QuickBooks 2014: The Missing Manual

Chapter 24. Banking Online with QuickBooks

By synchronizing your real-world bank accounts with the bank accounts in QuickBooks, you can download your bank balances and transactions into your QuickBooks company file so you’ll always know how much cash you have on hand. (The connection you set up between the two is called bank feeds in QuickBooks 2014, to differentiate it from online banking that you perform by logging into your bank account outside of QuickBooks.) That way, before repaying your aunt the start-up money she lent you, you can quickly update your QuickBooks accounts, check your balance, and be certain that you aren’t giving her a check that bounces.

Besides managing your cash flow, banking online is much more convenient than the old paper-based methods of yesteryear. For example, you already have a lot of transactions in your QuickBooks account register (from receiving payments against invoices or making payments to your vendors) and you can easily match these transactions to the ones you download from the bank so you know how much money you really have in your account—and whether someone is helping themselves to your money without permission. Plus you can transfer money between your money market account and your checking account when you find yourself awake at 2 a.m.

Banking online also lets you pay bills without having to write checks, lick stamps, or walk to the mailbox. After you submit payment transactions online, the billing service you use either transfers funds ...