.

      FIGURE 3-1: Use the slider to toggle between a short-term discount or a free trial.

      FIGURE 3-2: Fill in the information needed to start the free trial.

QBO sets up your free trial, logs you in to QBO, and displays the Set Up wizard … read on.

      

If, at any time, you find you need help from a real person, you can take advantage of QBO’s SmartLook feature to work with Intuit in your QBO company. Phone or chat with QBO technical support and, in your QBO company, click Gear ⇒ SmartLook (you’ll find it at the bottom of the Tools list on the Gear menu). QBO will display a number that you supply to your technical support representative, giving permission to share your QBO screen (and only your QBO screen). And, just so you know, we first thought the SmartLook feature functioned like a bat signal, and that an agent would just show up. But, our highly qualified and competent technical editor set us straight.

Setting Up a New Company

When you first sign up for a QBO account, Intuit logs you in to your QBO account and, by default, displays the Set Up wizard. The first screen of the wizard, shown in Figure 3-3, asks for basic company information.

      FIGURE 3-3: Provide basic company information.

Notice that you can opt to bring in QuickBooks Desktop data. For this exercise, we didn’t check that box. Be aware that you can later import QuickBooks Desktop data; the decision you make here isn’t your last chance.

Click Next in the lower-right corner, and QBO displays the screen shown in Figure 3-4, where you select activities for which you intend to use QBO. Don’t worry about making a mistake here; this is just a “get up and running” page. You don’t need to select all activities. If you don’t select an activity now, you can always add it later. As you select a particular activity, QBO displays a check in the box for that activity. You can choose any or all of the following that apply to you:

       Send and track invoices.

       Organize your expenses.

       Manage your inventory.

       Track your retail sales.

       Track your bills.

       Track your sales tax.

       Pay your employees.

       Track billable hours.

      When you finish selecting activities, click All Set.

      FIGURE 3-4: Select activities for which you expect to use QBO.

If you choose the option to pay your employees, QBO assumes you want to use QBOP — and that’s fine; you can read more about payroll and using QBOP in Chapter 9. But, if you have any future expectation of importing any QuickBooks Desktop data into your QBO company, don’t turn on payroll or plan to start another QBO company when you’re ready to import. Turning on payroll in a QBO company before you import QuickBooks Desktop data effectively nullifies your ability to successfully import the data. So, turn on payroll with the expectation that you’re using this QBO company to play around and see how QBO works, but that you won’t be keeping any data you store in it once you get around to importing QuickBooks Desktop data (described in detail in Chapter 12).

QBO displays a short tour and then your company’s Dashboard page (formerly called the Home page) as well as links to options you might want to set up to get started (see Figure 3-5).

      We examine the Dashboard page in the next section, but essentially you’ve just completed most of the initial setup work; we cover other program settings later in this chapter.

      FIGURE 3-5: Your QBO Dashboard page just after creating your company.

Understanding the Dashboard Page

When you first see your QBO company, your Dashboard page contains boxes with links to options you can use to set up features in QBO that are important to you (refer to Figure 3-5). You can use those links and set up those options now, or you can wait until later. To hide the options, click Hide in the upper-right corner of the box. Don’t worry, you can still set up the options associated with any of these boxes; in Figure 3-6, notice the Resume Setup link in the upper-right corner of the Dashboard. Click it to redisplay the setup options. And, once you close the boxes, your Dashboard page displays information specific to your company.

      In the center of Figure 3-6, using most of the Dashboard page real estate, you find information that changes depending on what you have clicked while using QBO. For example, when you initially open QBO, the information is overview company information. If you click an entry in the Navigation bar (on the left side of the screen), the information in the center of the Dashboard page changes to information related to the entry you clicked. If you select an option on the Gear menu (discussed later in this section), the information you see relates to the option you select.

      FIGURE 3-6: The QBO Dashboard page after closing the additional setup box.

You might have noticed the Privacy button in Figure 3-6. You can use this button to temporarily hide financial information on your Dashboard page. For example, you might want to turn Privacy on if you’re using QuickBooks in a public place or even in your office when you’re not alone. Once you turn Privacy on, it remains on until you turn it off again.

      As we just mentioned, the Navigation bar runs down the left side of the screen. You use the Navigation bar the same way you’d use a menu; click an item in the Navigation bar to, well, navigate to that part of QBO. For example, you can click Sales in the Navigation bar to see existing sales transactions in QBO and to create a new Sales transaction.

      The highlighted entry in the Navigation bar helps you identify the section of QBO that you are using.

On the right side of the Dashboard page, you find 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, select an account and