How to Use QuickBooks Online: Step-By-Step Guide

how to do quickbooks

You’ll also want to add integrations with any other business software service you already use. QuickBooks offers a range of integrations covering areas including sales, compliance, marketing, and cash flow forecasting. You can easily scan and upload receipts in real-time using the QuickBooks mobile app, so you don’t need to run helter-skelter to collect them at the time of taxes. If you want, you can also invite them to view the reports themselves and download whatever they need. With QuickBooks, it is very simple to track time as well as billable expenses incurred by employees or subcontractors. They can either enter it themselves using the QuickBooks mobile app or submit it manually and a bookkeeper on your end can enter the details in the app.

A seasoned small business and technology writer and educator with more than 20 years of experience, Shweta excels in demystifying complex tech tools and concepts for small businesses. Her postgraduate degree in computer management fuels her comprehensive analysis and exploration of tech topics. The inventory management and job costing features are more robust in QuickBooks compared to QuickBooks Online. Another plan separate from QuickBooks Online but offering many of the same features is QuickBooks Solopreneur.

Business

  1. Paperwork can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be if you use the right tools.
  2. Once you’ve logged in, you just need to hit the “+” symbol at the bottom center of the homepage, and you’ll pull up the main menu, which you can scroll through until you find the task you need.
  3. It’s a particularly attractive pick for ecommerce businesses, since it has inventory management tools across all plans, while QuickBooks lacks this tool across its lowest two plans, Simple Start and Essentials.
  4. Learn about the different ways you can record your spending, how to record and categorize your spending and the difference between bills, bill payments, expenses, and checks in QuickBooks.
  5. Learn how to send reminders to customers when invoices are overdue, and also how to set up batch actions to send multiple invoice reminders in QuickBooks.

QuickBooks Online is one of the most feature-rich, but easy-to-use accounting solutions on the market, and can help to make the process infinitely smoother. Your “Account and Settings” menu includes the “Sales” and “Expenses” tabs, and beginners will need to add data to both these pages in order to allow the QuickBooks software to correctly generate reports. The main user should be the “primary admin,” but you can add other admins or standard users (with customized levels of access). However, automatic bill tracking does not mean you cannot do that manually. You can directly record a manual transaction easily, whether in cash or check.

How to Use the QuickBooks Mobile App

Get a feel for what QuickBooks can do and try out top features using our sample company. Cassie is a former deputy editor who collaborated with teams around the world while living in the beautiful hills of Kentucky. Prior to joining the team at Forbes Advisor, Cassie was a content operations manager and copywriting manager. You can download and get started after spending a couple of hours browsing through the different screens.

how to do quickbooks

What are the disadvantages of QuickBooks Online?

QuickBooks Online is available both as a desktop application and an online SaaS (software as a service) model. However, access to add-on services to the QuickBooks Desktop for Windows 2019 was discontinued after May 31, 2022. Again, QuickBooks has many reports available to analyze your bills and expenses.

Once you’ve logged in, you just need to hit the “+” symbol at the bottom center of the homepage, and you’ll pull up the main menu, which you can scroll through until you find the task you need.

Figure out your tax needs

Find out which tax deadlines are relevant, depending on the federal, state, and local regulations that may apply to your operation. If you’re using QuickBooks Payroll, it has the tax reporting functionality needed to walk you through this process, although you’ll still need your federal and state ID numbers. QuickBooks Accounting supports integrations with other payroll services, but it offers its own software as well. We rate QuickBooks Payroll highly and it will appear as the “Payroll” tab on your dashboard if you use it.

Learn about how to add a new supplier to save time, edit supplier information and add columns and sort the Supplier List to get more insight. Learn about how to navigate QuickBooks Online, understand the difference between the Navbar, Create menu, and Gear menu, and learn how to enter new transactions. Stay informed on the top business tech stories with Tech.co’s weekly highlights reel. Once you have a handle on the day-to-day use of QuickBooks Online, try what is a joint cost definition meaning example adding a few more tips and tricks to help you get the most out of the experience. For these tasks, you can download the “QuickBooks Accounting” app from the App Store, or the “QuickBooks Online Accounting” app from the Google Play store.