QuickBooks 2021 For Dummies. Stephen L. Nelson

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СКАЧАТЬ with QuickBooks, you need to do the following:

      1 Install the QuickBooks software, as I describe in Appendix A.

      2 Run through the QuickBooks Setup process, which I describe in Chapter 2.

      3 Load the master files, as I describe in Chapter 3.

If you’re thinking “Whoa, cowboy, that seems like a bit more work than what’s involved in installing spreadsheet software or a new word processor,” you’re right. You may as well hear from me the ugly truth about accounting software: Accounting software, all of it, requires quite a bit of setup work to get things running smoothly. You need to build a list of expense categories (accounts) to use for tracking expenses, for example. You also need to set up a list of the customers you invoice.

      Rest assured, however, that none of the setup work is overly complex; it’s just time-consuming. Also know from the very start that QuickBooks provides a tremendous amount of hand-holding to help you step through the setup process. Remember, too, that you have your new friend — that’s me — to help you whenever setup gets a little gnarly.

How to Succeed with QuickBooks

      Before I wrap up the little why, what, and how discussion of this chapter, I ought to provide a handful of ideas about how to make your experience with QuickBooks a successful one.

      Budget wisely, Grasshopper

      Here’s my first suggestion: Please plan on spending at least a few hours to get the QuickBooks software installed, set up, and running. I know you don’t really want to do that. You have a business to run, a family to take care of, a dog to walk, and so on.

      But here’s the reality sandwich you probably need to take a big bite of: It takes half an hour just to get the software installed on your computer. (This installation isn’t complicated, of course. You’ll mostly just sit there, sipping coffee or whatever.)

      But after the QuickBooks software is installed, unfortunately, you still have to run through the QuickBooks Setup process. Again, this work isn’t difficult, but it does take time. Setting up QuickBooks for a very simple service business probably takes at least an hour. If your business owns inventory, or if you’re a contractor with some serious job-costing requirements, the process can take several hours.

      Therefore, do yourself a favor: Give yourself adequate time for the job at hand.

      Don’t focus on features

      Now let me share another little tip about getting going with QuickBooks. At the point where you install the QuickBooks software and start the program, you’ll be in shock about the number of commands, whistles, bells, and buttons that the QuickBooks window provides. But you know what? You can’t focus on the QuickBooks features.

      Your job is simply to figure out how to record a handful — probably a small handful — of transactions with QuickBooks. Therefore, what you want to do is focus on the transactions that need to be recorded for you to keep your books.

      Suppose that you’re a one-person consulting business. In that case, you may need to figure out how to record only the following three transactions:

       Invoices

       Payments from customers (because you invoiced them)

       Payments to vendors (because they sent you bills)

      So all you need to do is discover how to record invoices (see Chapter 4), record customer payments (see Chapter 5), and record checks (see Chapter 6). You don’t need to worry about much else except maybe how to print reports, but that’s easy. (See Chapter 15 for the click-by-click.)

      “Oh, Steve,” you’re saying, “you just intentionally picked an easy business. I’m a retailer with a much more complicated situation.”

      Okay, well, you’re right that I picked an easy business for my first example, but I stand by the same advice for retailers. If you’re a retailer, you probably need to figure out how to record only four transactions:

       Sales receipts

       Bills from your suppliers

       Payments to your vendors

       Employee payroll checks

      In this example, then, all you need to do is find out how to record sales receipts — probably a separate sales receipt for each bank deposit you make (see Chapter 5) — how to record bills from vendors, how to record checks to pay your bills (see Chapter 6), and how to handle employee payroll (see Chapter 11).

I don’t want to be cranky or careless here, but one truly good trick for getting up to speed with QuickBooks is to focus on the transactions that you need to record. If you identify those transactions and then figure out how to record them, you’ve done the hard part. Really.

      Outsource payroll

      Here’s another suggestion for you: Go ahead and outsource your payroll. That’ll probably cost you between $1,000 and $2,000 per year. I know that’s roughly the total cost of four discount tickets to Hawaii, but outsourcing payroll delivers three big benefits, even after considering the stiff price:

       Simplicity: Payroll is one of the most complicated areas in small-business accounting and in QuickBooks. Accordingly, you’ll greatly simplify your bookkeeping by moving this headache off your desk and onto the desk of your accountant (who may love doing your payroll) or the payroll service. (You can use a national firm, such as ADP or Paychex, or a local firm.)

       Penalties: Did I mention that payroll is one of the most complicated areas in small-business accounting and in QuickBooks? I did? Good, because you truly need to know that payroll preparation and accounting mistakes are easy to make. And payroll mistakes often subject you to seriously annoying fines and penalties from the IRS and from state revenue and employment agencies. I grant you that $1,500 per year for payroll processing seems like way too much money, but you need to prevent only a couple of painful fines or penalties per year to drastically cut the costs of using an outside payroll service.

       Mrs. Peabody’s annual raise: One final reason for outsourcing payroll exists. Let me explain. You don’t want to do payroll yourself. Really, you don’t. As a result, you’ll eventually assign the task to that nice woman who works in your office, Mrs. Peabody. СКАЧАТЬ