Beyond the Book
This book is packed with information about using and benefiting from QuickBooks. But you’ll be glad to learn, I’m sure, that you can find additional relevant content at the www.dummies.com website:
✔ The online Cheat Sheet is available at
www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/quickbooks2015
✔ This cheat sheet is a handy reference that you’ll use over and over, or you can refer to it when you don’t have the book handy.
✔ Online articles covering additional topics at
www.dummies.com/extras/quickbooks2015
Here you can find tangential articles about minimizing (legally) your business’s tax burden, tricks for increasing your business’s profitability, and ways to speed up the way that QuickBooks works.
✔ Updates to this book, if any exist, are at
www.dummies.com/extras/quickbooks2015
Where to Go from Here
This book isn’t meant to be read from cover to cover like some Stephen King page turner. Instead, it’s organized into tiny, no-sweat descriptions of how you do the things you need to do. If you’re the sort of person who just doesn’t feel right not reading a book from cover to cover, you can (of course) go ahead and read this thing from front to back. You can start reading Chapter 1 and continue all the way to the end (which means through Chapter 20 and the appendixes).
But you also can use this book the way you’d use an encyclopedia. If you want to know about a subject, you can look it up in the Table of Contents or the index; then you can flip to the correct chapter or page and read as much as you need or enjoy. No muss, no fuss.
I should, however, mention one thing: Accounting software programs require you to do a certain amount of preparation before you can use them to get real work done. If you haven’t started to use QuickBooks yet, I recommend that you read through the first few chapters of this book to find out what you need to do first.
Finally, if you haven’t already installed QuickBooks and need help, jump to Appendix A, which tells you how to install QuickBooks in ten easy steps. And, if you’re just starting out with Microsoft Windows, peruse Chapter 1 of the Windows User’s Guide or one of these books on your flavor of Windows: Windows Vista For Dummies; Windows 7 For Dummies; or Windows 8.1 For Dummies, all by Andy Rathbone.
Part I
Quickly into QuickBooks
✔ Understand the big picture stuff about why, how, and when you install the QuickBooks accounting software.
✔ Get practical stratagems and commonsense tactics for quickly getting your accounting system up and running.
✔ Load the QuickBooks master files with startup information so you’re productive and efficient from day one.
Chapter 1
QuickBooks: The Heart of Your Business
In This Chapter
▶ Benefitting from a tool like QuickBooks
▶ Discovering what QuickBooks actually does
▶ Understanding why QuickBooks is a popular choice
▶ Getting started (in general) with QuickBooks
▶ Succeeding in setup and use of QuickBooks
I want to start this conversation by quickly covering some basic questions concerning QuickBooks, such as “Why even use QuickBooks?” and “Where and how does a guy or gal start?” – and, most importantly, “What should I not do?”
This little orientation shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. Really. And the orientation lets you understand the really big picture concerning QuickBooks.
Why QuickBooks?
Okay, I know you know that you need an accounting system. Somebody, maybe your accountant or spouse, has convinced you of this. And you, the team player that you are, have just accepted this conventional viewpoint as the truth.
But just between you and me, why do you really need QuickBooks? And what does QuickBooks do that you really, truly need done? And heck, just to be truly cynical, also ask the question, “Why QuickBooks?” Why not, for example, use some other accounting software program?
Why you need an accounting system
Start with the most basic question: Why do you even need an accounting system like QuickBooks? It’s a fair question, so let me supply you with the two-part answer.
The first reason is that federal law requires your business to maintain an accounting system. More specifically, Section 446 (General Rule for Methods of Accounting) of Title 26 (Internal Revenue Code) of the United States Code requires that you have the capability to compute taxable income by using some sort of common-sense accounting system that clearly reflects income.
If you decide just to blow off this requirement – after all, you got into business so that you could throw off the shackles of bureaucracy – you might get away with your omission. But if the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) examines your return and you ignored Section 446, the IRS gets to do your accounting the way it wants. And the IRS way means that you pay more in taxes and that you also pay taxes earlier than you would have otherwise.
Here’s the second reason for maintaining an accounting system. I sort of go out on an editorial limb, but I’m going to do it anyway. My strong belief – backed by more than three decades of business experience and close-hand observations of several hundred business clients – is that you can’t successfully manage your business without a decent accounting system. Success requires accurately measuring profits or losses and reasonably estimating your financial condition.
This second reason makes sense, right? If your friend Kenneth doesn’t know when he’s making money, which products or services are profitable, and which customers are worth keeping (and which aren’t), does he really have a chance?
I don’t think he does.
To summarize, your business must have a decent accounting system, no matter how you feel about accounting and regardless of how time-consuming and expensive such a system is or becomes. The law requires you to have such an accounting system. And successful business management depends on such an accounting system.