Setting Up a Chart of Accounts

If you’ve just started running a business and keeping your company’s books, all this talk of accounts, credits, and debits might have you flummoxed. Accounting is a cross between mathematics and the mystical arts; its goal is to record and report the financial performance of an organization. The end result of bookkeeping and accounting is a set of financial statements (page 448), but the starting point is the chart of accounts.

Getting Around in QuickBooks

You have more than enough to do running your business, so you don’t want bookkeeping to take any more time than necessary. QuickBooks’ icon bar (which comes in two flavors: left and top) offers shortcuts to your favorite features. Each version of the icon bar has its pros and cons, so you have to decide which one you prefer (or you can hide them). This chapter shows you how to access QuickBooks’ features from both the menu bar and icon bars.

Modifying Company Info

When you use the basic setup process or the EasyStep Interview, QuickBooks gets the basic facts about your company in small chunks. But after you create your company file, you can easily view and edit any of this information. Here's how:

1.     Choose Company→My Company or click the My Company entry in the icon bar.

The My Company window opens. As shown in Figure 1-7 (background), your company info appears on the left and info about your copy of QuickBooks appears on the window's right. Apps, services, and subscriptions that you've signed up for (like accepting credit cards, payroll, and so on) appear below your company info. Other products that Intuit would like to sell you appear at the bottom of the window.

Opening Company File

Opening an Existing Company File

After you've opened a company file in one QuickBooks session, the next time you launch the program, it automatically opens that same company file. If you keep the books for only one company, you might never have to manually open a QuickBooks company file again.

But if you're an irrepressible entrepreneur or a bookkeeper who works on several companies' books, you can open another company file in QuickBooks anytime, and the program automatically closes the previous one. Because QuickBooks stores data in a database, you don't have to save a company file before you close it. (And if you use QuickBooks Accountant edition, you can have two company files open at the same time, as the Tip that follows explains.) The following sections describe the different ways to open a company file.

Managing Accounts Receivable

In addition to performing work, invoicing customers, and collecting payments, you also have to keep track of who owes you how much (known as Accounts Receivable) and when the money is due. Sure, you can tack on finance charges to light a fire under your customers’