Payroll Options
When you establish your QBO subscription, you can choose add-on payroll from the start or elect to incorporate payroll later from the Employees screen (see Figure 2-1). Alternatively, your accountant can enable payroll on your behalf by way of QBOA. In the past, QuickBooks offered self-service versus full-service plans, but now all plans are full-service, meaning that QBO will handle your payroll tax deposits and payroll tax returns. If you opt in to QBO Payroll, you can’t complete those tasks your own even if you want to. But who would want to?
FIGURE 2-1: If you sign up for QBO on your own, you can turn on Payroll from the Employees screen.
All QBO Payroll services include the following features:
Paying employees with printed checks or by direct deposit
Calculating tax payments automatically and paying them electronically
Processing federal and state quarterly and annual reports, and preparing W-2 forms
Processing payroll for employees who work in your company’s state or another state
Keeping payroll tax tables up to date without having to install updates (as you do with the QuickBooks Desktop product)
Using the QBO Payroll mobile app to pay employees, view past paychecks, file tax forms electronically, and pay taxes electronically
Migration from QuickBooks Desktop
Yes, you can migrate your accounting records from QuickBooks Desktop to QBO, as I discuss in Chapter 13. This process won’t affect your original desktop company; it’s still available via the desktop product. After you import your data into QBO, you should run the Profit & Loss report and the Balance Sheet, using the accrual method for all dates from both QBO and QuickBooks Desktop, to ensure that both versions show the same information.
If you want to keep one foot on the ground while you reach for the cloud, you can run QuickBooks Desktop and QBO in parallel for a brief period. Doing so does require double work because you’ll have to enter your transactions in both platforms. Then you’ll be able to run reports from both platforms to confirm that you’re seeing the same results in both places. Plan carefully if you opt to run parallel; things can quickly turn confusing if you’re not disciplined about the process.
An App for That
It’s very likely that you’ll have accounting needs that aren’t met by a base subscription for QBO. As I discussed earlier, for example, payroll is an add-on that entails additional monthly costs. The Intuit Payments app, which supports electronic customer payment processing and integrates with QBO, doesn’t have a monthly cost, but it does have per-transaction fees.
Many add-on apps are available for QBO. Intuit rose to the top of the small-business accounting world by empowering third-party developers to create apps that enhance the functionality of QBO, and over time, you can expect more apps to be developed.
https://quickbooks.intuit.com/app/apps. Or you can choose Apps from the navigation bar, as shown in Figure 2-2.
As shown in Figure 2-3, you can click any app to view a description, price information, and sometimes a video tutorial.
FIGURE 2-2: Take a trip to the App Center to search for additional functionality for QBO.
FIGURE 2-3: Choose any app in the App Center to view the underlying details.
Although add-on apps can provide additional functionality in QBO, you may still encounter limitations. QBO won’t allow you to do the following things, for example:
Track your balance sheet by class.
Process more than 350,000 transactions annually without QBO Advanced.
Manage a robust inventory.
Part 2
Managing Your Books
IN THIS PART …
Become familiar with the QuickBooks Online interface.
Manage list information needed to use QuickBooks Online.
Enter transactions in QuickBooks Online to update your company’s books.
Manage bank and credit card transactions.
Use the payroll functions of QuickBooks Online.
Chapter 3
Creating a QuickBooks Online Company
IN THIS CHAPTER
