QuickBooks 2020 All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 1

Setting Up QuickBooks

IN THIS CHAPTER

Planning how you’ll use QuickBooks

Installing the QuickBooks program

Preparing for setup

Setting up QuickBooks

Figuring out your starting trial balance

To use QuickBooks, you need to do two things: Install the QuickBooks software, and run the Express Start or Advanced Setup version of the QuickBooks Setup process. This chapter gives you a bird’s-eye view of both these tasks. I also want to spend just a few paragraphs talking about some of the planning that you should do before you set up QuickBooks and some of the missing setup steps in the QuickBooks Setup process — things it should do but doesn’t. (Don’t worry. I tell you how to complete the missing steps, partly at the end of this chapter and also in the next chapter.)

Planning Your New QuickBooks System

I start with a couple of big-picture discussions: what accounting does and what accounting systems do. If you understand this big-picture stuff from the very start, you’ll find ...