QuickBooks Online For Dummies

Elaine Marmel is President of Marmel Enterprises, LLC, an organization that specializes in technical writing and software training. Elaine has an MBA from Cornell University and has trained more than 600 employees to use computer systems. Elaine has authored and co-authored over ninety books.

Introduction 1


About This Book 1


Foolish Assumptions 3


Icons Used in This Book 3


Beyond the Book 4


Where to Go from Here 4


Part 1: Getting Started with QBO and QBOA 5


Chapter 1: Introducing QBO and QBOA 7


QBO for the Client and QBOA for the Accountant 7


Comparing interfaces 8


Taking a look at QBO Desktop and QBO Mobile 10


Understanding the Cloud 13


Should You Move to the Cloud? 14


System Requirements 15


Chapter 2: Embracing the QBO/QBOA Format 19


It’s All about Subscriptions 19


The Self-Employed version 20


The Simple Start version 23


The Essentials version 24


The Plus version 24


The Advanced version 25


Simple Start, Essentials, Plus, and Advanced with Payroll 26


What Does It Cost? 26


Addressing Payroll Needs 28


Switching from QuickBooks Desktop 29


Where Add-On Apps Fit In 30


Part 2: Managing the Books for the End User 33


Chapter 3: Creating a Client Company in QBO 35


Signing Up for QBO 36


Setting Up a New Company 38


Understanding the Dashboard Page 41


Establishing Company Settings 45


Examining company preferences 45


Examining billing and subscription settings and usage limits 45


Setting sales preferences 46


Taking a look at expense preferences 52


Examining options to receive customer payments 53


Reviewing advanced preferences 54


Working with Multiple Currencies 56


How the Multicurrency feature changes QBO 58


Turning on the Multicurrency feature 58


Setting up currencies 59


Using multiple currencies 60


Updating the Chart of Accounts 63


Taking Advantage of QuickBooks Labs 69


Signing In to and Out of QBO 71


Chapter 4: Managing List Information 73


Importing People into a List 73


Adding New People to a List 79


Creating a new customer 79


Using customer types 81


Adding sub-customers 82


Searching Lists for People 83


Working with a particular person 83


Sorting a list 87


Exporting a list to Excel 87


Working with a batch of people 88


Changing Settings for People Lists 89


Working with Products and Services Items 91


Establishing categories 92


Setting up sales taxes 93


Adding service and non-inventory items 94


Creating an inventory item 97


Working with bundles 99


Changing item types 101


Using pricing rules 103


Adjusting inventory item information 104


A Look at Other Lists 109


Chapter 5: Dealing with the Outflow of Money 111


Writing a Check 113


Assigning a check to accounts or items 113


Writing a check for an outstanding bill 116


Creating an Expense 117


Entering a Purchase Order 119


Turning on the purchase order feature 120


Creating a purchase order 121


Working with partial purchase orders 122


Entering and Paying Bills 126


Entering a bill 126


About recurring transactions 127


Recording a vendor credit 131


When a vendor issues a refund check 132


Paying bills 134


Chapter 6: Managing the Inflow of Money 137


Managing Projects 137


Turning on projects in QBO 138


Enabling projects in Customer lists 139


Converting sub-customers to projects 139


Setting up a project 141


Adding transactions to a project 142


Projects and reporting 143


Getting Started with Sales Transactions 144


Customizing forms to handle subtotals 145


Preparing an invoice 147


Recording a customer payment 151


Managing invoice status 155


Working with estimates 157


Creating a progress invoice 164


Working with sales receipts 166


Giving Money Back to a Customer 168


Recording a credit memo 169


Issuing a refund to a customer 170


Creating Billable Time Entries 172


Entering a single time activity 173


Using a timesheet to record time 174


Adding a Billable Expense to an Invoice 175


Chapter 7: Working in Registers 177


Understanding Registers 177


Entering and Editing Transactions 182


Entering a transaction 183


Editing a transaction 186


Other Things You Can Do in a Register 186


Sorting transactions 186


Filtering transactions 187


Printing a register 189


Chapter 8: Handling Bank and Credit Card Transactions 191


Controlling the Appearance of Bank Accounts 191


Connecting QBO Accounts to Financial Institutions 192


Connecting  or not connecting 193


Connecting Bank or Credit Card accounts 193


When you can’t connect directly   199


Managing Downloaded Activity 204


Excluding transactions 206


Including transactions 207


When QBO guesses correctly   207


When QBO doesn’t know   207


Establishing rules to accept transactions 210


Fixing mistakes 215


Making a Bank Deposit 216


Reconciling a Bank Account 219


Chapter 9: Paying Employees and Contractors 225


Understanding the Employee Payroll Process 226


Getting Started with QBO Payroll (QBOP) 226


Turning on QBOP 228


Setting payroll preferences 232


Setting up payroll taxes 234


Preparing Payroll 236


Recording payroll information 237


Reviewing and generating payroll checks 237


Correcting payroll exemptions (without calling Tech Support) 240


Printing payroll reports 243


Managing Payroll Taxes 244


Paying payroll taxes 244


Preparing payroll tax forms 246


Paying Contractors 247


Setting up 1099 contractors 248


Paying contractors 250


Reporting on 1099 vendor payments 250


Preparing 1099s 252


Chapter 10: How’s the Business Doing? 253


Quickly Review Income and Expenses 253


Finding the Report You Want 254


Examining standard reports 255


Finding reports you customize 256


Taking a look at management reports 256


Searching for a report 258


Printing a Report 258


Customizing a report 259


Saving a customized report 263


Part 3: Managing the Books for the Accountant 267


Chapter 11: Setting Up Shop in QBOA 269


Signing Up for and into QBOA 270


Examining the QBOA Interface 272


Working with the Your Practice view 273


Working with the Your Books view 275


Setting Up Your Team 277


Controlling the Appearance of the Client List 281


Understanding and Using the Free QBOA Company 282


Working with the Sample Company 283


Closing Companies and QBOA 284


Working with Wholesale Billing 285


Signing up for Wholesale Billing 285


Adding existing clients to your Wholesale Billing subscription 286


Removing clients from your Wholesale Billing subscription 290


Working with your Wholesale Billing history 291


Stop using Wholesale Billing 292


Chapter 12: Adding Companies to the QBOA Client List 293


Adding a Client’s Company to the Client List 293


Having a client invite you to be the accountant user 294


Inviting a client to your practice 297


Transferring master administrator rights back to your client 299


Importing QuickBooks Desktop Information into QBO 302


General conversion considerations 303


An overview of what won’t import 305


Updating your edition of QuickBooks Desktop 308


Transferring data from a desktop company into QBO 309


After converting 312


Switching between Client QBO Companies 314


Chapter 13: Exploring a Client’s Company from QBOA 315


Opening a Client’s Company 315


Reviewing a Client QBO Company 316


Taking a look at the Client Overview page 316


Examining company setup information 319


Taking a look at the Chart of Accounts 322


Reviewing list information 326


Exporting and importing bank feed rules 327


Chapter 14: Working in a Client’s Company 329


Making Navigation Easy 329


Using keyboard shortcuts 329


Opening multiple windows 330


Working in two companies simultaneously 333


Examining Available Transaction Types 334


Searching for Transactions 334


Making Client Notes 336


Communicating with a Client 337


Chapter 15: Using Accountant Tools 341


Reporting and Paying Sales Taxes 342


Managing Your Practice 343


Understanding the Grid view 344


Creating projects and tasks 345


Updating task status 349


Editing and deleting project information 349


Working in the List view 350


Working in the Calendar view 351


Communicating with team members about work 352


Facilitating Accountant Activities 353


Understanding the Prep for Taxes page 353


Reclassifying transactions 356


Examining voided and deleted transactions 358


Writing off invoices 358


Closing the books 359


Reviewing reports 360


A brief look at other accountant tools 362


Part 4: The Part of Tens 363


Chapter 16: Almost Ten Things about the Chrome Browser Interface 365


Understanding Users 366


Windows and Tabs 367


Using the Omnibox to Visit a Web Page 368


Using the Omnibox to Search the Web 368


What’s the Star? 368


Examining the Chrome Menu 369


About Signing In to (and Out of) Chrome 370


Creating a Google account 370


Signing In to Chrome 372


Signing Out of Chrome 372


Using the Chrome Web Store 375


Selecting a Theme 377


Chapter 17: Ten or so Ways to Use Chrome Effectively 379


Setting a Home Page 379


Chrome and Security 381


Chrome and Privacy 382


Handling cookies 382


Chrome and JavaScript 383


Flash 383


Working in Incognito mode 383


Deleting browsing history 384


Reviewing miscellaneous privacy settings 386


Using Google tools to manage privacy 387


Using Bookmarks in Chrome 387


Creating a bookmark 387


Displaying the Bookmarks bar 388


Importing bookmarks 389


Managing bookmarks 390


Duplicating and Pinning Tabs 392


Using Chrome on Multiple Monitors 393


Working with Chrome Users 394


Adding a Chrome user 394


Opening a different user 395


Switching to a different user 396


Removing a user you no longer need 396


Zooming In and Out 397


Downloading Files 398


Appendix A: QBO, Quickbooks Desktop, and Data Conversion 399


Index 417