QuickBooks 2013 For Dummies

QuickBooks 2013 For Dummies

Released November 2012
Publisher(s): For Dummies
ISBN: 9781118356418

Read it now on the O’Reilly learning platform with a 10-day free trial.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial

Book description

Get your business organized with QuickBooks

Now more than ever, keeping track of every penny is crucial to making it in business. And the owners of thousands of small-to-mid-size businesses turn to QuickBooks to help them manage their finances without having to hire an outside accounting professional. Bestselling author Stephen Nelson updates his popular QuickBooks For Dummies to cover the latest revisions and enhancements to this leading small business accounting software package.

After a quick review of bookkeeping basics, you'll discover how QuickBooks 2013 can help you build the perfect budget, process payroll, simplify your tax return prep work, create invoices, manage inventory, generate income statements, balance accounts, and much more. You'll learn what you should do before you install and set up QuickBooks, then move on to basic bookkeeping concepts and the fundamentals of building a solid budget. You'll also discover how to enter data, create invoices, record and print sales receipts, monitor your job costs, and generate most common financial reports with ease.

  • Veteran author Stephen Nelson updates his perennial bestseller and offers you easy-to-understand coverage of the newest release of QuickBooks

  • Enables you to take control of managing your own business accounting and financial management tasks so you can avoid having to hire expensive outside help

  • Provides expert advice for getting started with QuickBooks, building the perfect budget, processing payroll, creating invoices, managing inventory, tracking job costs, generating income statements, balancing accounts, creating financial reports, and more

  • Takes you through the steps of going online with QuickBooks, backing up your data, and simplifying tax preparation

    • QuickBooks 2013 For Dummies helps you take control of your financial management tasks. Big or small, your business will benefit!

    Table of contents

    1. Cover
    2. Table of Contents
    3. Title Page
    4. Introduction
      1. About QuickBooks
      2. About This Book
      3. What You Can Safely Ignore
      4. What You Should Not Ignore (Unless You’re a Masochist)
      5. Three Foolish Assumptions
      6. How This Book Is Organized
      7. Conventions Used in This Book
    5. Part I: Quickly into QuickBooks
      1. Chapter 1: QuickBooks: The Heart of Your Business
        1. Why QuickBooks?
        2. What Explains QuickBooks’ Popularity?
        3. What’s Next, Dude?
        4. How to Succeed with QuickBooks
      2. Chapter 2: The Big Setup
        1. Getting Ready for the QuickBooks Setup
        2. Stepping through the QuickBooks Setup
        3. The Rest of the Story
        4. Should You Get Your Accountant’s Help?
        5. Should You Get Intuit’s Help?
      3. Chapter 3: Populating QuickBooks Lists
        1. The Magic and Mystery of Items
        2. Adding Employees to Your Employee List
        3. Customers Are Your Business
        4. It’s Just a Job
        5. Adding Vendors to Your Vendor List
        6. The Other Lists
        7. Organizing Lists
        8. Printing Lists
        9. Exporting List Items to Your Word Processor
        10. Dealing with the Chart of Accounts List
    6. Part II: Daily Entry Tasks
      1. Chapter 4: Creating Invoices and Credit Memos
        1. Making Sure That You’re Ready to Invoice Customers
        2. Preparing an Invoice
        3. Fixing Invoice Mistakes
        4. Preparing a Credit Memo
        5. Fixing Credit Memo Mistakes
        6. History Lessons
        7. Printing Invoices and Credit Memos
        8. Sending Invoices and Credit Memos via E-Mail
        9. Customizing Your Invoices and Credit Memos
      2. Chapter 5: Reeling In the Dough
        1. Recording a Sales Receipt
        2. Printing a Sales Receipt
        3. Special Tips for Retailers
        4. Correcting Sales Receipt Mistakes
        5. Recording Customer Payments
        6. Correcting Mistakes in Customer Payments Entries
        7. Making Bank Deposits
        8. Improving Your Cash Inflow
      3. Chapter 6: Paying the Bills
        1. Pay Now or Pay Later?
        2. Recording Your Bills by Writing Checks
        3. Recording Your Bills the Accounts Payable Way
        4. Paying Your Bills
        5. Tracking Vehicle Mileage
        6. Paying Sales Tax
        7. A Quick Word on the Vendor Center Window
      4. Chapter 7: Inventory Magic
        1. Setting Up Inventory Items
        2. When You Buy Stuff
        3. When You Sell Stuff
        4. How Purchase Orders Work
        5. Assembling a Product
        6. Time for a Reality Check
        7. Dealing with Multiple Inventory Locations
        8. The Lazy Person’s Approach to Inventory
      5. Chapter 8: Keeping Your Checkbook
        1. Writing Checks
        2. Depositing Money into a Checking Account
        3. Transferring Money between Accounts
        4. Working with Multiple Currencies
        5. To Delete or to Void?
        6. Handling NSF Checks from Customers
        7. The Big Register Phenomenon
      6. Chapter 9: Paying with Plastic
        1. Tracking Business Credit Cards
        2. Entering Credit Card Transactions
        3. Reconciling Your Credit Card Statement and Paying the Bill
        4. So What about Debit Cards?
        5. So What about Customer Credit Cards?
    7. Part III: Stuff You Do from Time to Time
      1. Chapter 10: Printing Checks
        1. Getting the Printer Ready
        2. Printing a Check
        3. Printing a Checking Register
      2. Chapter 11: Payroll
        1. Getting Ready to Do Payroll without Help from QuickBooks
        2. Doing Taxes the Right Way
        3. Getting Ready to Do Payroll with QuickBooks
        4. Paying Your Employees
        5. Paying Payroll Liabilities
        6. Preparing Quarterly Payroll Tax Returns
        7. Filing Annual Returns and Wage Statements
        8. The State Wants Some Money, Too
      3. Chapter 12: Building the Perfect Budget
        1. Is This a Game You Want to Play?
        2. All Joking Aside: Some Basic Budgeting Tips
        3. A Budgeting Secret You Won’t Learn in College
        4. Setting Up a Secret Plan
        5. Adjusting a Secret Plan
        6. Forecasting Profits and Losses
        7. Projecting Cash Flows
        8. Using the Business Planner Tools
      4. Chapter 13: Online with QuickBooks
        1. Doing the Electronic Banking Thing
        2. A Quick Review of the Other Online Opportunities
    8. Part IV: Housekeeping Chores
      1. Chapter 14: The Balancing Act
        1. Balancing a Bank Account
        2. Eleven Things to Do If Your Non-Online Account Doesn’t Balance
      2. Chapter 15: Reporting on the State of Affairs
        1. What Kinds of Reports Are There, Anyway?
        2. Creating and Printing a Report
        3. Reports Made to Order
        4. Processing Multiple Reports
        5. Your Other Reporting Options
        6. Last but Not Least: The QuickReport
      3. Chapter 16: Job Estimating, Billing, and Tracking
        1. Turning On Job Costing
        2. Setting Up a Job
        3. Creating a Job Estimate
        4. Revising an Estimate
        5. Turning an Estimate into an Invoice
        6. Comparing Estimated Item Amounts with Actual Item Amounts
        7. Charging for Actual Time and Costs
        8. Tracking Job Costs
      4. Chapter 17: File Management Tips
        1. Backing Up Is (Not That) Hard to Do
        2. Accountant’s Copy
        3. Working with Portable Files
        4. Using an Audit Trail
        5. Using a Closing Password
      5. Chapter 18: Fixed Assets and Vehicle Lists
        1. What Is Fixed Assets Accounting?
        2. Fixed Assets Accounting in QuickBooks
        3. Setting Up a Fixed Asset List
        4. Tracking Vehicle Mileage
    9. Part V: The Part of Tens
      1. Chapter 19: (Almost) Ten Tips for Business Owners
        1. Sign All Your Own Checks
        2. Don’t Sign a Check the Wrong Way
        3. Review Canceled Checks Before Your Bookkeeper Does
        4. Choose a Bookkeeper Who Is Familiar with Computers and Knows How to Do Payroll
        5. Regularly Review Your Financial Statements
        6. Choose an Appropriate Accounting System
        7. If QuickBooks Doesn’t Work for Your Business
        8. Keep Things Simple
      2. Chapter 20: Tips for Handling (Almost) Ten Tricky Situations
        1. Selling an Asset
        2. Selling a Depreciable Asset
        3. Owner’s Equity in a Sole Proprietorship
        4. Owner’s Equity in a Partnership
        5. Owner’s Equity in a Corporation
        6. Multiple-State Accounting
        7. Getting a Loan
        8. Repaying a Loan
      3. Chapter 21: (Almost) Ten Secret Business Formulas
        1. The First “Most Expensive Money You Can Borrow” Formula
        2. The Second “Most Expensive Money You Can Borrow” Formula
        3. The “How Do I Break Even?” Formula
        4. The “You Can Grow Too Fast” Formula
        5. The First “What Happens If . . . ?” Formula
        6. The Second “What Happens If . . . ?” Formula
        7. The Economic Order Quantity (Isaac Newton) Formula
        8. The Rule of 72
    10. Part VI: Appendixes
      1. Appendix A: Installing QuickBooks in a Dozen Easy Steps
      2. Appendix B: If Numbers Are Your Friends
        1. Keying In on Profit
        2. In the Old Days, Things Were Different
        3. What Does an Italian Monk Have to Do with Anything?
        4. Two Dark Shadows in the World of Accounting
        5. The Danger of Shell Games
      3. Appendix C: Sharing QuickBooks Files
        1. Sharing a QuickBooks File on a Network
        2. Installing QuickBooks for Network Use
        3. Setting Up User Permissions
        4. Specifying Multi-User Mode
        5. Working in Multi-User Mode
    11. Cheat Sheet

    Product information

    • Title: QuickBooks 2013 For Dummies
    • Author(s):
    • Release date: November 2012
    • Publisher(s): For Dummies
    • ISBN: 9781118356418