Professional Tips and Workarounds for QuickBooks Online: Improve your QuickBooks Online and Bookkeeping skills using advanced techniques and best practices

✍ Scribed by Ashley Beetson

• Publisher: Packt Publishing - ebooks Account
• Year: 2021
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 496
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Save hours of guesswork and Internet browsing by enhancing your QuickBooks Online skills and leveraging Ash Beetson's extensive QuickBooks knowledge

Key Features

• Broaden your knowledge of QuickBooks Online and accounting concepts
• Understand how QuickBooks can be adapted to suit different business types using professional techniques
• Learn best practices for preparing annual accounts before closing the books for the year

Book Description

Accountants and bookkeepers can sometimes face challenges while coming up with solutions to help their clients. QuickBooks Online, a popular cloud accounting software, comes with a wide range of tools that can take time to learn. This book will show you how to properly combine the tools available in QuickBooks to get the most out of this software.

Complete with step-by-step explanations of essential concepts and practical examples, the book will begin by helping you understand how to create opening balances for a new company. You'll then discover essential bookkeeping and accountancy tips and tricks, and find guidance to help make QuickBooks as easy to use as possible. As you advance, you'll explore different scenarios in which QuickBooks Online can be used for various business types. This will help you understand that not every business is the same, but using the wide range of functionalities QuickBooks Online offers, you can customize solutions to really make it work for you.

By the end of this QuickBooks book, you'll have gained deep insights into how you can use QuickBooks Online to work for different business types, and you'll have a complete checklist of the different things you should be doing when you start reviewing accounts ahead of tax season.

What you will learn

• Discover how to correctly set up QuickBooks Online with opening balances
• Adapt QuickBooks Online to meet specific industry needs, from manufacturing and retail using inventory to helping lawyers and property agents handle client funds
• Get the most out of features such as Projects and Multicurrency
• Review reports within QuickBooks Online, understand why errors occur, and learn how to resolve them
• Get to grips with key accounting principles and concepts tailored for bookkeeping and accounting beginners
• Find out how the audit trail works and explore all of the information it holds

Who this book is for

Business owners, company directors, accountants, bookkeepers, certified public accountants (CPAs), and anyone studying accounting and bookkeeping will find this book useful. The book contains general bookkeeping and accountancy tips and is designed to help you get the most out of the tools available in QuickBooks Online. Prior QuickBooks knowledge is necessary.

Table of Contents

1. Creating and Reviewing Opening Balances in QuickBooks Online
2. Useful Tips and Tricks Every QuickBooks User Should Know
3. QuickBooks Online for Manufacturing Businesses
4. Recording Income for Retail Businesses
5. Handling Client Money
6. The Secret to Success with Projects in QuickBooks Online
7. Handling Foreign Currencies in QuickBooks Online
8. Best Practices When Reviewing Financial Records
9. Enhancing the Consistency of Your Financial Statements
10. Reconciling the Balance Sheet
11. Closing the Year-End, the Audit Log, and More

✦ Table of Contents

Professional Tips and Workarounds for QuickBooks Online
Contributors
About the author
About the reviewer
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Download the color images
Conventions used
Get in touch
Share Your Thoughts
Section 1 – General Tips and Shortcuts
Chapter 1: Creating and Reviewing Opening Balances in QuickBooks Online
Should opening balances be in place before using QuickBooks?
What dates are used for opening balances?
Opening balances – Customers
Which Product/Service Item to use
Opening customer balances – Summary
Opening balances – Suppliers
Opening balances – Bank
What if no opening balance is created?
What about uncleared checks and deposits?
Opening balances – VAT/GST/sales tax
Inventory (stock)
Opening Balances – Other
Other business taxes
Fixed assets (Plant and Machinery)
Loans and Hire Purchase Agreements
Shareholdings
Director's loans
Provisions for prepayments and accruals
Summary
Chapter 2: Useful Tips and Tricks Every QuickBooks User Should Know
Purging a QuickBooks company
Using the Purge Company option
Using the KISS principle
How can you make QuickBooks easier to use?
General tips for daily use
Merging accounts
Date shortcuts
The calculator function
The advanced search function
Duplicating a tab in the browser
Other shortcuts
Summary
Section 2 – Adapting QuickBooks Online to Suit Different Business Types
Chapter 3: QuickBooks Online for Manufacturing Businesses
Chart of Accounts for manufacturing
Products and services – Raw materials
Bill of Materials (BOM)
Workflow of a manufacturing company
Purchase order for raw materials (Step 1 of 7)
Goods delivered and supplier bill created (step 2 of 7)
Sales order from a customer (Step 3 of 7)
Picking materials to build the product (step 4 of 7)
Accounting for work-in-progress (step 5 of 7)
Updating stock with finished goods (Step 6 of 7)
Goods delivered and an invoice raised for the customer (Step 7 of 7)
Simplified Option
Other Considerations
Stocktakes and adjusting stock quantities
Summary
Chapter 4: Recording Income for Retail Businesses
Using Inventory
The Sales Environment and the different methods of Payment accepted
Sales receipts versus Bank deposits
Undeposited funds
Using journal entries to record sales
Recurring entries
Using Customers
Considerations for Inventory
Updating Sales Prices
Revaluating inventory (Stock)
Summary
Chapter 5: Handling Client Money
Setting up QuickBooks for Client Funds
Settings for expenses
Setting up the Chart of Accounts
Setting up Products and Services
Settings for Customers
Recording Client Account Transactions
Managing fees deducted from client funds
Paying Suppliers on behalf of clients
Reporting Against Client Funds
Reporting Client Balances within the Office Company File
Summary
Chapter 6: The Secret to Success with Projects in QuickBooks Online
Settings for Projects
Enabling Projects
Settings to track expenses by customer
Progress Invoicing
Creating a Project
Recording Income and Expenditure against a Project
Creating an Estimate
Allocating Bills and Expenses to a Project
Creating invoices against a Project
Recording Time against a Project
Who can record time?
TimeSheet Entries
Creating a Budget against a Project
Managing Unbilled Expenses
Using the manage billable expense tool
Useful reports for Projects
Default Project Reports
Allocating other costs to a Project
Using journals to adjust a project
Using a zero-total Bill to adjust a project
Sub-Customers versus Projects
Summary
Chapter 7: Handling Foreign Currencies in QuickBooks Online
Enabling Multicurrency settings
Settings for Customers, Suppliers (Vendors), and Banks
Setting up Bank Accounts
Editing Foreign currency Exchange Rates
Recording Transactions in Foreign Currencies
Matching Foreign Currency Transactions in the feed of the Home Currency Bank Account
Matching foreign currency transactions with a foreign currency bank account
Matching a single payment for multiple foreign invoices
Receiving a foreign payment in a different foreign currency bank account
Making further adjustments when working with Foreign Currencies
Revaluation of Foreign Currency Balances in QuickBooks
Editing reports to display Foreign Currency values
Summary
Section 3 – Reviewing and Reporting Data in QuickBooks Online
Chapter 8: Best Practices When Reviewing Financial Records
How frequently should we review our financial records in QuickBooks Online?
Checking Financial Reports
The Matching Concept
The Accruals Concept
Income Recognition
The Going Concern Concept
Materiality
Prudence
Consistency
Reviewing the Profit and Loss Report
Report dates
Changing the way that Columns are Displayed
Changing the order in which a Profit and Loss Report is sorted
Comparing Values to Previous Financial Periods
Looking Out for Errors and Inconsistencies
Reviewing Income values in the Profit and Loss Report
Reviewing the Balance Sheet (Undeposited Funds)
Reviewing Accounts Receivable
Business Owner Paid by Customer
Crediting Customer Invoices no Longer Payable
Reviewing Accounts Payable
Supplier bills already paid by the business owner
Supplier Bills settled by Hire Purchase Agreements
Summary
Chapter 9: Enhancing the Consistency of Your Financial Statements
Common Errors Associated with Chart of Accounts
Unnecessary use of Chart of Account Categories
Common Errors associated with Products and Services
Prepayments, Accruals, and Deferred Income
Adjusting prepayments
Using Classes, Locations, and Tags
Classes and locations
Tags
Summary
Chapter 10: Reconciling the Balance Sheet
Different Balance Sheet Categories
Agreeing Values on the Balance Sheet (Basics)
Reconciling Debtors/Accounts Receivable (Current Assets – Trade Debtors)
Creditors/Accounts Payable (Current Liabilities – Trade Creditors)
Reconciling Bank Accounts and Credit Cards
Loans and Mortgages
Reconciling Stock (Inventory)
Director's loans or drawings
Advanced Balance Sheet Reconciliations
Reconciling Fixed Assets
Reconciling Accruals, Prepayments, and Deferred Income
Reconciling undeposited funds
Reconciling VAT
Summary
Chapter 11: Closing the Year-End, the Audit Log, and More
Bookkeeping Checklists
Closing The Financial Year/period
Retained Earnings
What if the business is a sole proprietor or partnership?
What happens if the financial year-end is changed?
The Audit Log feature
Customizing reports to investigate changes to previous periods
Using Management Reports at Year-End
Including reports in a management report
Finishing touches to the Management Report
Summary
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