How to Use QuickBooks to Manage Your Business’ Finances

However, automatic bill tracking does not mean you cannot do that manually. You can directly record a manual transaction easily, whether in cash or check. Intuit has applied several decades of experience to a product that seems to have thought of everything you could want to organize and control your finances. Cassie is a former deputy editor who collaborated with teams around the world while living in the beautiful hills of Kentucky. Prior to joining the team at Forbes Advisor, Cassie was a content operations manager and copywriting manager.

QuickBooks is one of the most popular accounting software for small businesses in 2024. Terms, conditions, pricing, special features, and service and support options subject to change without notice. QuickBooks allows you to keep track of financial functions like income and expenses, employee expenses and inventory in real time and fulfill tax obligations hassle-free. When you are free of financial worries, you can focus on driving business growth and revenue. QuickBooks Online is available both as a desktop application and an online SaaS (software as a service) model. However, access to add-on services to the QuickBooks Desktop for Windows 2019 was discontinued after May 31, 2022.

Payroll

While setting up QuickBooks, you can connect your bank as well as credit card accounts to the software. Once done, QuickBooks tracks your bills and expenses automatically. Invoicing is one of the most crucial functions for many businesses, especially those that provide services or rely on freelancers. QuickBooks makes it easy to create invoices either are you making these 7 common sole proprietor tax mistakes from scratch or from an earlier estimate.

1. All these apps integrate seamlessly with each other and QuickBooks accounting software, thus building a well-rounded accounting and payments ecosystem for your small and mid-sized business.
2. If you want, you can also invite them to view the reports themselves and download whatever they need.
3. QuickBooks Online is available both as a desktop application and an online SaaS (software as a service) model.
4. As a business owner, you know how important it is to manage a regular positive cash flow.
5. However you work, no matter what your business does, QuickBooks has a plan for you.
6. Once your bookkeeper receives all the necessary documentation, they’ll typically complete your cleanup within 30 days.

How to organize transactions

The payroll add-on calculates payroll automatically as often as you want. Three plans give your business the scalability to grow over time and add features as necessary. You have easy access to all the common financial statements like balance sheet, profit and loss (P&L) statement, cash flow statements and taxes filed. You can take a printout of these statements for your accountant and send it across to them at the time of filing or invite them to view these statements without needing a login ID or password. QuickBooks, on the other hand, is a software dedicated only to accounting. It has features required specifically for accounting like income and expense tracking, payroll management, invoicing and inventory management.

If you want, you can also invite them to view the reports themselves and download whatever they need. With QuickBooks, it is very simple to track time as well as billable expenses incurred by employees or subcontractors. They can either enter it themselves using the QuickBooks mobile app or submit it manually and a bookkeeper on your end can enter the details in the app.

How to add and pay bills

Find out how the Chart of Accounts is used to build financial statements. Learn about the different ways you can record your spending, how to record and categorize your spending and the difference between bills, bill payments, expenses, and checks in QuickBooks. Learn how to send reminders to customers when invoices are overdue, and also how to set up batch actions to send multiple invoice reminders in QuickBooks.

Learn about how manage inventory products and how to create a small business guide to flexible budgets an inventory product in QuickBooks Online. Learn how to create custom templates and add custom fields to your invoices in QuickBooks. Find out about how to update invoices and choose what information customers see on invoice. Learn about how to connect a bank or credit card account to QuickBooks and choose how far back you want QuickBooks to pull your transaction history. QuickBooks offers a 30-day free trial period with all its plans. However, if you opt for the free trial you lose the opportunity to save 50% on your first three months.

Again, QuickBooks has many reports available to analyze your bills and expenses. If you have a record of bills available, you can track upcoming payments easily to ensure timely payments of bills. Intuit reports that types of assets 94% of accounting professionals feel QuickBooks Online saves them time and thus saves their clients money. Excel is a spreadsheet program that you can use for multiple functions like creating databases, project management and, yes, accounting. However, creating a solid accounting database in Excel requires a thorough knowledge of how to set up spreadsheets and all the formulas that may entail. QuickBooks makes it easier for your business as it calculates your income and expenses automatically as they happen.

What is the difference between QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online?

Learn about how to navigate QuickBooks Online, understand the difference between the Navbar, Create menu, and Gear menu, and learn how to enter new transactions.