QuickBooks 2011: The Missing Manual

Producing Checks

When you use Check as the payment method for paying bills, your bank account register shows check transactions, but you still have to generate checks to send to your vendors. For companies that produce lots of checks, printing checks in QuickBooks can prevent carpal tunnel syndrome. But for a sole proprietorship that generates a few checks each month, writing checks by hand is easy enough. As this section explains, QuickBooks accepts either approach with equal aplomb.

Writing Checks by Hand

Handwriting checks doesn’t require any work in QuickBooks, but you still have to keep your company file in sync with your paper checks. Whether you’re writing checks for bills you’ve paid in QuickBooks or scratching out a spur-of-the-moment check to the fortune-teller for this week’s corporate horoscope, you want to make sure that the check numbers in your bank account register match your paper checks.

If you already recorded your check transactions in QuickBooks by paying bills (Paying Your Bills) or recording a check transaction for an immediate payment (Writing Checks Without Entering Bills), synchronizing check numbers is as easy as writing the paper checks in the same order as you entered them in QuickBooks. Simply open the checking account register window and use the check transactions to guide your paper check writing, as shown in Figure 9-15.

Figure 9-15. To open the checking ...