Elaine Marmel

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-03-2022

If you run a business that bills for its time, Sage Timeslips is the key to tracking your time and increasing profitability. Learn to work more efficiently in Sage Timeslips by touring the Slip Entry window, mastering a few keyboard shortcuts, and becoming familiar with the Sage Timeslips toolbar.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-02-2022

You can make the most of your work in QuickBooks Online (QBO) and QuickBooks Online Accountant (QBOL) using handy and time-savings shortcuts and tool buttons. Using QBO keyboard shortcuts means that you can seamlessly access various windows and pages without touching a mouse. The various icons at the top of the QBO page help you quickly search for items, create new items, or display transactions.

Article / Updated 03-29-2021

QuickBooks Online (QBO) and QuickBooks Online Accountant (QBOA) fall into the category of Software as a Service (SaaS). As such, you don’t buy the software. Instead, you rent it; that is, you buy a subscription to use the software for a time period specified by the seller. Traditionally, you buy a license to use software that you install on your computer, and typically, that license permits you to install the software on only one computer. And, of course, a QBO user can pay varying amounts for a subscription, depending on the subscription level purchased. QBO is available at five different subscription levels, and each subsequent subscription level costs more and contains more functionality. The QBO subscriptions available at this writing are: Self-Employed Simple Start Essentials Plus Advanced All versions of QBO share three attributes in common. First, you can use a tablet, Android or iOS smartphone, or desktop computer to access your data. Second, your data is automatically backed up online. And third, all versions of QBO use 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), the same security and encryption used by banks to secure data sent over the internet. After you assess your needs, use the following information to identify the lowest subscription level that will meet your requirements. At this point in time, you can upgrade to a higher level, but you cannot downgrade to a lower level. Accounting professionals signing up clients for QBO and creating client companies originally couldn’t switch client companies from one version of QBO to another if the accounting professional created the client as part of the Intuit Wholesale Pricing program. However, except for the Self-Employed version, that’s no longer true. So, you no longer need to anticipate your client’s requirements for more advanced features like the ability to track inventory or employing class tracking. The QBO Self-Employed version This version of QBO is aimed at freelancers and self-employed individuals, basically, those who receive Federal Form 1099 to account for the money they’ve been paid and pay their taxes using Schedule C of IRS Form 1040. Be aware, though, that the QuickBooks Self-Employed version (QBSE) is not currently part of the QBO product line, and that means that you cannot upgrade from QBSE to any other QBO product directly—an important fact to keep in mind when deciding to start with QBSE. If your business has business bank accounts, you should not use the Self Employed version. QBSE enables you to separate personal and business expenses and mileage, so it’s really geared to the “side hustle” gig economy, like Uber and Lyft drivers. Using the Self-Employed version, you can: Download transactions from your bank and credit card accounts. Separate business from personal spending. Create and send invoices at any time, and personalize your invoices using your logo as well as customize the subject line and main message of the invoice email. Send a mobile reminder to customers before payment is due; and, QBSE lets you know when your invoice is viewed and paid. Send receipts for paid invoices. Duplicate prior invoices to send them again, eliminating busy work. Accept mobile payments and take advantage of free bank transfers. Track mileage using your phone’s GPS and delete trips, along with mileage, in bulk. Use your phone to take photos of receipts for your expenses; QBSE automatically extracts key data from the receipt and uses the information to match an existing transaction or to create a new expense. Use QBSE’s Expense Finder feature to identify more potential deductions by securely connecting your bank accounts to pull in business expenses from the entire past year and sort them into Schedule C categories. When you sign in to QBSE for the first time from March 20 to April 15, select “No, I am still working on 2020 taxes” to access the Expense Finder feature. You can then connect to your bank accounts to securely import all 2020 expenses in just minutes. The Expense Finder feature automatically finds work expenses and organizes them by Schedule C category. Calculate and pay estimated quarterly taxes. Use QBSE Labs to test drive new features. If you need more guidance or have loyalties to a tax preparer, you can invite your tax preparer to work with your QBSE data using QBOA. Like the other versions of QBO, you can use a tablet, an Android or iOS smartphone, or desktop computer to access your data. In addition, QBSE uses the same security and encryption as banks, and your data is automatically backed up online. As you might expect, this version has the fewest reports available, and only one person and an invited accountant can access QBSE. Use this link to purchase QuickBooks Self-Employed. If you opt to include TurboTax in your subscription, you also can pay your estimated quarterly taxes online and export Schedule C information from QBO to TurboTax so that you can prepare your tax return more easily. With TurboTax as part of your subscription, you receive one federal and one state electronic tax return filing at no extra cost. The Simple Start version The Simple Start version of QBO is great for a new business with basic bookkeeping needs. With Simple Start, you can: Track your income and expenses. Download transactions from your bank and credit card accounts. Create an unlimited number of customers. Send unlimited estimates and invoices. Print checks and record transactions to track expenses. Track and pay sales taxes. Track, create, and send 1099-Misc forms. Import data from Microsoft Excel or QuickBooks Desktop. Invite up to two accountants to access your data. Integrate with available apps in QBO’s App Center. Although the Simple Start version supports Accounts Receivable functions, you can’t set up invoices to bill customers on a recurring basis. You also can’t track bills due in the future in the Simple Start version because it doesn’t include any Accounts Payable functions. However, the Simple Start version does include a trial balance and a general ledger. Although the Simple Start version allows two accountants to work in the client’s company, Simple Start is still designed for a single user. Therefore, the accountant cannot create the client’s company for the client. At the time the company is created in QBO, whoever creates the company becomes, in QBO parlance, the Master Administrator. In addition to the single-user restriction, the Simple Start version offers more than 50 reports. And Simple Start users can memorize report settings and produce memorized reports. Use this link to purchase QuickBooks Simple Start. For subscription levels that support multiple users, the accountant can create the company for the client and then assign the master administrator role to the client. And, if the accountant doesn’t make the client the master administrator when creating the company, the accountant can, later on, transfer the master administrator role to the client. The Essentials version The Essentials version of QBO includes all the features found in Simple Start. In addition, with the Essentials version, you can: Set up invoices to automatically bill on a recurring schedule. Take advantage of Accounts Payable functions, including entering vendor bills and scheduling their payment for later. Create and post recurring transactions. Track time. Control what your users can access. The Essentials version permits three simultaneous users and two accountant users as well as an unlimited number of users who log in only to use time-tracking tools. In addition, the Essentials version contains the 57 reports found in Simple Start and 30 additional reports. The Plus version The Plus version of QBO is the most full-featured version of QBO. It contains all the features found in the Essentials version. In addition, you can: Create, send, and track purchase orders. Track inventory using the first in, first out (FIFO) inventory valuation method. QBO supports light inventory needs: If you sell finished goods, QBO should be able to manage your needs. But if you need to assemble finished goods to sell, QBO won’t meet your needs on its own. You can look for an add-on app to supplement your inventory needs. Categorize income and expenses using class tracking. Track sales and profitability by business location. You can assign only one location to a transaction, but you can assign multiple classes to a transaction. Give employees and subcontractors limited access to the QBO company to enter time worked. Track billable hours by customer. QBO supports light job-costing needs, but it does not allow you to automatically cost labor. Track projects. Create budgets to estimate future income and expenses, and you can create multiple budgets per year, location, class, or customer. The Plus version supports five simultaneous billed users and two accountant users as well as an unlimited number of users who log in only to use reports or time-tracking tools. The Plus version also contains more than 120 reports: all of the reports found in both the Simple Start and the Essentials versions, and some additional reports. The Advanced version Intuit has recently started offering QBO Advanced, a version aimed at users who have outgrown QBO Plus. In addition to all of the features you find in QBO Plus, using QBO Advanced, you can: Have up to 25 simultaneous users with full access. Connect with a dedicated Customer Success Manager to handle support questions; support calls go to the front of the line instead of waiting in queue. Customer Success Managers also provide information on online training and QuickBooks products; subscribers to QBO Advanced are entitled to five free online training courses annually. Establish custom permissions for your users. Efficiently import hundreds of invoice transactions created outside of QuickBooks through a CSV file at one time. Enable workflows to trigger reminders for customers and internal team members. Utilize up to 48 custom fields. Implement the included online backup service, which allows you to back-up and restore your accounting data. Batch create transactions, including invoices, bills, checks, and expenses. Visualize your data in the Performance Center with customizable chart widgets. Take advantage of enhanced reporting capabilities called Smart Reporting, powered by Fathom. Users of QBO Advanced face only two real limitations: They can have up to 25 billed users and 3 unbilled accountant users. Get more information on QBO Advanced. Simple Start, Essentials, Plus, and Advanced with Payroll End users who sign up for QBO Simple Start, Essentials, Plus, or Advanced on their own and create their own companies, can create the companies using the Self Service Payroll option or the Full Service Payroll option. Or, later, they can sign up for payroll from within QBO. An accountant also can create the company that uses Self Service Payroll for a client.

Article / Updated 03-29-2021

When you convert a QuickBooks Desktop company to QBO, some data fully converts, some partially converts, and some doesn’t convert at all. In addition, QBO contains comparable alternatives for some desktop QuickBooks features and doesn’t contain alternatives for others. You can import any QuickBooks Desktop for Windows company or any QuickBooks for Mac company using QuickBooks U.S., including companies with the multicurrency feature turned on, as long as the company falls within the limitation of 350,000 targets. You also can import QuickBooks Desktop companies using UK and Canadian versions, again including companies that have multicurrency turned on. In general, the following types of files won’t convert and therefore can’t be imported: You cannot import QuickBooks Desktop data into any QBO company that was created more than 60 days ago, except for accountant company files. You can import QuickBooks Desktop companies into a QBOA company within 1,060 days of creating the QBOA account. When we say “accountant company files,” we’re talking about importing a QuickBooks Desktop company file into the Your Books company available in QBOA. You cannot import a QuickBooks Desktop company into QBO subscriptions using international versions of QBO other than UK and Canadian. You cannot import non-Intuit accounting software company files. If you need to import company data from a non-Intuit product, you’ll need to work with Intuit’s full-service team. You cannot directly import accounting data stored in spreadsheet files. You can import these via a third-party app called Transaction Pro Importer. It’s important to understand that, even if your company data meets the preceding criteria, some data still won’t convert when you import; the list below identifies some of the more visible things that don’t convert: Reconciliation reports: Save your reconciliation reports in QuickBooks Desktop or as PDF files to access them later. In QBO, continue reconciling where you left off. Recurring credit card charges: At your Merchant Center, cancel each existing automatic credit card recurring charge and re-create it in QBO as a recurring sales receipt. All other recurring transactions convert and import. On the good news side, QBO imports sub-accounts it finds in your QuickBooks Desktop Chart of Accounts. Previous versions of QBO didn’t support this capability. Reports: Find a similar report in QBO and customize it to your preference. Check out QBO’s App Center for a list of reporting apps that can help your business. Audit trail: Your desktop audit trail won’t come over, but all changes going forward will be captured in the Audit Log within QBO. Non-posting transactions or accounts won’t convert except for estimates and purchase orders. QuickBooks Desktop Data That Won’t Import What Doesn’t Import Recommendation QuickBooks Desktop usernames and passwords QBO requires each user who has access to a company to log in using a password. Existing QuickBooks Desktop users do not automatically have access to QBO. Instead, the company master administrator will need to re-invite users from QBO to gain access. Be aware that, in QBO, you can limit the user’s ability to see and use different parts of QBO, but you can’t control access at the level of transactions as you can in QuickBooks Desktop. Shortcut list and icon bar settings QBO has its own distinct keyboard shortcuts. While working in QBO, press Ctrl+Alt+? to see the shortcut menu. Price levels QBO currently doesn’t support price levels or any automatic way to adjust prices. If you have price levels defined in your QuickBooks Desktop data file, the conversion process won’t convert them to QBO. Reminders Reminders don’t convert to QBO. Use an external calendar such as Google Calendar or try using recurring transactions set to remind you instead of scheduling themselves. QBOA users do have the ability to create reminders by establishing projects and tasks. Vehicle list You’ll need to set up vehicles as fixed assets and, if you don’t buy vehicles outright, you’ll need to set up corresponding loans for each vehicle. Reconciliation reports Save your reconciliation reports in QuickBooks Desktop to access them later. In QBO, just continue reconciling where you left off. And, although reconciliation reports don’t convert, all reconciled transactions in registers convert as reconciled transactions in QBO. Subtotal items You can add subtotals to transaction documents. Recurring credit card charges Cancel each existing Automatic Credit Card recurring charge from your Merchant Center, and re-create it in QBO as a recurring sales receipt. Note: All other recurring transactions will import. Memorized reports Find a similar report in QBO and customize it to your preference. Audit trail Your desktop audit trail won’t import, but all new changes you make in QBO going forward will be captured in the QBO audit log. Inventory from QuickBooks for Mac QuickBooks for Mac isn’t capable of exporting inventory to QBO. Instead, you can save your QuickBooks for Mac company as a QuickBooks for Windows file and export it from a Windows machine running QuickBooks Desktop. There. Now, that wasn’t too painful, was it?

Article / Updated 03-29-2021

You’ll probably want to review the company setup information for client QuickBooks Online (QBO) companies to make sure that things are set up properly for your client. You can take advantage of the Client Overview, which provides, well, an overview of the state of the client’s QBO company. And, you’ll want to review the settings, the Chart of Accounts, and the lists within each client’s QBO companies. The Client Overview page This page can help you get a sense of where things stand in your client’s QBO company. To display the Client Overview, open the client QBO company using the Go to Client’s QuickBooks list box on the QuickBooks Online Accountant (QBOA) toolbar. Then, click the Overview tab in the Navigation bar. At the top of the Client Overview page (see figure), you see information on the client’s subscriptions and connected apps. In the second section of the Client Overview page, shown in the following figure, you see information on the client’s banking activity; the accounts in the list are set up either as bank accounts or as credit card accounts. The third section of the Client Overview page shows the status of the client QBO company related to issues you commonly find as problems in client QBO companies (see the following figure), giving you leads on information you may need to examine in the client QBO company. The final section of the Client Overview page shows the transaction volume for a given date range. As you can see in the following figure, it’s designed to help you determine how much time you’ll need to spend on a given client’s books. Be aware that there are no links on the Client Overview page except at the bottom of the Client Issues section, where you can click View Chart of Accounts. However, before clicking on that link, you may first want to review the company setup information. Company setup information You review company setup information to make sure that the client QBO company uses the correct accounting method, employer EIN, and legal business organization. You also can turn on (or off, but we’ve never met an accountant who wanted to turn off this option) the option to use account numbers in the Chart of Accounts. To review company settings, follow these steps: Open the client QBO company you want to review. You can click the QuickBooks logo to the left of the client’s name on the Clients page of QBOA, or you can use the list of clients in the QBOA toolbar under Go to QuickBooks Click the Gear button on the right side of the QBOA toolbar to display the Gear menu. From the Your Company group on the left side of the Gear menu, click Account and Settings. The Company tab (selected on the left side of the Account and Settings dialog box) appears. If you set up the company for your client, QBO displays the Company Profile dialog box, requesting the company email, company address, city, state, and zip be filled in. All the fields are required, but you can bypass the dialog box by clicking the X in the upper-right corner. Review the settings. In particular, set or correct the Company Name, Legal Name, and Employer ID (EIN). To make changes, click any setting or click the pencil that appears in the upper-right corner of the section of settings. QBO makes the setting options available; make your changes and click Save. Click Usage on the left side of the Account and Settings dialog box. QBO displays the Usage Limits tab shown, where you can review how the client QBO subscription fits within the usage limits Intuit applies to the chosen subscription. Click Advanced on the left side of the Account and Settings dialog box. The settings on the Advanced page of the Account and Settings dialog box appear. Review the settings. In particular, set or correct the following: The settings in the Accounting section, which include fiscal and tax year information as well as the QBO company’s accounting method In the Company Type section, the tax form setting The settings in the Chart of Accounts section; this is where you control the use of numbers in the Chart of Accounts The settings in the Other Preferences section, which isn’t shown but includes displaying warnings when duplicate check numbers and bill numbers are used Review any other settings on any of the pages in the Account and Settings dialog box that you feel might need your attention. Click Done to save your changes. QBO displays a message at the top of the screen indicating that your changes were saved. The Chart of Accounts In addition to checking company settings, you’ll probably want to review your client’s Chart of Accounts to make sure it looks the way you want. You can click the link at the bottom of the Client Overview page to display your client’s Chart of Accounts. Or, you can use the Navigation bar: In the client QBO company Navigation bar, click Accounting →Chart of Accounts. The Chart of Accounts page appears. You also can open the Chart of Accounts from the Accountant Tools button. All roads lead to Rome. If you chose to enable the option to use account numbers while you were reviewing company settings, the Chart of Accounts page displays a column for account numbers at the left edge of the page and the Batch Edit button in the upper-right corner—it looks like a pencil. You can use the Batch Edit button to add account numbers. Importing a Chart of Accounts When you create a new company, QBO automatically sets up the Chart of Accounts it thinks you’ll need. But you don’t need to use it. Instead, you can replace it by importing a Chart of Accounts that you’ve set up in Excel or as a CSV file that can include sub-accounts along with their parent accounts, if your client’s company needs sub-accounts. To import subaccounts, use the convention of Account: Subaccount, meaning you’ll list the parent account first, followed by a colon, and then list the subaccount. The file you import needs to follow a particular format, and you can download a sample file to get the hang of the layout before you set up your file. On the Chart of Accounts page, click the arrow beside the New button and then click Import. QBO displays the Import Accounts page shown here. Click the Download a Sample File link and open the file in Excel to see the format your file should follow. Once you set up your Chart of Accounts file, you return to the Import Accounts page; click the Browse button to select your file and click Next in the lower-right corner of the Import Accounts page. On the page that appears, shown in the following figure, you map the headings in your file to the fields in QBO by selecting your field names from the list boxes in the Your Field column of the table; then, click Next. QBO displays the accounts it expects to import; if all looks well, click Import and QBO imports your Chart of Accounts. Editing or adding accounts You might need to edit an account to change an account’s Category Type or its name, and you use the Account window to make the change. If you decide to add account numbers to the Chart of Accounts, you can add an account number in the Account window, but there’s a much easier way, which we show you in the next section, “Adding account numbers.” To display the Account window, click the down arrow in the Action column at the right side of the account and, from the menu that appears, click Edit. Or, if you need to create a new account, click the New button above the list. The window you see when creating a new account looks just like the one you see when you edit an existing account. You can click View Register beside any Asset, Liability, or Equity account to display the account’s register. Retained Earnings is the exception; it functions like Income and Expense accounts. You can click Run Report to the right of Income or Expense account, to display a QuickReport for the account. Adding account numbers We promised we’d show you an easy way to add account numbers to a QBO company Chart of Accounts. First, make sure you enable the setting on the Advanced tab of the Settings dialog box (in the Chart of Accounts section) shown previously. Then, on the Chart of Accounts page, click the Batch Edit button (the one that looks like a pencil on the right side of the table above the table headings) to display the page shown. Type account numbers in the Number column. Save buttons appear at the top- and bottom-right corners of the page (you can’t see the bottom of the page); click either button after you finish entering the account numbers. Because a QBOA session times out by default after 60 minutes of inactivity, you might want to save periodically as you enter account numbers in case something unexpected pulls you away from your work. After you add account numbers you can sort the Chart of Accounts in account-number order by clicking Number in the column headings on the Chart of Accounts page. List information You also can review list information. Using the links in the Navigation bar, you can view overview information about customers, vendors, and employees. To view customers, as shown, you click Sales in the Navigation bar (it might say Invoicing, depending on the choices made when creating the company) and then click Customers. To view vendor information, click Expenses in the Navigation bar and then click Vendors. To review employee information, click Workers in the Navigation bar and then click Employees. When you click Workers→ Contractors, QBO displays the 1099 vendors set up by the client. On any of these pages except the Contractors page (and payroll needs to be set up before you can use its status bar), you can use the status bar at the top of the page to identify activity over the last year and, if you click one of the elements on the status bar, QBO filters the list to view that particular subset of the list. For example, you can filter the list of customers on the Customers page to view only those customers with overdue invoices or only those customers with unbilled activity. And you can use the Batch Actions button (just above the table) to perform, well, batch actions, such as emailing a batch of customers. If your list is long, use the text box beside the Batch Actions button to search for a particular list entry. You also can sort the list by name or by open balance; just click the appropriate heading below the Batch Actions button. Note that you can import names into a people list. To review other lists, click the Gear button in the QBOA toolbar. In the Lists section of the Gear menu that appears, you can opt to view any of three common lists (the Products and Services list, the Recurring Transactions list, or the Attachments list). Or, you can click All Lists at the top of the Lists section to display the Lists page shown, which you can use to navigate to any list other than a people-oriented list. Export and import bank feed rules When your client takes advantage of bank feeds and downloads transactions from the bank to his QBO company, you can help ensure that the transactions post properly. In many cases, the rules used by one client can apply to another, so, rather than re-creating rules, export them from one client and import them to another. When you export rules, QBO exports all the rules in the client’s company. You can then selectively import rules using the Import Rules wizard. To export rules from a client company, open that company and follow these steps: Choose Banking→Rules from the Navigation bar. QBO displays the Rules page (see the following figure). Click the down arrow beside the New Rule button. Click the down arrow beside the New Rule button and choose Export Rules. QBO creates an Excel file containing the rules and stores it in your Downloads folder. The name of the file includes the name of the client whose rules you exported and the words “Bank_Feed_Rules.” Click Close in the QBO message. Switch to the company to which you want to import these rules. Repeat the preceding Steps 1 to 3; in Step 3, choose Import Rules. QBO starts a wizard that helps you import the rules. On the first Import Rules wizard screen, select the file you created in Step 3 and click Next. On the second wizard screen, select the rules you want to import and click Next. On the third wizard screen, you have the option to select categories for the rules that match the Chart of Accounts of the client to which you are importing the rules; make any changes and, when you finish, click Import. QBO tells you how many rules imported successfully. Click Finish. QBO redisplays the Rules page for the client you opened in Step 4, where you can verify that the rules you wanted to import appear.

Article / Updated 03-29-2021

QuickBooks Online offers you the ability to manage your business’s accounting in the cloud. The software is divided into two products: one for end users and the other for accountants. Interfaces for both products are available on multiple platforms. QuickBooks Online (QBO) is the cloud-based product for end users who need to perform typical accounting tasks. QBO is based on the same principles as the QuickBooks Desktop product—that is, it uses lists to, for example, manage customers and vendors, and it includes transactions similar to the ones found in the QuickBooks Desktop product. But, QBO is not simply a “rewrite” of the QuickBooks Desktop product for the web. It was designed and developed as a new product, optimized for web-based usage. QuickBooks Online Accountant (QBOA) is the cloud-based portal that accountants use to access client QBO companies, work in them, and communicate with clients. QBOA also includes a QBO company in its Your Books section that accountants can use to track the accounting of their own businesses. How QBO and QBOA interfaces compare QBO and QBOA were initially written and optimized to be used in the major web browsers—Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Microsoft Edge, and Internet Explorer. Later, Intuit added QBO apps that you can use to work in QBO on iOS and Android mobile devices. Intuit also offers a desktop version of QBO, referred to in this book as, cleverly, QBO Desktop. This version is not a mobile app (it won’t work on phones and isn’t available in the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store) but it will work on any Mac or Windows computer. This includes “portable” computers, like laptops and tablets running Windows or Mac OS, making it somewhat mobile. It also is not the QuickBooks Desktop product, which is not a cloud-based product. Explore what QBO and QBOA look like in a browser. The next section gives an overview of what the QBO Desktop edition looks like, as well as detailing some of the things you can do in the iOS and Android mobile app versions of QBO. In a browser, an open company in QBO looks similar to the one shown below. The Navigation bar runs down the left side of the screen. If you’ve been a QuickBooks Desktop user and you’ve used the Left Icon Bar in that product, you might find the Navigation bar a familiar tool. The Left Icon Bar and the Navigation bar work the same way; you click a link in either of them to navigate to a portion of the program. Clicking the three-striped button beside the QuickBooks logo above the Navigation bar enables you to collapse the Navigation bar to view just the icons (and clicking it again expands the Navigation bar back to the view shown). When you collapse the Navigation bar, you have more screen real estate to view the right side of the QBO interface. At the top of the screen, you see tools that help QBO users create transactions, search for existing transactions, and view settings for the QBO company. The following figure shows what an accountant sees immediately upon logging into QBOA. The Navigation bar changes to support an accountant’s needs. When an accountant opens a client’s company from within QBOA (see the following figure), the interface resembles what a client sees, with some minor differences. Compare the two interfaces. First, you know you’re using QBOA because the top of the Navigation pane shows QB Accountant. Second, the Accountant Tools menu (the briefcase icon) displays tools not found in QBO that help accountants manage client companies. Even though an open company looks a bit different depending on whether you open it using QBO or QBOA, the basic functionality doesn’t really change, other than accountants have more options than end users have. QBO Desktop and QBO Mobile You can work with QBO and QBOA without using a browser; you can use QBO Desktop or you can use the iOS or Android apps. QBO Desktop If you prefer, you can work with QBO using QBO Desktop; it’s purported to run faster than QBO in your browser, but we’ll let you judge for yourself. To download QBO Desktop, use your browser to navigate to the QBO sign-in page. On the page that appears, you’ll see a Free Download button; click it and follow the onscreen instructions to download and install QBO Desktop. Both Windows and Mac users can use the same QBO Desktop app; what you download from the QBO sign-in page works on both platforms. Ingenious, don’t you think? The word “app” has become a buzzword and is often used when it probably shouldn’t be. In this article, we’re using the word “app” only when we refer to the mobile versions of QBO and QBOA that are available for download from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store. In many places online, you’ll find references to a QBO Windows app — and, at the time we wrote this, there was no Windows app per se. There is QBO Desktop, which allows Windows users (except Windows Phone users) to use QBO while being mobile — on, for example, laptops and tablets. But QBO Desktop is not available from any of the “mobile device” stores (Google Play or Apple App) and, therefore, we’re not calling it an app. This figure shows QBO Desktop with a QBO company open. This figure shows QBOA just after opening it in QBO Desktop (but before opening any client company). QBOA users have the same additional options in QBO Desktop that they have in a browser. The menus at the top of the screen are the biggest visual difference between QBO and QBOA in QBO Desktop and QBO and QBOA in a browser. If you’ve been a QuickBooks Desktop product user, you know that you can use the menus to navigate. Under the hood, QBO Desktop offers some options that you won’t find readily available in a browser, such as the ability to work in multiple windows. QBO mobile apps At no additional cost to you, mobile apps are also available for iPhones, iPads, and Android devices. The iOS and Android apps are optimized for touch interaction and on-the-go workflows like customer management, invoicing, estimates, and signatures. You also can use the mobile apps to track the status of invoices, take payments, reconcile bank accounts, capture expenses, and check reports. And, you’ll find Pinch and Zoom functionality in the mobile apps and in browsers on mobile devices. You can get the mobile apps here. In addition to using the QBO mobile apps for iOS and Android, you also can access the QBO sign-in page and your QBO account from your mobile device’s browser at Intuit. New features are added often to the mobile apps. For example, you can customize invoice templates from the browser-based QBO and from QBO Desktop. You can customize templates from mobile devices but not using mobile apps; instead, use the browser-based QBO on your mobile device. Be aware that the browser-based version of QBO and QBOA has additional functionality and keyboard shortcuts geared towards more in-depth business accounting tasks. So, take your choice; you’re not limited: Work in a browser, work in QBO Desktop, or work in a mobile app, depending on your needs at the moment.

Article / Updated 10-26-2019

You can use the Customers, Vendors, and Employees pages in QuickBooks Online (QBO) in a variety of ways. The Contractors page is more limited than the rest; from it, you can search for contractors and prepare 1099s. From the Customers, Vendors, or Employees pages that list all the people in those categories, you can sort the people in the list, export the list to Excel, and perform actions on a selected group of people on the list. You also can print a basic report by clicking the Print button on any list page; the Print button appears just above the Action column. How to work with a particular person in QBO You can select a particular customer, vendor, or employee and view the transactions associated with that person as well as the person’s details, and you can attach files to the person. Here, you'll work with customers. To search for a particular person, type some characters that match the person or company name in the Search box that appears above the list of people. When you select any person from the list, QBO displays the page specifically associated with that person. The page has two tabs; in the following figure, you see the Transaction List tab; the other tab is Customer Details. If you have enabled the Projects feature in your company, QBO displays a third tab called the Projects tab, which lists any projects you have created in your QBO company. From either tab, you click the Edit button to edit information about that person, and you click the New Transaction button to add a transaction associated with that person. From the details page of a person, you can attach files to keep track of important financial information. For example, you can attach a vendor’s 1099 document, a customer’s contract, or an employee’s receipts. You’re not limited to text documents; you also can attach photos. Simply drag and drop the item into the Attachments box at the bottom left side of the appropriate details page; if you prefer, you can click the box and a standard Windows Open dialog box appears so that you can navigate to and select the document you want to attach. Each attachment can be no larger than 25MB. To view documents that you’ve already attached to a person, click the Show Existing link below the Attachments box and QBO opens a pane on the right side of the page showing the linked attachments. You also can add attachments to a transaction. To view transactions that have attachments, you add the Attachments column to the table that appears on the person’s Transaction List page. Display the person’s Transaction List page and then click the table Gear button above the Action column. From the list that appears, click Show More. Show More changes to Show Less and a check box for Attachments appears; click it and the Attachments column appears as part of the table grid. You can identify it as the column heading with a paper clip. Displaying the Attachments column for one person displays it in the Transaction List table for all persons of that type. If attachments exist for any particular transaction, you’ll see the number of attachments in the column. Clicking the number lists the transaction’s attachments; clicking an attachment in the list opens that attachment. You add attachments to the various transactions as you create them; only attachments associated with transactions appear on the various Transaction List pages, and attachments associated with a person appear on the associated person’s page. When you finish working with one person, you can easily switch to another in that list using the list’s Split View list pane. You can click the Split View icon (shown in the preceding image) to display a pane listing the people stored in the list (see the following image). From the list in the Split View pane, you can scroll down to find a person, or you can type a few letters of the person’s name or company name in the Search box at the top of the list to find that person in the list. Or, you can sort the list by name or by open balance. Click a person to switch to that person’s page. To add a new person to the list, click the plus (+) symbol at the top of the list in the Split View pane. To display the Customers page, click Customers at the top of the Split View list or click Sales in the Navigation bar and then click Customers. To close Split View, click the Close Split View button. Sorting a list in QuickBooks Online In addition to sorting in Split View, you can sort the lists on the Customers and Vendors page by name or open balance. By default, QBO sorts the entries on these pages alphabetically by name in ascending order. You can sort employees in alphabetical order and reverse alphabetical order, by pay method, or by status (active or inactive). You can’t sort contractors; QBO, by default, sorts them in alphabetical order. To change the sort order for the Customers or Vendors lists, click Sales or Expenses in the Navigation bar and then click Customers or Vendors to display the appropriate page; for this example, I use the Customers page. Next, click the heading for the column by which you want to sort. If you click the Customer/Company column heading, QBO displays the customers in descending alphabetical order. If you click the Open Balance column heading, QBO sorts the list in Open Balance order, from lowest to highest. How to export a QBO list to Excel You can export a list of your customers or vendors to Excel. If you don’t have a copy of Excel on your computer, you can download and use the free mobile version of Excel. Click the appropriate link in the Navigation bar (Sales or Expenses) to subsequently display either the Customers page or the Vendors page; the Vendors page is used in this example. At the right edge of the page, just above the Action column, three buttons appear. Click the middle button, and QBO exports the list to an Excel file; a button for the file appears at the bottom of the screen in Chrome. Click the button at the bottom of the screen, and Excel opens the file. You can edit the file if you click the Enable Editing button in the yellow bar at the top of the window. And, for those of you using Excel mobile, you need to sign in using your Microsoft account to edit the file. How to work with a batch of people in QBO When you work with customers or vendors, you can take certain actions simultaneously for a group of people. For example, you can select specific vendors by clicking the check box beside each name and then send the same email to those vendors, pay bills online for the selected vendors if you are using the Bill.com add-on with QBO Essentials, Plus, or Advanced, or make the selected vendors inactive. You can use the Bill.com add-on to pay bills online from QBO; there is a full-service Bill.com app, but here, I’m talking about the add-on to QBO. You’ll find the Bill.com app available in the Intuit App Center. You can visit the store by choosing Apps from the Navigation pane. There is no monthly subscription fee for Bill.com, but there is a per transaction fee for each payment you process. For customers, in addition to sending email, you can create and send statements to them, assign the selected customers to a customer type (you use customer type to group customers), and make the selected customers inactive. To use one of these actions for a group of people, click the appropriate link in the Navigation bar—Sales or Expenses—followed by the appropriate list page to display the associated page. For this example, I used the Customers page. Next, click the check box beside the names you want to include in your action and then click the Batch Actions button. Select the action you want to take, and then follow the prompts onscreen to complete the action.

Article / Updated 10-26-2019

The Products and Services list is the QuickBooks Online (QBO) equivalent to the QuickBooks Desktop product’s Items list. You display the Products and Services list by choosing Gear→Products and Services. In the following figure, the compacted view of the list is shown so that you could see more products; you select the compacted view from the table gear on the right side of the page. You use the Products and Services list pretty much the same way you use the Customer and Vendor lists; for example, you can search for an item by its name, SKU, or sales description. You can identify the columns you can use to sort the list if you slide your mouse over the column heading; if the mouse pointer changes to a hand, you can click that column to sort the list using the information in that column. How to establish categories in QBO Categories replace sub-items and are available to all subscriptions that use sub-items except for those who migrate from QuickBooks Desktop. You can use categories to organize what you sell and, using various Products and Services reports, hopefully help you better understand what people are buying from you. Categories do not affect your accounting or your financial reports, and you cannot assign categories to transactions. You also can use classes and/or locations to help further catalog transactions and financial information. You can create new categories as you create items or, if you prefer, you can click the More button on the Products and Services list page and choose Manage Categories to create categories so that they are available as you create items. Yes, you can do both. From the Product Categories page shown in the following figure, you can click the New Category button to add a category; the Category Information panel appears on the right side of your screen and you simply supply the category name. If the category is a sub-category of an existing category, check the Is a Sub-Category box and select the name of the existing category. Click Save at the bottom of the panel to set up your category. You can create sub-categories up to four levels deep. That is, you can create a category called Clothing and then create a sub-category of Clothing called Shoes. For the Shoes sub-category, you can create a sub-category called Women’s Shoes, and, for the Women’s Shoes category, you can create one last sub-category called Sneakers. You can’t create a sub-category for Sneakers, but you can create another sub-category for Women’s Shoes called Dress Shoes. If necessary, you can edit an existing category; click the Edit link beside the category you want to modify in the table on the Product Categories page. Once again, the Category Information panel appears, displaying the category’s current information. Make changes and click Save; alternatively, you can click Remove to remove a category. The effect on items of removing a category depends on whether you remove a sub-category or a category. If you remove a sub-category, QBO moves the items assigned to it up one level. If you remove a category (with no sub-categories) QBO reclassifies the items as uncategorized. How to set up sales taxes in QBO Don’t freak out; this is a lot easier than you might be imagining. QBO contains a wizard that literally walks you through the process, asking you easy questions such as your address and whether you need to charge sales tax outside your state. Setting up sales taxes before you set up items makes your life easier. Why? Because QBO uses the sales tax information you supply as you set up items. If you don’t set up sales taxes before you set up items, you’ll have to go back and edit all your items for taxability. Yuk! QBO tracks and reports sales tax automatically for companies operating on the Accrual basis of accounting. Further, QBO automatically calculates sales tax on transactions if you set your QBO company accounting basis to Accrual. So, what should you do if your company operates on the Cash basis of accounting? Set your company accounting method to Accrual before you set up sales taxes (click Gear→Account and Settings→Advanced). Then, set up sales tax and then change your accounting method back to Cash. Be aware that the Sales Tax Center will track your sales tax liability on the Accrual basis, but you can use the Sales Tax Liability reports to identify the correct amount of sales tax to pay. The first time you click Taxes, QBO prompts you to set up sales taxes. Click the Setup Sales Tax button. If you haven’t already entered your company’s address in QBO, the wizard prompts you to supply your address. If you have already entered your address, QBO displays it onscreen for you to verify. Click Looks Good when your address is correct, and then click Next. The wizard then asks if you need to charge sales tax outside your home state; choose No or Yes, as appropriate; if you click Yes, you identify the additional states where you charge sales tax. Click Next. QBO next asks you when your current tax year starts, how often you file sales tax returns, and the date you started collecting sales tax for your taxing agency. Click Got it!, and that’s it—your sales taxes are set up. As part of QBO’s set-up process, it marks all existing customers as tax-paying customers. If you have any customers who don’t have to pay tax, such as government agencies, schools, and charities, edit those customers (Sales→Customers→Edit) and, on the Tax Info tab of the Customer Details dialog box, uncheck the This Customer is Taxable check box and supply exemption details such as the reason the customer is exempt from sales tax and the customer’s exemption certificate ID. You might also want to attach a copy of the exemption certificate to the customer on the Customer Details page in QBO. Adding service and non-inventory items You can create inventory, non-inventory, and service items, and you can edit batches of items to change their type. 1. To display the Products and Services list, choose Gear-->Products and Services. 2. Click the New button. QBO displays the Product/Service Information panel on the right side of your screen where you select whether you’re creating an inventory item, a non-inventory item, a service, or a bundle. 3. Click a type to select it. This example uses Non-inventory item. You create a service item the same way you create a non-inventory item, supplying the same kind of information shown in these steps. QBO then displays the panel for the type of item you chose; the following figure shows the Non-inventory panel. 4. Supply a name for the item and, if appropriate, a stock keeping unit (SKU). You also can select the item’s category. You can upload a picture of the item by clicking the Upload button and navigating to the location where you store the picture. 5. In the Sales Information section, you can a. Select the I Sell This Product/Service to My Customers check box and supply a default description, b. Supply the price you charge when you sell this item, and c. Select the income account associated with the item; if necessary, you can establish a new account. QBO uses this information when you select this item on sales transactions. 6. Make sure a check appears in the Is Taxable check box if appropriate, and choose one of the predefined entries that appear in the Sales Tax Category and What You Sell lists. 7. To display the Purchasing Information section, place a check in the I Purchase This Product/Service From a Vendor check box and then, if necessary, click the Show More link at the bottom of the window. 8. Supply a default description, the cost you pay when you purchase the item, the expense account associated with the item, and, if you want, the vendor from whom you prefer to purchase the item. QBO uses this information when you select this item on expense transactions. 9. Click Save and Close. QBO saves the item and redisplays the Products and Services list; the new item appears in the list. How to create an inventory item Creating an inventory item has a few additional types of information you need to supply. Supply the quantity you have on hand and the date on which you determined the quantity on hand. You must supply an As Of date or QBO won’t let you save the item. If you intend to enter historical transactions that use the item you’re setting up, make sure that you enter an As Of date early enough to accommodate those transactions—typically the beginning of your fiscal year. Remember, before you can sell an item, you must own some of it. If you don’t own any at the time you create the item, you’ll probably buy some of it using an expense transaction, and that will update your quantities for you. If you’re using QBO Plus, you can supply a reorder point. Define your reorder point as the minimum quantity you judge that you need on hand at any given point in time. QBO uses the reorder point you establish to monitor the quantity of the item in stock, and when the quantity on hand falls equal to or below the established reorder point, QBO reminds you to order more. You can set a reorder point after you have created an inventory item; find the item in the Products and Services list and click Edit in its Action column. Then, supply the reorder point and click Save and Close. You also can use the Products and Services list to see the items for which you have specified reorder points that are low or out of stock. At the top of the list, shown in the following figure, click Low Stock to filter the Products and Services list to show only items for which you have specified a reorder point that are also low on stock. Click Out of Stock to view items for which you have specified a reorder point that you don’t have and should consider ordering. QBO defines “low stock” as an item for which you have specified a reorder point and for which you have one or fewer on hand. To order a low-stock or an out-of-stock item, click the arrow in its Action column and choose Reorder from the drop-down list that appears. QBO creates a purchase order with the item’s information filled in. Complete the purchase order and send it to the supplier. Be aware that QBO creates only one purchase order for the items you select. To send purchase orders to multiple vendors, select the items to reorder for a single vendor, click Batch Actions—which appears above the Action column after you select an item—and then choose Reorder. Then, repeat the process for items to reorder from a different vendor. You can easily cancel the filter for Low Stock or Out of Stock items. Once you select one of these filters, an X appears in the upper right corner of the filter graphic. Click that X, and QBO redisplays the complete Products and Services list. How to work with bundles in QBO If you are using QBO Essentials or QBO Plus, you can create bundles to group items that you often sell together. If you were a QuickBooks Desktop user, think of a bundle as a group item in the desktop product. A bundle is not an assembly; QBO doesn’t create a bill of materials for a bundle, nor does QBO track a bundle as a separate item with a quantity and separate cost. That means QBO doesn’t track quantity on hand for bundles. If you weren’t a QuickBooks Desktop user, think of a bundle as a collection of items—both products and services—that a customer buys from you at the same time. For example, assume you run a landscaping business that sells water features as well as lighting, trimming, and fertilizing services. If a customer buys a water feature, you typically need to sell the customer the water feature itself, concrete to set up the water feature, and a pump to pump the water through the water feature. You can set up the three items needed to create a water feature—the feature, the concrete, and the pump—as a bundle, because you’ll need to sell all three at the same time. The idea behind a bundle is to make selling easier by placing all the items in the bundle on a sales form in one step rather than making you separately add each item that makes up the bundle to various sales documents. You can use bundles on Estimates, Invoices, Credit Memos, Sales Receipts, Refund Receipts, Delayed Credits, and Delayed Charges. Bundles aren’t available for purchasing documents nor can you add a bundle to a price rule. To create a bundle, follow these steps: 1. Choose Gear→Products and Services to display the Products and Services list. 2. Click the New button to display the Select a Type panel. 3. Click Bundle. QBO displays the Bundle panel shown here. 4. Provide a name, an SKU if appropriate, and a description to appear on sales forms for the bundle. 5. In the Products/Services Included in the Bundle section, check the Display Bundle Components When Printing or Sending Transactions check box if you want to list, on sales documents, the components included in the bundle. 6. Use the table grid at the bottom of the panel (see the following figure) to identify the products included in the bundle. a. Click Show More to expand the panel so that you can add additional items to the bundle. b. Click in the first row of the Product/Service column, and QBO displays a list box you can use to select an item to include in the bundle. c. Supply a quantity for the item. d. Repeat Steps b and c for each item you want to include in the bundle. A bundle can include up to 50 items. And, you can reorder the items in the bundle by dragging the graphic that appears to the left of each item (the one that looks like nine dots). e. When you finish adding items to the bundle, click Save and Close. QBO saves the bundle; you’ll find it at the bottom of the Products and Services list. To use the bundle, you simply add it to a sales document the same way you add any product or service to a sales document. See Chapter 6 for details on adding products and services to sales documents. And, once you add a bundle to a sales document, you can edit the items included in the bundle, adding or deleting them as needed. The price of a bundle equals the sum of the bundle’s components. You can discount a bundle, but you cannot mark up a bundle nor can you track quantity on hand for a bundle; remember, a bundle isn’t an assembly. You can search for bundles the same way you search for any product or service. Use the Search box at the top of the Products and Services list to search by name or SKU. How to use pricing rules in QuickBooks Online Using pricing rules, currently a feature in beta testing but available in your QBO company if you enable it, you can control product prices. For example, you can Offer discounts on specific products. Increase the price of specified products. Offer special pricing to all or some customers. Make special pricing available for a specified period of time. For former QuickBooks Desktop users, pricing rules are similar to price levels; particularly, QBO doesn’t record a price change as a discount but rather as an override of the sale price. You can’t add a bundle to a price rule, but you can work around this issue if you add items included in a bundle to a price rule. Then, when you subsequently add the bundle to a sales document, the bundle will reflect the price rule pricing. To use pricing rules, turn the feature on by choosing Gear-->Account and Features-->Sales and editing the Products and Services section to turn on price rules. You can set up as many price rules as you want, but less than 10,000 works best in QBO. To create a pricing rule, choose Gear→Lists→All Lists. On the page that appears, click Price rules and then click Create a Rule. QBO displays the Create a Price Rule page shown here. On this page, supply a name for the rule, the start and end dates for the rule, the customers who qualify, and the products or services to which QBO should apply the rule. Specify how to adjust the price: using a percentage, a fixed amount, or a custom price. Indicate whether the rule is a price increase or decrease and how you want QBO to handle rounding. When you finish, click Save or Save and Close. When you create a sales transaction, QBO automatically applies any appropriate price rule to the transactions.

Article / Updated 10-26-2019

Before diving into using the QuickBooks Online Accountant (QBOA) tools available while you work in a client’s QBO company, take a look at the Work page in the Navigation pane, which functions as a practice management tool. Having such a tool in QBOA enables you to centralize practice management, because all team members in your firm have access to the Work page in QBOA. It’s important to understand that your clients don’t see the Work page—it is available only in QBOA, so only you and your team members see the Work page. Further, the information each team member sees on the Work page is specific only to his clients—the ones to whom your team member has access. The Work page enables you to track what needs to happen for both your clients and your own firm. And, although the terminology used on the Work page refers to projects, bear in mind that these projects are entirely different from the projects your clients can create in QBO. The Grid view in QBOA When you click Work in the Navigation bar, QBOA displays the default Grid view of the page. The Grid view displays task cards organized into date ranges (Due Today, This Week, Next Week, and in the Next 30 days). Each task card of a given project identifies the client for whom the work needs to be done (or, your own firm, if the project isn’t for a client) as well as the project name. Uniquely on each task card, you’ll find the task name. You can control some of what you see on the Grid view of the Work page. For example, you can filter the page to display information for all clients, your firm, particular clients, or specific team members. The Work feature also uses data in client QBO companies to automatically display deadlines you need to meet and things you need to do, such as payroll deadlines and reconciling connected banking transactions. If you don’t want to see this automatically created information, you can click the From QuickBooks slider. At the present time, the Work feature automatically suggests actions to take associated only with QBO; the Work feature doesn’t connect to other products like ProConnect Tax Online. Because the Grid view organizes tasks by due date, you won’t see any type of visual connection between tasks; that is, no lines appear, connecting tasks to each other, because the Grid view isn’t a flow chart. Grid view isn’t the only view available on the Work page; you can read about List view and Calendar view later in this chapter, after I discuss creating projects and tasks. How to create projects and tasks You can use the Work page to create client requests. With respect to practice management, you use the Work page to create projects, which represent things that need to be done. You break each project down into tasks, which are subsets of the project that provide more detail about what needs to be done to complete the project. You create tasks as part of a project, but you can assign different team members to different tasks on the same project. Projects are typically general things you need to accomplish by a specified deadline date, and tasks describe the specific things you need to do to complete the project. As you create a project, you assign a deadline date to the project, and you assign due dates to each task in the project. You identify the client with whom the project is associated and the team member who has responsibility for the project. Or, you can specify that the project is an internal one that affects your firm but not any of your clients. QBOA contains project templates that help you quickly create commonly needed projects, such as Monthly Bookkeeping or Client Onboarding. When you use one of these templates, QBOA creates not only the project but all the tasks associated with the project. You can then edit the project as needed. Creating a project To try to keep this information as easy to follow as possible, we'll create projects separately from creating tasks—even though you can, and probably will, create tasks when you create projects. To create a project, follow these steps: 1. Click Work in the Navigation pane. QBOA displays the Work page for your firm. 2. Click Create Project in the upper right corner of the page. QBOA opens a panel on the right side of the page that you use to create a project. 3. If your project falls into one of the predefined template categories of Bi-weekly Payroll, Client Onboard, Monthly Bookkeeping, or Yearly taxes, select the template from the Project Template list box. QBOA adds the tasks associated with the project template to the project, assigning each task a due date of “tomorrow.” 4. Fill in a name for the project. If you selected a project template, QBOA fills in the project name using the project template name. 5. From the Firm or Client list box, select the QBO client with whom the project is associated. If the project applies only to your firm and no client, select My Firm. 6. Set a project due date. The due date you set for the project is a constraint; if you add tasks to the project, you won’t be able to set due dates for the tasks that occur after the end of the project. 7. Using the Assigned To list box, assign the project to one of your team members. You can add details for the project if you want. Some projects, like reconciling a bank statement, need to repeat on a regular basis; for those projects, click the Repeat slider to set up the timeframe QBOA should use to repeat the project. Working with tasks Now that you’ve created a project, you can work with the project’s tasks. You can Add and delete tasks, Change the due dates QBOA assigns to the tasks, and Reorganize the order of tasks in a project. 1. Add a task to a project by clicking the Add a Task button at the bottom of the list of tasks. QBOA displays a form for task information (see the following figure). 2. Supply a task name, due date, the team member to whom you want to assign the task, and any pertinent details about the task, such as the QBO commands used to accomplish the task. There is no limit to the number of tasks you can create. 3. To work with a different task, collapse the one you’re currently working on by clicking Collapse in the lower right corner of the task card. You don’t save individual tasks; instead, you save the project, which saves the task information. 4. To delete a task or change its information, click the task. QBOA displays the details of the task. To change the task, simply supply the new information. To delete the task, click the Remove link. 5. To change the position of a task in the project, collapse it and then drag the square symbol at the right edge of a task up or down. You can see the symbol you drag to reorder a task. 6. Click Save to save the project and its tasks. QBOA redisplays the Work page, and your new projects and tasks appear on it. How to update task status in QBOA As you make progress on a task, you can update its status directly from the Grid view of the Work page. Click the down arrow on a task card to change its status. Tasks can have a status of To Do, In Progress, Blocked, or Done. You use the Blocked status when something is stopping you from completing a task. How to edit and delete project information You can edit any project or task except those created automatically from a QBO company—you can only hide or display those automatically created tasks using the From QuickBooks slider. Regardless of the view you’re displaying on the Work page, to edit any project or task you created, click any task in the project. QBOA then opens the Edit Project panel on the right side of the screen and displays the information of the task you clicked. You can change the project information by editing the top portion of the Edit Project panel. You can delete any project from the Edit Project panel by clicking the trash can icon in the lower left corner of the panel (see the following figure). Many of the projects you create are similar to each other, so save yourself some work and duplicate an existing project to create a new one. You also can use an existing project to create a template for subsequent similar projects. From the Edit Project panel, duplicate the project by clicking the Duplicate button. To create a template from the project, click Create Template. Although you can edit project and task information, you cannot change a project into a task or a task into a project. To close the Edit Project panel, click the X in the upper right corner of the panel. How to work in the List view The Grid view of the Work page is limited in what it can display because the cards take up quite bit of screen real estate. You can view your projects and tasks in List view, as shown here, by clicking the List View button in the upper right corner of the Work page (just below the Create Project button). From this view, you have additional filters available to you. In addition to filtering for a client, a team member, and a type of work (project, task, or client request), you also can filter by status and set a date range of interest to you. And, you can still edit any project or task; simply click anywhere on the project’s or task’s line to display the Edit Project panel shown earlier. How to work in the Calendar view The Calendar view displays the tasks due for any selected date. On the calendar, you’ll see the number of tasks due on each date. When you click a date, QBOA uses the right side of the Calendar view to show the tasks due on that date. Communicate with team members about work At the risk of stating the obvious, communication is paramount when working in a team environment. QBOA enables you to provide notifications by email for a variety of actions associated with the projects and tasks that appear on the Work page. To specify the notifications you want QBOA to send to your team, click the Notifications link at the top of Work page to display the Notifications tab of the Company Settings dialog box. Click the pencil in the upper right corner of the Email section to turn on and off email notifications for various actions that take place on the Work page. Click Save when you finish, followed by Done to return to QBOA. Each team member controls the notifications he receives. By default, each team member gets notifications of new assignments and due dates by default, but, to set up the rest of these notifications, each of your team members needs to log into his personal QBOA account and change these settings. If your organization uses Slack, a collaboration tool that helps your team connect, you can integrate Slack with QBOA. Add the app to QBOA by clicking Connect Now on the Work page. If you previously hid the ad for Slack, click the Connect Work to Slack button on the Notifications tab of the Company Settings dialog box. Slack offers a free version suitable for small teams wanting to try out Slack; the free version has some limitations. Slack also offers two “pay” versions: Standard and Plus; the cost of these versions depends on the number of active Slack users per month.

Article / Updated 10-26-2019

Accountants often need to reclassify transactions, examine voided and deleted transactions, write off invoices, and perform other activities. QuickBooks Online Accountant (QBOA) contains tools to make performing these activities easy. To view and use the tools QBOA makes available to accountants, open any client QBO company. Then, on the QBOA toolbar, click the Accountant Tools button (the one that looks like a suitcase). QBOA displays the Accountant Tools menu, shown here. The Prep for Taxes page in QBOA You use the Prep for Taxes tool to adjust and review accounts before preparing the client’s taxes. The Prep for Taxes page replaces the Trial Balance page. The page is well-designed to help you find accounts that need year-end adjustments and easily make them by providing a link to the Journal Entry transaction. The page you see initially presents a working trial balance like the one shown here. The values in the Unadjusted Balance column are locked on the page to protect the integrity of the data. If you click the carats beside the various headings (that is, Current Assets, Bank Accounts, and so on), you’ll find that you can click the Make Adjustment link in the Actions column beside an appropriate account to create adjusting journal entries for that account. When you click the link, QBOA opens a journal entry window, where you can record the adjusting entry—and QBOA automatically selects the Is Adjusting Journal Entry? check box. Once you save the entry, QBOA redisplays the Prep for Taxes page and indicates that you made a change (see the following figure). If you accept the change, QBOA updates the Prep for Taxes page to incorporate your adjustment; in addition, QBOA changes the Adjusted Balance column to reflect your adjustment. You can click any dollar value that appears as a link to view a report of all transactions that make up that balance. From the report, you can drill down to a particular transaction and, if necessary, change it. After you save the transaction and redisplay the report, you can click the Back to Prep for Taxes link at the top of the report page to redisplay the Prep for Taxes page. Once again, QBOA indicates that you made a change, and, after you accept the change, updates the Prep for Taxes page to incorporate the change. You can use the down arrow in the Actions column to add notes and attach documents to a particular line. This helps you remember why you made a particular adjustment. If you use ProConnect Tax Online, Intuit’s cloud-based tax preparation software, to prepare a client’s tax return, then you’ll want to make sure that your client’s accounts are mapped properly to lines on tax forms. The Prep for Taxes feature automatically maps most account balances to lines on tax forms you’ll file for corporations using IRS Form 1120 (for corporations) or 1120s, partnerships that use IRS Form 1065, nonprofits that use IRS Form 990, and sole proprietorships using IRS Form 1040. For other business organization types, you can manually assign accounts to tax form lines. You also can manually assign lines on tax forms for accounts the tool doesn’t recognize, and you can change tax line assignments as needed. Note that the View Tax Return button appears unavailable if you have not yet selected a tax form for the QBO client company. Click the Tax Mapping tab on the Prep for Taxes page to see the page you use to map last year’s client QBO company information directly into tax forms. If you haven’t yet selected a tax form for the QBO company, the first time you select the Tax Mapping tab, you’ll be prompted to select one. Or, you can click the Edit button (the pencil) beside the selected form at the bottom left side of the Prep for Taxes page and select a tax form. To assign an account to a tax form line or edit the line to which an account is assigned, click the Assign Tax Line link. QBOA displays the Assign Tax Line panel on the right side of the screen, which contains a list box from which you select the appropriate tax form line, and then click Save. When you finish reviewing the Prep for Taxes page and making adjustments to entries, you can click the Choose Tax Option button in the upper right corner of the page and then click Create New Return or Update Existing Return (as appropriate) to transfer the information to ProConnect Tax Online and generate a tax return. You don’t pay anything to use the Prep for Taxes feature; you pay only when you print or E-file a return from ProConnect Tax Online. If you don’t use ProConnect Tax Online or you are not the tax preparer, you have the option to export the adjustments to a comma-separated values (CSV) file (readable by Excel) so that you can import them into a separate application. Choose the Export CSV File option on the Choose Tax Return button. Reclassifying transactions in QBOA When you choose Reclassify Transactions from the Accountant Tools menu, the Reclassify Transactions page appears (see the following figure). You can use this page to reclassify transactions without worrying about the company’s closing date. You use the information in the Accounts section on the left side of the page and the Transactions section on the right side of the page to filter for the date range and type of accounts (Profit and Loss or Balance Sheet) you want to consider. You then select an account on the left side of the page, and QBOA displays transactions that meet the criteria on the right side of the page. You can reclassify, individually or as a group, transactions that display a green circle. Follow these steps to reclassify transactions: 1. On the left side of the page, set the date range you want to consider, along with the accounting basis. 2. From the View list box, select the type of accounts you want to consider—Profit & Loss accounts or Balance Sheet accounts. 3. Click an account in the list below the View list box to examine that account’s transactions. The transactions in the account appear on the right side of the page. 4. Above the list of transactions on the right side of the page, set filters to display the types of transactions that you might consider reclassifying. You can make changes to transactions that display green circles. You can also click a transaction to open it in its transaction window and then make changes to it. 5. To change several transactions simultaneously, select them by clicking the check box beside them. 6. Below the list of transactions, select the For Select Transactions, Change check box. 7. From the Account To list, specify a different account. If Class Tracking is turned on, you’ll also see a field to change the assigned class, the same way you can change an account. 8. Click the Reclassify button. Examining voided and deleted transactions You can click Voided/Deleted Transactions on the Accountant Tools menu to display the Audit Log. The default view of the Audit Log (see the following figure) shows information about those transactions that have been voided or deleted. But, you can click the Filter button to set a variety of different filters to view other types of transactions and events. Writing off invoices Choosing Write Off Invoices from the Accountant Tools menu displays the Write Off Invoices page, which enables you to view invoices you might want to write off, and then write them off to an account of your choice. At the top of the page, you set filters to display the invoices you want to review. Select the age of the invoices to view those Greater than 180 days Greater than 120 days In the current accounting period In a custom date range you set You also can set a balance limit. As shown in the following figure, QBOA displays the date, age, invoice number, customer name, original invoice amount, and the amount still due on the invoice. To write off any invoices, click the check box beside them. Then, at the bottom of the page, select the account you want to use to write off the invoices and click the Preview and Write Off button. The Write Off feature does not make adjusting entries in the current period; instead, it makes adjustments in the period in which the transaction was originally created—and can negatively affect closed periods. To write off an item in a closed period, see this online article. QBOA displays the Confirm Write Off dialog box shown in the following figure. If the information in the dialog box is correct, click Write Off. Otherwise, click Cancel. Closing the books You use the Close Books command on the Accountant Tools menu to display the Advanced page of the QBO company’s Account and Settings dialog box, shown in the following figure. You can click anywhere in the Accounting section to edit the fields in that section, which include the closing date for the books. You can set a closing date and then allow changes prior to the closing date after QBO issues a warning, or you can require a password to enter changes prior to the closing date. Click Done to save your changes. Reviewing reports in QBOA QBOA contains some reports of particular interest to accountants. If you open a client QBO company and then, from the Accountant Tools menu, click Accountant Reports, the Reports page appears. Reports marked as favorites appear first and, if you scroll down, you’ll find all the reports organized into various groups. The Reports in the For My Accountant group (most appear in the following figure) might be of particular interest to you because it contains reports like the Adjusted Trial Balance report, the Adjusting Journal Entries report, and more. When you’re checking out these reports, be sure to scroll down the page. To make any of these reports appear at the top of the Reports page (so that you don’t need to scroll down), click the star beside the report to mark it as a favorite. If you choose Management Reports from the Accountant Tools menu (or if you click the Management Reports tab that appears on the Reports page shown), QBOA lists two customized management-style reports: Basic Company Financials and Expanded Company Financials. Both reports display a collection of reports, complete with an elegant cover page and a table of contents. Click the View link in the Action column for either report to view them onscreen, or download them to your computer as PDF files. The Expanded Company Financials report contains the P&L, Balance Sheet, Statement of Cash Flows, and the A/R Aging Detail and A/P Aging Detail reports. The Basic Company Financials report contains all reports except the Aging Detail reports. If you click the down arrow in the Actions column and then click Edit, you can edit either report package to add or delete reports and modify the appearance of pages in the report, including determining whether pages such as the table of contents appear in the report. Using the same down arrow in the Action column, you can send these reports via email, export the information to PDF files or DOCX files, and make copies of them so that you can make your own set of management reports. Copying one of these reports before you change it is a great idea; that way, you keep the original report intact but create your own version of it as well. If you choose My Custom Reports from the Accountant Tools menu or the Custom Reports tab on the Reports page, reports you have customized and saved appear. And you can click Reports Tools on the Accountant Tools menu to set default report dates and the accounting basis. You also can see account reconciliation status for cash and credit card accounts and view and set company closing date information. Be aware that any changes you make using Report Tools resets all default report dates and the accounting basis, even if you run the report from the Reports screen. So, if your report comes up using an unexpected set of dates or accounting basis, check the values set under Report Tools. Also on the Accountant Tools menu, you’ll find the Reports Tools command. When you choose this command, QBOA displays the Report and Tool Defaults page, which enables you to set default dates you want to use for reports and tools in the client QBO company. These default dates don’t apply to payroll reports, because Payroll is a separate product, nor do they apply to Quick Reports, which you run from the Chart of Accounts page; the Quick Reports period automatically defaults to Since 90 Days Ago. The Report and Tool Defaults page also shows whether the books are closed and provides a button to close the books, and the page shows you the reconciliation status of bank and credit card accounts. A brief look at other accountant tools in QBOA The Accountant Tools menu contains a few other tools that make an accountant’s life easier, such as the Reconcile page; from this page, you can opt to reconcile an account you select, or you can review existing reconciliation reports. Also, from the Accountant Tools menu, you can choose Journal Entries to display the Journal Entry window, or Chart of Accounts to display the Chart of Accounts window. You also can use the New Window command to quickly open a new window in QBOA. Last, from the Accountant Tools menu, you can choose ProConnect Tax Online, which opens a new browser window and takes you to the Tax Hub of ProConnect Tax Online, where you can see the status of your clients’ tax returns. ProConnect Tax Online connects to your QBOA account but is actually a separate product with its own menus in the Navigation bar.