QuickBooks Online For Dummies. Elaine Marmel

419

      409  420

      410 421

      411  422

      412  423

      413  424

      414  425

      415  426

      416  427

      417  428

      418  429

      419  430

      420  431

      421  432

      422  433

      423  434

      424  435

      425  436

      426  437

      427  438

      428  439

      429 440

      430  441

      431  442

      432  443

      433  444

      434  445

      435  446

      436 447

      437 448

      438  449

      439  450

      440  451

      441  452

      442 453

      443  454

      444  455

      445  456

      446  457

      447  458

      448  459

      449  460

      450  461

      451 462

      452 463

      453 464

      454 465

      455 466

      456 467

      457 468

      458 469

      459 470

      460 471

      461 472

      462 473

      463 474

      464 475

      465 476

      466 477

      467 478

      468 479

      469  481

      470  482

      471  484

      472  485

Introduction

      Most small business owners do something besides accounting; they sell products or services. Many small business owners address accounting only because they have to address it — to meet legal requirements, such as reporting earnings and paying employees.

      QuickBooks helps take the pain out of the process; in fact, accounting can become downright tolerable. And QuickBooks Online (QBO) makes accounting almost easy. Because QBO is a web-based product with mobile versions, you can securely do what you need to do from anywhere at any time of day. And, because QBO is web-based, you can easily share your data with your accountant — again, anywhere and at any time.

      In most cases, QuickBooks Desktop users who want to stick with something they know but now yearn for the flexibility of a web-based product won’t be disappointed. QBO’s functionality will feel very familiar to them, and they can migrate their QuickBooks Desktop company to QBO.

      Accountants can easily support QuickBooks clients via QuickBooks Online Accountant (QBOA), the sister product of QBO that enables seamless collaboration between accountants and their clients.

      Use this book to help you learn how to use QBO and QBOA.

About This Book

      Intuit’s web-based accounting product is really two products: End users who want to do their accounting on the web or on mobile devices use QBO, whereas accountants use QBOA, which enables the accountant to log in to a client’s books and make changes and queries as needed. Although much of QBO and QBOA look and behave alike, QBOA incorporates tools that an accountant needs while working on a client’s books. And accountants need to manage multiple client companies, whereas end user clients typically do not.

      QBO and QBOA are not 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.

Because these products are both similar and different, we’ve divided this book into three parts. In the first part of the book, we examine what QBO and QBOA are — and what they aren’t — and we describe what you need to be able to use QBO and QBOA. We explain the various editions available and the product costs at the time we wrote this book, and we describe the available features.

      The second part of the book focuses on using QBO and is aimed at the end user; but, the accountant who opens a client’s company via QBOA will be able to use the same tools that the end user uses to manage lists, enter transactions, and print reports.

      The third part of the book is aimed at the accountant and covers using QBOA.

      We don’t pretend to cover every detail of every feature in QBO or QBOA. Instead, we’ve focused on covering the tools we think most users will need as they navigate QBO and QBOA.

      

As we discuss in Chapter 2, there are different versions of QBO; we used QBO Plus as we wrote this book because that’s the version available in the sample company. As you’ll see in subsequent chapters, QBO Advanced adds even more features for those that need even more functionality. Users of other versions might find references in this book to features they don’t have because they aren’t using the Plus or Advanced versions.

      Before diving in, we have to get a few technical convention details out of the way:

       Text that you’re meant to type as it appears in the book is bold. The exception is when you’re working through a list of steps: Because each step is bold, the text to type is not bold.

       Web addresses and programming code appear in monofont. If you’re reading a digital version of this book on a device connected to the Internet, note that you can tap or click a web address to visit that website, like this: www.dummies.com.

       You can use QBO and QBOA from their Android and iOS apps, from the Windows desktop app (which works on Windows desktop computers, tablets, and laptops, but not on Windows phones), or from Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer. At the time we wrote this book, a variety of issues existed if you tried to use QBO and QBOA with Microsoft Edge. In my experience, QBO and QBOA function best in Chrome. For that reason, we used Chrome