Stephen L. Nelson

Article / Updated 09-21-2022

When you're working with QuickBooks, you will encounter command windows. To perform a common accounting or bookkeeping task in QuickBooks, use these commands. When QuickBooks displays the command's window, you just fill in the boxes and press Enter. To Do This Choose This QuickBooks Command Dealing with Customers Invoice a customer Customers→Create Invoices Record a cash sale Customers→Enter Sales Receipts Issue a credit memo Customers→Create Credit Memo/Refunds Record a customer payment Customers→Receive Payments Handling Banking Activities Pay a bill with a check Banking→Write Checks Buy inventory with a check Banking→Write Checks Move money between bank accounts Banking→Transfer Funds Deposit money in a bank account Banking→Make Deposits See a bank account's transactions Banking→Use Register Reconcile a bank account Banking→Reconcile Working with Vendors Prepare a purchase order Vendors→Create Purchase Orders Record when items are received Vendors→Receive Items or Vendors→Receive Items and Enter Bill Record an accounts payable amount Vendors→Enter Bills or Vendors→Enter Bill for Received Items Managing Employees Preparing employee payroll Employees→Pay Employees Paying tax deposits Employees→Payroll Taxes and Liabilities→Pay Scheduled Liabilities Getting Financial Information Accounts Lists→Chart of Accounts Customers Customers→Customer Center Inventory Lists→Item List or Vendors→Inventory Activies→Inventory Center Vendors Vendors→Vendor Center Employees Employees→Employee Center Profit and loss Reports→Company & Financial→Profit & Loss Standard or one of the other profit & loss reports on Company & Financial submenu Net worth Reports→Company & Financial→Balance Sheet Standard or one of the other balance sheet reports on the Company & Financial submenu Managing the QuickBooks System Setting up a new company File→New Company Resetting company information Company→Company Information Backing up data file File→Save Copy or Back Up Restoring a data file File→Open or Restore Company Customizing QuickBooks Edit→Preferences Adjusting accounting data Company→Make Journal Entries

Article / Updated 08-01-2022

You can modify the rights that you assign to a user in QuickBooks Pro or Premier. To do this, choose Company → Set Up Users and Passwords → Set Up Users to display the User List dialog box (not shown). To look at the rights that a particular user has, select the user in the list and then click the View User button. When you do, QuickBooks displays the View User Access dialog box (not shown). This dialog box shows the same information as the final version of the Set Up User Access and Password dialog box, which is the dialog box that you use initially to specify what rights a user should have. Click the Leave button to close the View User Access dialog box. To change a user’s rights after reviewing them, select the user and then click the Edit User button. QuickBooks steps through the same set of dialog boxes that you use to set up the user and describe his rights. You use the Next and Back buttons to do things such as change the username or password, specify whether the user should be limited in his access, and — if necessary — to limit the user’s access to a particular activity within QuickBooks. To remove a user, you also use the User List dialog box. Simply select the user and then click the Delete User button. QuickBooks asks you to confirm your deletion. When you click the Yes button for confirmation, QuickBooks removes the user.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 05-02-2022

QuickBooks 2019 makes small-business accounting fast and easy. But your day-to-day business bookkeeping will go even more smoothly if you employ a handful of QuickBooks user interface tricks, editing tricks, and keyboard shortcuts.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 02-17-2022

QuickBooks 2021 makes small business accounting fast and easy. But your day-to-day business bookkeeping will go even more smoothly if you employ a handful of QuickBooks user interface tricks, editing tricks, and keyboard shortcuts.

Article / Updated 11-02-2021

Perhaps the most common data analysis tool that you'll use in Excel is the one for calculating descriptive statistics. To see how this works, take a look at this worksheet. It summarizes sales data for a book publisher. In column A, the worksheet shows the suggested retail price (SRP). In column B, the worksheet shows the units sold of each book through one popular bookselling outlet. You might choose to use the Descriptive Statistics tool to summarize this data set. To calculate descriptive statistics for the data set, follow these steps: Click the Data tab’s Data Analysis command button to tell Excel that you want to calculate descriptive statistics. Excel displays the Data Analysis dialog box. In the Data Analysis dialog box, highlight the Descriptive Statistics entry in the Analysis Tools list and then click OK. Excel displays the Descriptive Statistics dialog box. In the Input section of the Descriptive Statistics dialog box, identify the data that you want to describe. To identify the data that you want to describe statistically: Click the Input Range text box and then enter the worksheet range reference for the data. In the case of the example worksheet, the input range is $A$1:$C$38. Note that Excel wants the range address to use absolute references — hence, the dollar signs. To make it easier to see or select the worksheet range, click the worksheet button at the right end of the Input Range text box. When Excel hides the Descriptive Statistics dialog box, select the range that you want by dragging the mouse. Then click the worksheet button again to redisplay the Descriptive Statistics dialog box. To identify whether the data is arranged in columns or rows: Select either the Columns or the Rows radio button. To indicate whether the first row holds labels that describe the data: Select the Labels in First Row check box. In the case of the example worksheet, the data is arranged in columns, and the first row does hold labels, so you select the Columns radio button and the Labels in First Row check box. In the Output Options area of the Descriptive Statistics dialog box, describe where and how Excel should produce the statistics. To indicate where the descriptive statistics that Excel calculates should be placed: Choose from the three radio buttons here — Output Range, New Worksheet Ply, and New Workbook. Typically, you place the statistics onto a new worksheet in the existing workbook. To do this, simply select the New Worksheet Ply radio button. To identify what statistical measures you want calculated: Use the Output Options check boxes. Select the Summary Statistics check box to tell Excel to calculate statistical measures such as mean, mode, and standard deviation. Select the Confidence Level for Mean check box to specify that you want a confidence level calculated for the sample mean. Note: If you calculate a confidence level for the sample mean, you need to enter the confidence level percentage into the text box provided. Use the Kth Largest and Kth Smallest check boxes to indicate you want to find the largest or smallest value in the data set. After you describe where the data is and how the statistics should be calculated, click OK. Here are the statistics that Excel calculates. Statistic Description Mean Shows the arithmetic mean of the sample data. Standard Error Shows the standard error of the data set (a measure of the difference between the predicted value and the actual value). Median Shows the middle value in the data set (the value that separates the largest half of the values from the smallest half of the values). Mode Shows the most common value in the data set. Standard Deviation Shows the sample standard deviation measure for the data set. Sample Variance Shows the sample variance for the data set (the squared standard deviation). Kurtosis Shows the kurtosis of the distribution. Skewness Shows the skewness of the data set’s distribution. Range Shows the difference between the largest and smallest values in the data set. Minimum Shows the smallest value in the data set. Maximum Shows the largest value in the data set. Sum Adds all the values in the data set together to calculate the sum. Count Counts the number of values in a data set. Largest(X) Shows the largest X value in the data set. Smallest(X) Shows the smallest X value in the data set. Confidence Level(X) Percentage Shows the confidence level at a given percentage for the data set values. Here is a new worksheet with the descriptive statistics calculated.

Article / Updated 10-06-2021

The Data Analysis command provides a tool for calculating moving and exponentially smoothed averages in Excel. Suppose, for sake of illustration, that you’ve collected daily temperature information. You want to calculate the three-day moving average — the average of the last three days — as part of some simple weather forecasting. To calculate moving averages for this data set, take the following steps. To calculate a moving average, first click the Data tab’s Data Analysis command button. When Excel displays the Data Analysis dialog box, select the Moving Average item from the list and then click OK. Excel displays the Moving Average dialog box. Identify the data that you want to use to calculate the moving average. Click in the Input Range text box of the Moving Average dialog box. Then identify the input range, either by typing a worksheet range address or by using the mouse to select the worksheet range. Your range reference should use absolute cell addresses. An absolute cell address precedes the column letter and row number with $ signs, as in $A$1:$A$10. If the first cell in your input range includes a text label to identify or describe your data, select the Labels in First Row check box. In the Interval text box, tell Excel how many values to include in the moving average calculation. You can calculate a moving average using any number of values. By default, Excel uses the most recent three values to calculate the moving average. To specify that some other number of values be used to calculate the moving average, enter that value into the Interval text box. Tell Excel where to place the moving average data. Use the Output Range text box to identify the worksheet range into which you want to place the moving average data. In the worksheet example, the moving average data has been placed into the worksheet range B2:B10. (Optional) Specify whether you want a chart. If you want a chart that plots the moving average information, select the Chart Output check box. (Optional) Indicate whether you want standard error information calculated. If you want to calculate standard errors for the data, select the Standard Errors check box. Excel places standard error values next to the moving average values. (The standard error information goes into C2:C10.) After you finish specifying what moving average information you want calculated and where you want it placed, click OK. Excel calculates moving average information. Note: If Excel doesn't have enough information to calculate a moving average for a standard error, it places the error message into the cell. You can see several cells that show this error message as a value.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 10-01-2021

QuickBooks 2022 makes small-business accounting fast and easy. But your day-to-day business bookkeeping will go even more smoothly if you employ a handful of QuickBooks user interface tricks, editing tricks, and keyboard shortcuts.

Article / Updated 04-06-2021

Balancing a bank account is remarkably easy in QuickBooks. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that if you have any problems, they stem from . . . well, sloppy record keeping that preceded your use of QuickBooks. Enough of this blather. I get started by describing how you reconcile an account. Give QuickBooks information from the bank statement In a reconciliation, as you probably know, you compare your records of a bank account with the bank’s records of the same account. You should be able to explain any difference between the two accounts — usually by pointing to checks you wrote that haven’t yet cleared. (Sometimes, deposits fall into the same category; you record a deposit and mail it, but the bank hasn’t yet credited your account.) The first step, then, is supplying the bank’s account information to QuickBooks. You get this information from your monthly statement. Give QuickBooks the figures it needs, as follows: 1. Choose Banking→Reconcile, or click the Reconcile icon on the home screen. QuickBooks displays the Begin Reconciliation dialog box, as shown. If you have several bank accounts, you may have to choose the account you want to reconcile. 2. If the bank account shown isn’t the one you want to reconcile, open the Account drop-down menu, and choose the correct account. 3. Enter the bank statement date in the Statement Date text box. You can adjust a date one day at a time by using the plus (+) and minus (–) keys. You can also click the Calendar button at the right end of the Statement Date text box to select a date from the calendar. See the online Cheat Sheet for a list of other secret date-editing tricks. 4. Verify the bank statement opening balance. QuickBooks displays an amount in the Beginning Balance section of the screen. 5. Enter the ending balance from your bank statement in the Ending Balance text box. 6. Enter the bank’s service charge. If the bank statement shows a service charge, and you haven’t already entered it, move the cursor to the Service Charge text box, and type the amount. (Type 10 for a $10 service charge, for example.) 7. Enter a transaction date for the service-charge transaction. QuickBooks adds one month to the service-charge date from the last time you reconciled. If this date isn’t correct, type the correct one. 8. Assign the bank’s service charge to an account. Enter the expense account to which you assign bank service charges in the first Account text box — the one beside the Date text box. Activate the drop-down menu by clicking the down arrow, highlight the category by using the arrow keys, and then press Enter. I’ll bet anything that you record these charges in the Bank Service Charges account that QuickBooks sets up by default. If you told QuickBooks that you also want to track income and expense amounts by using classes, QuickBooks adds Class text boxes to the Begin Reconciliation dialog box so that you can collect this information. 9. Enter the account’s interest income. If the account earned interest for the month, and you haven’t already entered this figure, type an amount in the Interest Earned text box. 10. Enter a transaction date for the interest income transaction. You already know how to enter dates. I won’t bore you by explaining it again (but see step 3 if you have trouble). 11. Assign the interest to an account. In the second Account text box, enter the account to which this account’s interest should be assigned. I bet that you record this one under the Interest Income account, which is near the bottom of the Account drop-down menu. To choose a category from the Account menu, activate the menu by clicking the down arrow, highlight the category, and then press Enter. 12. Click the Continue button. QuickBooks displays the Reconcile window, as shown. Mark cleared checks and deposits In the Reconcile window, you tell QuickBooks which deposits and checks have cleared at the bank. (Refer to your bank statement for this information.) Follow these steps: 1. Identify the first deposit that has cleared. You know how to do this, I’m sure. Just leaf through the bank statement to find the first deposit listed. 2. Mark the first cleared deposit as cleared. Scroll through the transactions listed in the Deposits and Other Credits section of the Reconcile window, find the deposit, and then click it. Alternatively, you can highlight the deposit by using the Tab or arrow keys and then pressing the spacebar. QuickBooks places a check mark in front of the deposit to mark it as cleared and updates the cleared statement balance. If you have a large number of deposits to clear, and you can identify them quickly, click the Mark All button and then simply unmark the transactions that aren’t on the bank statement. To unmark a transaction, click it. The check mark disappears. 3. Record any cleared but missing deposits. If you can’t find a deposit in the Reconcile window, you haven’t entered it into the register yet. I can only guess why you haven’t entered it. Maybe you just forgot. Close or deactivate the Reconcile window by clicking the Leave button. Now open the register and enter the deposit in the register in the usual way. To return to the Reconcile window, either reopen it or reactivate it. Or, if you like, choose Banking→Make Deposits and open the deposit screen right on top of the Reconcile window. Record the deposit and then click the Save & Close button. When you open the Reconcile window again, the deposit appears in the Deposits and Other Credits area. 4. Repeat steps 1–3 for all deposits listed on the bank statement. Make sure that the dates match and that the amounts of the deposits are correct. If they’re not, go back to the transactions to correct them. To get to a transaction, click the Go To button. You see the Write Checks or Make Deposits window where the transaction was originally recorded. Make the corrections there and then click Save & Close. You return to the Reconcile window. 5. Identify the first check that has cleared. No sweat, right? Just find the first check or withdrawal listed on the bank statement. QuickBooks enables you to sort the transactions listed in the Reconcile window by clicking the column headings in the Checks and Payments section and in the Deposits and Other Credits section. You may want to experiment a bit with this handy feature. Sorting and re-sorting transactions — particularly in high-transaction volume bank accounts — often eases the work of reconciling a bank account. 6. Mark the first cleared check as cleared. Scroll through the transactions listed in the Checks and Payments section of the Reconcile window; find the first check; and then click it. You also can highlight it by pressing Tab and an arrow key. Then press the spacebar. QuickBooks inserts a check mark to label this transaction as cleared and updates the cleared statement balance. 7. Record any missing but cleared checks. If you can’t find a check or withdrawal in QuickBooks, guess what? You haven’t entered it in the register yet. Close or deactivate the Reconcile window by clicking its Leave button or by activating another window. Then display the register and enter the check or withdrawal. To return to the Reconcile window, reopen or reactivate it. Or you can choose Banking→Write Checks, create the check right on top of the Reconcile window, and then click Save & Close to return to the Reconcile screen and carry on from where you left off. 8. Repeat steps 5–7 for all withdrawals listed on the bank statement. These steps don’t take very long. Reconciling my account each month takes me about two minutes. I’m not joking or exaggerating. By two minutes, I really mean two minutes. If the difference equals zero After you mark all the cleared checks and deposits, the difference between the Cleared Balance for the account and the bank statement’s Ending Balance should equal zero. Notice that I said should—not will. The background window in the above figure is a Reconcile window in which everything is hunky-dory. See that there’s zero difference in the bottom-right corner of the Reconcile window in the above figure? That means your bank account and QuickBooks file are in sync. If the difference is small, look for small differences between the amounts of the checks in the register and the actual cleared checks in the bank statement. If you find a discrepancy with a particular check, click the Go To button to go to the check and change the amount. Click Save & Close to go right back to the Reconcile window. If the difference does equal zero, you’re finished. Click the Reconcile Now button. QuickBooks displays a congratulatory message box (see figure above) telling you that the reconciliation is complete. As a reward for being such a good boy or girl, the message box asks whether you want to print a free, all-expenses-paid Summary or Detail reconciliation report. Click Summary or Detail and then click OK if you want to print the report; otherwise, just click Close. Can’t decide whether to print the reconciliation report? Unless you’re a business bookkeeper or an accountant who is reconciling a bank account for someone else — your employer or a client, for example — you don’t need to print the reconciliation report. All that printing does is prove that you reconciled the account. (Basically, this proof is the reason why you should print the report if you’re a bookkeeper or an accountant. The person for whom you’re reconciling the account will know that you did your job and will have a piece of paper to refer to later with any questions.) Also, you can always come back and print the report later, if necessary. To access the reconciliation reports that QuickBooks saved, choose Reports→Banking→Previous Reconciliation. Now each deposit, withdrawal, and check that you cleared is marked with a check mark in your register. If you don’t believe me, open the register and find out. If the difference doesn’t equal zero If the difference doesn’t equal zero, you have a problem. If you click the Reconcile Now button, QuickBooks shows you the Reconcile Adjustment dialog box, shown below. This dialog box tells you how unbalanced your account is and asks whether you want to adjust your maladjusted account. Click the Return to Reconcile button if you want to go back to the Reconcile window and start the search for the missing or incorrectly entered transaction. If you want to force the two amounts to agree, click OK. Forcing the two amounts to agree isn’t a very good idea. To do so, QuickBooks adds a cleared transaction equal to the difference. Postponing a reconciliation (by clicking the Leave Reconcile button) and not choosing to adjust the bank account balance usually is the best approach, because you can locate and correct the problem later, when you have fresh eyes. Then you can restart the reconciliation and finish your work. (You restart a reconciliation the same way that you originate one.)

Article / Updated 03-26-2021

Most of the time, line items that appear in QuickBooks invoices are items that you describe in the Item list and then quantify directly in the invoice. In some service businesses, however, you may actually sell many units of the same item. A lawyer may sell hours or partial hours of legal advice, and that time may be all that she sells. A CPA may sell hours of consulting, accounting, or tax preparation work. In these circumstances, you don’t want to have an invoice go out to the customer with one line in it that says, for example, “Legal services, 100 hours, $20,000” — unless you don’t want to stay in business. Instead, you want an invoice that details each of the tasks that the lawyer performed: estate planning for 1.5 hours, review of a contract for 4 hours, preparation of a new real estate lease for 2 hours, and so forth. To provide this level of detail — detail that’s really beneath the item — you use the QuickBooks Time Tracking feature. QuickBooks supplies two methods for tracking the time spent that will be billed in an invoice as an item. You can use the weekly time sheet, or you can time or record individual activities. I briefly describe how both time-tracking methods work; neither is difficult. Professional service providers (accountants, attorneys, consultants, architects, etc.) who bill based on the time spent should consider using one of these features to make sure they keep accurate records of the time spent working for a client or customer. How to use a weekly timesheet To use the weekly time-sheet method, choose Customers→Enter Time→Use Weekly Timesheet. QuickBooks displays the Weekly Timesheet window, shown. To use the Weekly Timesheet window, first use the Name box to identify the employee, vendor, or other person performing the service. You should be able to select this person’s name from the Name drop-down list. If you can’t choose the person’s name from the Name drop-down list, enter it in the box; then, when prompted, tell QuickBooks to which list (employee, vendor, or other names) the name should be added. After you’ve added the name of the person who performed the work, use the columns of the Weekly Timesheet window to describe the customer or job for which the work was performed, the service code, a brief description or note, the payroll item (if you’re using QuickBooks for payroll), the class (if you’re tracking classes), and then the hours spent per day. You can enter as many lines in the Weekly Timesheet window as you want. Each line appears separately in an invoice. The notes information appears in the description area of the invoice. For this reason, you want to use appropriate and descriptive notes. Timing single activities If you want to record service activities as they occur, choose Customers→Enter Time→Time/Enter Single Activity. QuickBooks displays the Time/Enter Single Activity dialog box, as shown. To time or record a single activity, record the activity date in the Date box. Use the Name box to identify the person who performed the service. In the Customer:Job box, identify the customer or the job for which the service was performed. Choose the appropriate service item from the Service Item drop-down list and (if you’re tracking an employee) the appropriate payroll item from the Payroll Item drop-down list. If you’re tracking classes, predictably, you can also use the Class drop-down list to classify the activity. Use the Notes box to record a brief, appropriate description of the service. This description appears in the invoice, so be thoughtful about what you write. After describing or providing this general information about the service, you have two ways to record the time spent on the service: Record time manually. You can manually record the time spent on an activity by using the Duration box to enter the time. If you spent 10 minutes, for example, enter 0:10 in the Duration box. If you spent 3 hours and 40 minutes, enter 3:40 in the Duration box. Have QuickBooks record the time. You can also have QuickBooks record the time that you spent on the activity. Just click the Start button in the Duration box when you start the activity, and click the Stop button when you stop the activity. If you want to pause the timer (while you take a phone call, for example), click the Pause button. After you use the Time/Enter Single Activity dialog box to describe the activity that you’re performing, click the Save & New or Save & Close button to save the activity information. Verify that the Billable check box (in the top-right corner of the dialog box) is selected. By selecting the Billable box, you tell QuickBooks that it should keep this record of a billable activity for later inclusion in an invoice. You can use the Previous and Next buttons, which appear at the top of the dialog box, to page back and forth through your records of activity timing. Note, too, that a Spelling button is available. Click that button to spell-check the notes description that you enter — which is a good idea, because this information will appear in an invoice later. How to include billable time on an invoice To add billable time and cost to an invoice, create the invoice in the usual way, as I describe previously. After you identify the customer (if you’ve entered time for the customer), and if you’ve been tracking costs for the customer, QuickBooks displays a message box asking whether you want to bill for any of the time or costs. If you answer yes, QuickBooks displays the Choose Billable Time and Costs dialog box, shown here. The Time tab of this dialog box shows each of the times that you’ve recorded for a customer. To add these times to the invoice, click the Use column for the time. (The Use column is the leftmost column, displaying a check mark.) Or, if you want to select all the times, click the Select All button. Then click OK. QuickBooks adds each of these billable times to the invoice as separate lines. This figure shows how billable time information appears in the Create Invoices window. If you leave the check box titled Print Selected Time and Costs As One Invoice Item unselected, QuickBooks puts each time recording you log on a separate line of the invoice, as shown. If you check the box, however, QuickBooks lets you combine individual time recordings into a single invoice line item. (You may want to experiment with this feature a bit if you’re interested.) You can click the Items, Expenses, or Mileage tab to see lists of the items, out-of-pocket expenses, or business miles incurred on behalf of a customer. You add charges to an invoice for these sorts of things in the same way that you add charges for time. You can even apply a markup to your out-of-pocket expenses. By the way, if you want to return to the Choose Billable Time and Costs dialog box, and you’re viewing the Create Invoices window, click the Add Time/Costs button, which appears at the top of the Create Invoices window.

Article / Updated 03-26-2021

You aren’t limited to using one password to control access to your QuickBooks 2021 data file. You can set up several passwords for the QuickBooks data file. What’s really neat about this practice is that you can tell QuickBooks to allow certain users and passwords to do only certain things. This sounds complicated, but it’s really not. The business owner, for example, may have a password that allows her to do anything. But a new accounting clerk, for example, may have a password that allows him only to record bills in the system. How to set up additional QuickBooks users If more than one person will be using QuickBooks, you want to set up additional users. Adding users in QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions To add users in QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions, follow these steps: 1. Choose Company→Users→Set Up Users and Roles. QuickBooks displays the User and Roles dialog box (see the figure). This dialog box identifies any users for whom QuickBooks access has been set up and the roles QuickBooks can fill when using QuickBooks. The Users list, which appears on the User List tab of the dialog box, also identifies who is currently logged in to the system. 2. Tell QuickBooks that you want to add a user by clicking the New button. When you click this button, QuickBooks displays the New User dialog box. 3. Identify the user, and supply a password. You need to give each user for whom you’re setting up a username. You do this by entering a short name — perhaps the user’s first name — in the User Name box. After you identify the user, you enter the user’s password in both the Password text box and the Confirm Password text box. 4. Identify the user’s role(s). Use the Available Roles list box to select the roles (or duties) the user fills. Then add the selected role to the user’s list of assigned roles by clicking the Add button. To remove a role from a user, select the role in the Assigned Roles list box and then click Remove. The Description box at the bottom of the New User dialog box allows you to describe the role in more detail. You might enter the type of QuickBooks user who might typically be assigned the selected role, for example. 5. (Optional) Modify roles as necessary. You can fine-tune the roles that you assign (with the help of QuickBooks). To do so, go back to the Users and Roles dialog box, select the Role List tab, click the role you want to change, and then click the Edit button. When QuickBooks displays the Edit Role dialog box (not shown), select an accounting activity or area in the Area and Activities list and then use the Area Access Level radio buttons to specify what a user with the selected role can do. You can indicate that the user should have no access by selecting the None radio button. You can indicate that the user should have full access by selecting the Full radio button. If the user should have partial access, you select the Partial button and then check or clear (as appropriate) the View, Create, Modify, Delete, Print, and View Balance check boxes. Click OK to save any changes to the roles and return to the Users and Roles dialog box. You can see what access any role initially has by selecting one of the entries in the Area and Activities list. QuickBooks uses the Area Access Level buttons and boxes to show the current settings for the role. As a general rule, when it comes to accounting controls, you want to provide a minimal amount of access. If someone doesn’t need access to the QuickBooks data file for day-to-day duties, you should select the None button. If someone needs a little bit of access — perhaps to prepare job estimates or invoices — you give just that access and nothing more. The bottom line is this: The more ability you give employees or subcontractors or accountants to noodle around in your accounting system, the greater the risk that someone will either inadvertently or intentionally introduce errors into the system. Also, the greater the rights and access you give, the easier you make it for someone to steal from you. 6. (Optional) Review your user permissions. After you set up a user, you should (to be careful) review the permissions you’ve given the user. To do this, click the User List tab of the Users and Roles dialog box, select the user, and then click the View Permissions button. When QuickBooks displays the View Permissions dialog box (not shown), select the user and then click the Display button to see the View Permissions window, which displays a very detailed list of what the user can and can’t do. 7. (Optional) Review your role modifications. If you change a role’s permissions, you probably also want to review those changes. To do that, click the Role List tab of the Users and Roles dialog box, select the role, and then click the View Permissions button. QuickBooks displays another version of the View Permissions window that lists the roles you and QuickBooks have set up. Select the role you want to review and then click the View Permissions button. QuickBooks displays another version of the View Permissions window, with a detailed list of what someone with the role can and can’t do. 8. After you finish reviewing user and role permissions, click Close to close any open windows and then click the Cancel or Close button to close any open dialog boxes. From this point forward, the new user can use QuickBooks; his or her rights are limited to what you specified. It may be important to audit the permissions every few months or years, depending on your employment turnover and bookkeeping practices. Obviously, previous employees or bookkeepers should no longer have roles that permit them to make changes in your file. Heck, they probably shouldn’t have roles at all! QuickBooks’ View Permissions window is a slick way to see this data online, and if you want to print a copy of the permissions information, all you need to do is click the window’s Print button. Adding users in QuickBooks Pro and Premier To set up additional users in QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks Premier, follow these steps: 1. Choose Company→Set Up Users and Passwords→ Set Up Users. QuickBooks displays the Users and Roles List dialog box, which identifies any users for whom QuickBooks access has been set up and who are currently logged on to the system. 2. Tell QuickBooks that you want to add a user by clicking the Add User button. QuickBooks displays the first Set Up User Password and Access dialog box (not shown). 3. Identify the user, and supply a password. Give each user for whom you’re setting up a password a username by entering a short name — perhaps the user’s first name — in the User Name box. After you identify the user, you enter the user’s password in both the Password text box and the Confirm Password text box. 4. Click Next to continue and then indicate whether you want to limit access for the new user. When QuickBooks displays the second Set Up User Password and Access dialog box (not shown), indicate whether you want to limit access and rights for the user. If you do want to limit access and rights (rights are simply the things that the user can do), select the Selected Areas of QuickBooks radio button. If you want the user to be able to do anything, select the All Areas of QuickBooks radio button. If you indicate that the new user should have access to all areas of QuickBooks, you’re done setting up the user password, and you can skip the remaining steps. 5. Click Next to continue and then describe access to sales and accounts receivable information and tasks. QuickBooks displays the third Set Up User Password and Access dialog box (not shown) — the first of a series of dialog boxes that walks you through an interview, asking detailed questions about what kind of access each user should have to a particular area. With regard to sales activity, for example, QuickBooks asks about access to transactions (such as invoices, credit memos, and accounts receivable information). You can indicate that the user should have no access by selecting the No Access radio button. You can indicate that the user should have full access by selecting the Full Access radio button. If the user should have partial access, you select the Selective Access radio button and then select one of the subsidiary buttons: Create Transactions Only, Create and Print Transactions, or Create Transactions and Create Reports. 6. Click Next and then describe the purchases and accounts payable rights. QuickBooks displays the fourth Set Up User Password and Access dialog box (not shown), which allows you to specify what access this new user has in the purchases and accounts payable areas. You can select the No Access radio button. You can select the Full Access radio button. Or you can select some middle ground by selecting the Selective Access radio button and one of the subsidiary buttons. The same rules for setting rights and access that apply to the purchases and accounts payable area apply to the sales and accounts receivable area. 7. Click Next and then describe the remaining user rights and access. When you click the Next button at the bottom of each version of the Set Up User Password and Access dialog box, QuickBooks displays several other versions of the dialog box that it uses to query you about user rights and access. After you describe what rights are appropriate for the user in the purchases and accounts payable area, for example, QuickBooks asks about the checking and credit card area. Then it asks about the inventory area. Next, it asks about payroll, followed by questions about general, sensitive accounting activities. Finally, QuickBooks asks about access to financial reporting capabilities. You limit rights in each of these other areas the same way that you do for the sales and accounts receivable and for the purchases and accounts payable areas. Therefore, I’m not going to describe how you select the No Access option button, the Full Access option button, or the Selective Access button over and over again. Just be thoughtful as you go through the screens, limiting the user’s rights. You want users to have the rights necessary to do their job, but you don’t want to give them any more rights than they need. 8. Specify whether the user can change or delete transactions. After you’ve stepped through roughly a half-dozen versions of the Set Up User Password and Access dialog boxes that ask about specific areas of accounting, QuickBooks displays the Changing or Deleting Transactions page of the Set Up User Password and Access dialog box (not shown). The Changing or Deleting Transactions page lets you indicate whether a user can change transactions recorded before the closing date. In general, you want to limit a user’s ability to change or delete transactions. 9. Click Next and then review your rights decisions. QuickBooks displays the final version of the Set Up User Password and Access dialog box (not shown), which identifies the user rights that you assigned or allowed. You can use this dialog box to review the rights that someone has. If you realize that you’ve assigned rights incorrectly, click the Back button to move back through the dialog boxes to the one where you made a mistake. Change the assignment of rights, and click the Next button to return to the final window of the Set Up User Password and Access dialog box. 10. When you finish with the review of user rights and access, click Finish. From this point forward, the new user will be able to use QuickBooks; his or her rights are limited to what you specified. How to change user rights in Enterprise Solutions You can modify the rights that you assign to a user. To do this in QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions, choose Company→Users→Set Up Users and Roles to display the Users and Roles dialog box (not shown). To change a user’s rights after reviewing them, select the user and click the Edit button. QuickBooks displays the Edit User dialog box (see the following figure), which closely resembles the New User dialog box that you use to set up the user and describe his or her rights. You use the User Name, Password, and Confirm Password text boxes to change the user information. You can use the Available Roles list, the Assigned Roles list, and Add and Remove buttons to change what the user can do within QuickBooks; then click Close when you are done. To duplicate a user (you may want to add a second user with permissions that mirror some other user’s permissions), in the Users and Role dialog box, select the user you want to clone and then click Duplicate. When QuickBooks displays the Duplicate User dialog box, finish describing the new user, and click OK. To remove a user, you also use the Users and Roles dialog box. Simply select the user and then click the Delete button. QuickBooks asks you to confirm your deletion. When you click the Yes button for confirmation, QuickBooks removes the user. How to change user rights in QuickBooks Pro and Premier You can modify the rights that you assign to a user in QuickBooks Pro or Premier. To do this, choose Company→Set Up Users and Passwords→Set Up Users to display the User List dialog box (not shown). To look at the rights that a particular user has, select the user in the list and then click the View User button. When you do, QuickBooks displays the View User Access dialog box (not shown). This dialog box shows the same information as the final version of the Set Up User Access and Password dialog box, which is the dialog box that you use initially to specify what rights a user should have. Click the Leave button to close the View User Access dialog box. To change a user’s rights after reviewing them, select the user and then click the Edit User button. QuickBooks steps through the same set of dialog boxes that you use to set up the user and describe his rights. You use the Next and Back buttons to do things such as change the username or password, specify whether the user should be limited in his access, and — if necessary — to limit the user’s access to a particular activity within QuickBooks. To remove a user, you also use the User List dialog box. Simply select the user and then click the Delete User button. QuickBooks asks you to confirm your deletion (not shown). When you click the Yes button for confirmation, QuickBooks removes the user.