QuickBooks Online For Dummies. David H. Ringstrom

the group where the setting appears. Editable fields or controls will appear for any settings that you can change. When you finish making changes, click the Save button that appears in the group of settings and then move on to another group of settings if you want. When you finish, click Done in the bottom-right corner.

      FIGURE 3-14: Review company settings.

      Examining billing and subscription settings and use limits

       To review the settings related to your QBO billing and subscription, click Settings and choose the appropriate option. QBO users will choose Settings ⇒ Account and Settings to display the Account and Settings dialog box and then click Billing & Subscription in the pane on the left side. QBO Accountant users will choose Settings ⇒ Your Account.

      

You won’t see the Billing & Subscription pane if your QBO company is being managed by an accountant who participates in the ProAdvisor Preferred Pricing program, which I discuss in Chapter 12.

The page shown in Figure 3-15 shows you the status of your QuickBooks, QB Payroll, and QuickBooks Payments subscriptions. From this page, you can convert your trial version of QuickBooks and of the QB Payroll product to a regular subscription. Be aware that converting cancels any trial period that you opted into. Although I couldn’t show it in Figure 3-15, if you scroll down on your screen, you’ll see that you can also use this page to order checks and supplies. As of this writing, you can also reduce your QBO subscription fees by roughly 10 percent by opting into annual billing instead of monthly billing.

      FIGURE 3-15: Review QBO billing and subscription settings.

The subscription-based Payments product that Intuit offers enables you to receive online payments from your customers. If you already have a subscription to the Payments product, you can connect it to QBO from the Billing & Subscription page of the Account and Settings dialog box. If you don’t have a subscription, you can subscribe from the Apps page (select it on the navigation bar) or from the Payments page of the Account and Settings dialog box.

      When you click the Usage tab on the left side of the Account and Settings dialog box, QBO displays the use limits applied to your QBO company based on the version of QBO you selected when you created your company (Simple Start, Essential, Plus, or Advanced).

      Setting sales preferences

       To review sales preferences for your QBO company, choose Settings ⇒ Account and Settings to display the Account and Settings dialog box; then click Sales in the pane on the left side.

      Taking a look at expense preferences

On the Expenses tab of the Account and Settings dialog box, you can control expenses related to purchase orders, bills, and payments you make to vendors (see Figure 3-16). To view this tab, choose Settings ⇒ Account and Settings ⇒ Expenses.

      FIGURE 3-16: Expense preferences you can control.

In the Bills and Expenses group of settings, you can opt to display a table on expense and purchase forms so that you can itemize and categorize the products and services you buy. If you purchase goods and services for your customers, you can

       Add a column to the table so that you can identify the customer for whom you made the purchase.

       Add a column where you identify expenses and items for which you want to bill customers.

      You also can set default bill payment terms.

      In the Purchase Orders group, you can opt to use purchase orders and manage up to three custom fields for purchase orders, as well as custom transaction numbers.

      In the Messages group, you can establish the settings for the default email message sent with purchase orders, including the salutation, subject, and message. You also can opt to send yourself a copy of the message that goes out with each purchase order.

      Examining options to receive customer payments

      The Payments tab of the Account and Settings dialog box offers you a way to connect with Intuit Merchant Services via a QuickBooks Payments account. If you don’t have a QuickBooks Payments account with Intuit and want one, click the Learn More button. If you already have a QuickBooks Payments account, you can click the Connect button to connect your QBO account with your QuickBooks Payments account.

QuickBooks Payments is the name Intuit uses to describe the service it offers that enables you to accept credit cards or bank transfers from your customers and email invoices that contain a Pay Now button so that your customers can pay you online. You might know this service as GoPayment or Merchant Services.

      

Bank transfers cost 1 percent of the transfer amount, with a maximum fee of $10 per transaction. No monthly fees are associated with accepting credit card payments — just a per-transaction fee, which varies depending on whether you swipe a card, accept a payment online, or key in a credit card number. QBO users who use QuickBooks Payments have money from qualifying credit or debit card transactions deposited in the bank the next business day, with no extra fees and no extra waiting.

      An additional benefit of using QB Payments is that your payments and deposit transactions are entered automatically for you, based on when they’re funded, so you don’t have to spend time entering those transactions later.

      Reviewing advanced preferences

The Advanced tab of the Account and Settings dialog box enables you to change a variety of QBO settings (see Figure 3-17). Choose Settings ⇒ Account and Settings ⇒ Advanced to view and update these settings:

       In the Accounting group, you can control fiscal-year settings and the accounting method your company uses (cash or accrual).

       Use the Company Type group to select the tax form your company uses, based on its legal organization.

       When you create a new company, QBO automatically sets up the chart of accounts that it thinks you’ll need. Because QBO doesn’t use account numbers in the chart of accounts, you can turn them on in the Chart of Accounts group — something that most accountants prefer you do. You can replace the chart of accounts that QBO sets up with a chart of accounts that you create outside QBO (in Excel or Google Sheets) and then import. The file you import needs to follow a particular format. You can download a sample