Steps to Take Before You Create Your Company File
If you've just started a business and want to inaugurate your books with QuickBooks, your prep work will be a snap. On the other hand, if you have existing books for your business, you have a few small tasks to complete before you jump into QuickBooks' setup. Whether your books are paper ledgers or electronic files in another program, gather your company information before you open QuickBooks. Then, you can hunker down in front of your computer and crank out a company file in no time. Here's a guide to what you need to create your company file in QuickBooks.
A start date
To keep your financial history at your fingertips, you need every transaction and speck of financial information in your QuickBooks company file. But you know that you have better things to do than enter years' worth of checks, invoices, and deposits, so the comprehensive approach is practical only if you started your company quite recently.
The more realistic approach is to enter account balances and transactions that are open (unpaid invoices or bills you haven't yet paid) as of a specific date and from then on, add all new transactions in QuickBooks. In QuickBooks, the date you choose is called the start date and you shouldn't choose it arbitrarily. Here are your start date options and the ramifications of each:
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