Hi and welcome back to Accounting Stuff. I'm
James and today I'll give you a quick guide to QuickBooks Online. I know that a lot of you
enjoyed my last video about QuickBooks but that one's getting a bit old now. Menus have moved,
things look different and alas there's been some inflation. So let's take another look. What is QuickBooks Online?
QuickBooks Online is the most popular cloud accounting software in the world. It's designed
for small businesses by an American company called Intuit. Who also make TurboTax, Mint and MailChimp.
What does QuickBooks Online do? QuickBooks Online is a safe place where you can record and store
all of your business's transactions. QuickBooks Online makes it super simple to check your profit
and cash flow which is key for any small business. Which version of QuickBooks Online is right for
you? If you scroll down and click on my affiliate link in the description. Then you'll see that
there are four versions to choose from. We have Simple Start, Essentials, Plus and Advanced. You
can pick one and give it a go using the free 30-day trial or if you've already made up your
mind you can sign up using the discount. If you sign up after clicking on my link then I'll earn
a small commission which I thank you kindly for. At $30 a month Simple Start is the cheapest one and
it's the most basic. It could work for you if you have a small startup and only need one user.
The main limitations that it doesn't track your bills so no accounts payable and you can only
connect one sales channel like Amazon, Shopify or Ebay. If you want to track your bills or you
need more users or sales channels then you'll need QuickBooks Online Essentials which is $60
per month. It also gives you time tracking. The key piece missing in Essentials is inventory
management. So if you sell physical products then Plus is what you're after. $90 per month
will get you five users, all the sales channels and the ability to do job costing by project.
At a whopping $200 per month Advanced is the most complete package of QuickBooks Online. This
one's designed for growing businesses with more complex transactions. It gives you 25 users, data
syncing with Excel, expense claims, automations and more. All of these options are cloud-based so all
you need is a browser and an internet connection. I know that's a lot to take in. But don't stress.
You can upgrade or downgrade at any time. What does QuickBooks Online look like? This is the QuickBooks
Online dashboard. Let's do a quick run through of everything we can see here. Then we'll come back
and I'll point out the areas that you really need to know. In the top corner we've got your company
name and logo. In this video we're working with the the sample company it's called Craig's Design and
Landscaping Services. The gray bar on the left is called the Navigation Menu. You can use this to
access different pages and create transactions with the New Button. If you're working on a small
screen you can always hide the Navigation Menu by clicking on this button with the three little
lines. In the top right there's My Experts, Updates Help, Apps, the Search button, the Notification
Bell, Settings and a link to your Intuit account. Now let's take a look behind me. This is the business
overview where you can check your Financial Health at a glance. We have summaries of your cash flow,
bank balances, profit and loss and expenses. You can click customize to move these summaries around.
If you're working on a train and you're worried about nosy parkers there's a privacy button
that will hide this sensitive information. How does QuickBooks Online work? Let's start with these
buttons up here. You can use My Experts to connect with your accountant. Updates gives you short
videos and articles outlining the latest changes in QuickBooks. If you're stuck then you can click
on the Help button to search through the frequently asked questions. This little grid of dots lets you
track your apps and then we have the magnifying glass this is the Search button. When you click
on it you get a list of your recent transactions. Then we have the Notification Bell followed by
the gear icon. Which is settings. If you're new to QuickBooks this is where you set your company up.
Go to Account and Settings. Here you can add your logo and update your company name. Then for tax you
can enter your Employer Identification Number or Social Security Number. And moving down you can
choose a company type and industry, update your business contact information and add your website.
The panel on the left lets you check your usage limits, customize your expenses and time sheets. And
at the bottom we have Advanced Settings. This is where you can turn on multicurrency if you need it.
Let's hop back into the Settings menu. Manage users is where you can add and delete users or change
what they've got access to. Chart of accounts brings up a complete list of your accounts. We use
these to sort and store your transactions. It will make your life a whole lot easier if you set up
your chart of accounts correctly. Every business is different so reach out to an accountant if
you need one. I want to quickly mention keyboard shortcuts. You can find them under Additional info.
If you use QuickBooks a lot then these can save you time. I normally write them down and leave them
on my desk. Under Lists you can make changes to the products or services that your business sells. Then
there's recurring transactions where you can schedule payments for bills. Under Tools you can
order checks, import data into QuickBooks, export it. There's a link to reconcile your bank account.
I'll show you how to do that in a moment. You can create a budget, check the audit log to see user
activity and then there's SmartLook. Which is how you share your screen with your accountant. Now
let's head over to the Navigation Menu. At the top of the Nav Bar we've got the New Button. We can
click on this to create new transactions. These are separated into four columns. We have Customers,
Vendors, Employees and other stuff. First I'll show you how to make an invoice. Maybe you've just sold
something to a customer. You can add their name here or pick them from the list. Enter what you
sold them. Change the quantity or rate and then you can apply a discount and add sales tax if
necessary. Once you're happy with it click save and send. QuickBooks Online will create a PDF of your
invoice and an email which you can personalize and send to your customer. Okay so we've sent an invoice
to a customer. What about if we buy something from a vendor. There are two main ways to record a
purchase: Bills and Expenses. If you've already paid then you want to record an Expense. Pick who
you paid, the account or credit card that you used add the invoice number. Categorize the transaction.
This will change where it shows up in your Income Statement. Enter a description, an amount - you can
add more lines if you need to - and then attach a receipt to support the expense and save and
close. QuickBooks also has an app that you can use to photograph and enter receipts on-the-go. In
QuickBooks Online we use Bills to record expenses that we'll pay at a later date. The form is almost
exactly the same, but now we have to add payment terms and a due date. Once you've filled this out you
can save the bill and schedule the payment. In the Employees column you can do your payroll and your
time sheets and then we have the Other column. This is where you can create journal entries. If you've
got an accountant then you won't want to touch this. But if you're doing it yourself then you
can learn all about journal entries on my channel. Click subscribe if you'd like to learn more. Let's
head back to the Navigation Menu. Under bookmarks we have Bank transactions. In here you can connect
your bank accounts and credit cards to QuickBooks Online. This will save you a heap of manual data
entry because QuickBooks will automatically download your transactions and populate your bank
feed. Which is what we can see here. The next step is to do regular bank reconciliations which
are a key part of bookkeeping. If a transaction has already been recorded in QuickBooks then you
can click match to link it to the transaction in your bank feed. In your bank feed you'll also
come across uncategorized income and expenses. These transactions haven't been recorded in
QuickBooks yet. We can add them right here. Click on the transaction, select the customer or
vendor, pick a category, add a description, attach your support and press add. If you get lots of
similar transactions then you can also use Bank rules to categorize them automatically. Below Bank
transactions we have the Dashboard Button which will take us back to the Dashboard. Transactions is
for Bank transactions which we touched on already. As you can see it's been bookmarked. Sales is the
home of your invoices. Here you can keep an eye on your income over time and watch out for any
overdue invoices. These will be highlighted in a vibrant orange. We can click on them to get a list
of the culprits and send them reminders via email. Pay me! On the Expenses tab we get a list of your
business's expense transactions. You can click on Bills to see if anything's overdue. The Vendors
tab will let you add new suppliers and you can track mileage on the Mileage tab. Customers
and leads is pretty similar to the Sales tab. But it also has an interface with MailChimp if
you use that. Next up is Reports. We've got all of our favorites at the top. The Balance Sheet is
a Financial Statement that shows your financial position. It provides a snapshot of your Assets,
Liabilities and Equity at a point in time. Then there's the Statement of Profit and Loss. Also
known as the Income Statement. This measures the business's financial performance by summarizing
Revenue and Expenses over a period of time. Then there's the Cash Flow Statement which is the other
main Financial Statement. It lives under Business overview and you can click on the little star to
add it to your favorites. The Cash Flow Statement summarizes your cash inflows and outflows over a
period of time. Below Reports we have Payroll. This is where you can manage your employees and
contractors. Then there's the Time tab which tracks time which can flow through to payroll and
invoicing. In Taxes you can manage the business's Sales tax or GST if required. My Accountant is a
workspace where you can invite and talk to your accountant. In Banking services you can apply for
business loans through QuickBooks Capital. You can use Commerce to connect your sales channels like
Amazon, eBay and Shopify and in Apps you can add on third party applications to run your business
more efficiently. Thanks for sticking with me. If you'd like to sign up to QuickBooks Online
then I encourage you to use my affiliate link. That way you'll still get the same discount and you'll
be supporting this channel. See you next time!
