QuickBooks Online For Dummies. David H. Ringstrom
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FIGURE 3-4: This screen shows that you’ve prevailed over the Setup Wizard.
A short tour appears followed by a Get Things Done page that includes areas of QuickBooks you may want to set up (see Figure 3-5). I walk you through this page in “Understanding the Dashboard” later in this chapter.
FIGURE 3-5: Your Get Things Done page after you create your company.
Essentially, you’ve completed much of the initial setup work. I get to the other program settings later in the chapter.
Understanding the Dashboard
Your Get Things Done page (refer to Figure 3-5) contains links to options you can use to set up features in QBO that are important to you. You can use those links and set up those options now, or you can wait until later.
The navigation bar runs down the left side of the screen. You use this bar the same way you’d use a menu; click an item to navigate to that part of QBO. You can click Sales on the navigation bar, for example, to see existing sales transactions in QBO and to create a new Sales transaction.
On the navigation bar, the option below Get Things Done is Business Overview, which serves as a dashboard for your business (see Figure 3-6).
FIGURE 3-6: The Business Overview dashboard.
On the right side of the dashboard page is a list of the bank accounts you’ve set up. If you scroll to the bottom of the list, you find options to connect your accounts to their banks, open an account’s register, and review transactions that have been imported into QuickBooks. The dashboard also displays a summary of expenses and sales for periods extending as far back as the last fiscal year.
Over to the left hand side of the screen, you’ll see the New button on the navigation bar, shown in Figure 3-7, which is the starting point for creating most but not all transactions in QuickBooks. If the list of options feels overwhelming, click Show Less in the bottom right-hand corner to collapse the list down to the basics: Invoice, Estimate, Expense, and Check. You can then click Show More to get the full list of transactions back again. The commands are grouped into four columns: Customers, Vendors, Employees, and Other. When you click any choice on the menu the corresponding transaction window will open in QuickBooks.
FIGURE 3-7: Click the New button to create a new transaction.
At the top of the screen you can click the Help button to display a task pane with two tabs:
Assistant: A bot offering answers to common questions
Search: A searchable menu of common topics that might be of interest to you (see Figure 3-8)
From time to time you may also need to search through prior transactions in QuickBooks. The Search command looks like a magnifying glass and appears to the right of the Help command. Figure 3-9 shows that you’ll be presented with a list of recent transactions — click any transaction in the list to open that transaction — as well as a Search field. You can also click Advanced Search if you want to search based on multiple filters.
FIGURE 3-8: The Search tab of the Help pane.
FIGURE 3-9: Click the Search button to search for previously entered transactions.
FIGURE 3-10: Use the Settings menu to work with settings, lists, tools, and your QBO account.
Updating the Chart of Accounts
As I mention earlier in this chapter, QuickBooks automatically sets up the chart of accounts it thinks you’ll need when you create a new company. If you’re not happy with this list, you can replace it with one you set up in Excel, in