you may well ask what is the chart of accounts well in the old days the chart
of accounts was called the general ledger and the general ledger was a book where each page
in the book was a separate record of a category of transactions and the record of that category
of transactions was called an account so the chart of accounts means that an account is the record of
is a record of a set of transactions and you will need an account for every bank account credit card
account source of income and expense that your Amazon online merchant store will have you may
need some more accounts the chart of accounts window will allow you to add edit and delete or
make inactive any account in the chart of accounts if your situation is slightly different than our
example the total accumulated results of the chart of accounts show in a report called the trial
balance so here are the accounts that an Amazon store would need you need one account for each
item on the bimonthly statement that Amazon gives you twice a month when they dump your proceeds
from your Amazon sales into your bank account you need an account called product charges and that's
an income account and it represents your gross sales on Amazon you will need an account called
promo rebates because that's something that they deduct from your sales and they list it separately
on the statements you will need an account for Amazon fees for the same reason FBA fees are
also deducted from your income and listed clearly on the statement subscription fees also deducted
and listed clearly on your statement and cost of advertising and something called other these are
all things that deduct or to the mainsails income and are listed individually on the statement and
that's why you need an account for each of these you also or most of you will also need
another account called unavailable balance and the unavailable balance is a current asset and
as you know it's the amount that amazon knows that you're entitled to but with holes from the
bimonthly payout and it's a different amount each month and you have to have an account for that
so that you can keep track of it and make sure Amazon is paying you the correct amount so here
are the accounts that you would need now this is a picture of the desktop version of the accounts
you would need it looks very similar in quickbooks online and this is the list we will look back at
and follow when we add the accounts that we need please keep in mind quickbooks online comes with
a large set of accounts in your chart of accounts that they give you at the beginning you can remove
the ones that you don't need but all we will do is add the specific accounts that we do need so
here we are in our new account that we created with quickbooks online to put your name we would
click here and we would go to company settings it might also say account settings click here and
notice there are different categories of settings this window is where the defaults and options are
to control how the entire account behaves click the category of company then go all the way to
the right and click the pencil tool and type in the name I will type in my Amazon store
but you can type in whatever name you like for your company and now we're done now will input
the chart of accounts scroll down from the panel on the left and click accounting chart of accounts
now if it's the very first time you're going to the chart of accounts they make you click
this button see the chart of accounts and these are the accounts that automatically
came with QuickBooks Online your list might be slightly different from mine because you might
have chosen a different version used a different browser or set up the account from a different
country so there might be some small details that are different but most importantly these are the
accounts and the account types that we're going to add first you have to add your bank account
so you would click new from the top right and the type would be Bank and the detail type by
the way the detail type is usually irrelevant but we might as well do it the correct way and choose
checking and then put the name of your bank or any name that you know represents the balance of
your bank account I use Chase Bank as an example they're a very good bank and then if you click
Save and close you will see that quickbooks online has added the account to the list and the chart
of accounts well what else do we need well we need the unavailable balance account to be an
other current asset so we click new and we choose other current where is it other current asset and
again the detail type is not always relevant but we'll put the closest one the closest one
would just be other current asset and we'll call this what Amazon calls this unavailable balance
and then of course we don't have to click Save and close after each one we can click Save and
new and just trust me the account is there in the chart of accounts so I'm only going to click Save
and new from now on to save time what about now we can skip opening balance equity and retained
earnings these are already given to us on the list of the accounts when quickbooks online
created your account so we'll just focus on the ones that are on the Amazon statement starting
with your main income account product charges so this is an income type of account and the income
is sales of product and you call it what Amazon calls it and then of course save and new what
else Amazon fees and everything else is an expense so we choose expense and what type of expense well
again the detail type is usually not relevant so we will just put general administrative expenses
and we'll type in Amazon fees save and new now what else cost of advertising so that's
also an expense general administrative and we'll name it what Amazon names it
save and knew what else well FBA fees whatever that is you have to pay it so general we'll assume
it's general administrative save and new what else other you have to put it in there because Amazon
has it so that's an expense general administrative other save and new we have promo rebates expense
general administrative save and new we're almost done with the chart of accounts subscription fees
save and new and the last one I put it's not related to Amazon but there will be a video
later showing you how to manage general non Amazon related expenses so let's go ahead and
put utilities ok general administrative ok very good now your chart of accounts oh it's already
on the list so forget it so now we have your chart of accounts that includes the accounts
that Amazon that QuickBooks Online gave you plus the accounts for Amazon now please note if you
have any additional items that are listed on your bimonthly Amazon deposit statement
you will have to add an expense type of account to the chart of accounts for anything that was
not mentioned here in other words your chart of accounts must match the statement now the last
thing you have to do is prepare your reports add shortcuts to the only two relevant reports
that you will need if you have an Amazon online store the trial balance and the profit and loss
and the only thing we will customize is making the dates show us the result of all transactions
regardless of date so this is how you do it in the left panel you click reports now you don't
have any custom reports but the two that we will set up will be right here in custom reports so
you can get there faster just open them up in the first place click standard and go down to
trial balance trial balance that's all the way at the bottom if you're an accountant but be careful
check every single one to find the one that says trial balance now of course it's empty because
we have not yet recorded transactions click the pulldown date range menu choose all dates and
click run report now that it looks the way we need it to look click Save customization and
then click Save now when you click reports all you have to do is go to the custom report area
and you will see the trial balance exactly as we created it now again click reports go to the
standard area of reports and go all the way down to the only other report that's necessary profit
and loss so let's see if we can I think it's in the I think it's up top here no it's not who owes
you yeah it's in the business overview profit and loss detail profit and loss detail click
there again click the date pull down menu and click all dates then run report so that you can
see the results of all transactions regardless of date then click Save customization and click
Save now when you click reports all you have to do is go to the custom area and you go directly
to the only two reports that are necessary if all you're doing is buying and selling on
Amazon and they're much easier to find and they already have the date range set the way we need
congratulations you are ready to start recording transactions from your bimonthly Amazon statement
you