Introduction

      I get it: Small-business owners have many other things they’d rather be doing with their time than accounting. We’re legally mandated to maintain a set of accounting records for our businesses, so avoidance isn’t an option — but working smarter is. This book will help you get there. What’s more, certain tasks, such as reporting earnings and paying employees, are markedly more difficult if you don’t use accounting software.

      Accounting programs such as QuickBooks Online help take the pain out of accounting, and in some cases, they even make it easy. In this book, I explore QuickBooks Online, which is aimed at business users, and QuickBooks Online Accountant (QB Accountant), which is aimed at — you guessed it — accountants and bookkeepers. Both programs are web-based products that offer mobile versions, so your accounting records are at your fingertips no matter which device you have at hand. The benefit of an online accounting system such as QuickBooks is that it enables you to access your books from anywhere and share access with your accountant as well. QB Accountant helps accountants streamline various aspects of supporting multiple clients who use QuickBooks Online.

      Intuit, the maker of QuickBooks Online and QB Accountant, also offers QuickBooks Desktop, which is a version of the software that you must purchase a license for and then install on individual computers. In the appendix, I discuss migrating QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online. But if you’re looking for a QuickBooks Desktop reference, please get a copy of Stephen L. Nelson’s QuickBooks All-in-One For Dummies 2022 (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.).

About This Book

      Everything that can be done in QuickBooks Online can be accomplished in QB Accountant as well. QB Accountant offers additional tools that are useful to accountants who manage multiple clients and/or multiple companies. As you’ll see, QuickBooks Online requires a subscription fee for every set of books you want to maintain, whereas accountants get free access to QB Accountant for overseeing their clients’ books.

QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Online Accountant aren’t for everyone. Before you commit to Intuit’s web-based solution, you need to explore the available editions and examine the requirements for the products. In that regard, I’ve divided the book into five parts: