Master (or at least improve) Your QuickBooks Skills

By Ashley Lamberton, CPA

QuickBooks can be challenging at times. Here are some tips to help you become more familiar with the program and to help you overcome those challenges.

Take the tutorials in your QuickBooks software. Run the sample nonprofit company (many samples are included with your copy of QuickBooks but this depends on the version you are using). You can access these tutorials in QuickBooks by clicking on the help menu, then Learning Center Tutorial.

If you really feel like you are struggling, take a QuickBooks training class. They are offered both online and in person at a variety of places. There are also many tutorial videos available on YouTube. Just search "QuickBooks Tutorial" at http://www.youtube.com.

Some other quick tips for not-for-profit organizations using QuickBooks:

Setting up Donors: Start by setting up your donors as customers. While in the customer center, click new Customer & Job -> New Customer and enter client data. The "Add/Edit Multiple List Entries" window can be used to add and/or edit multiple donors.

Tracking Pledges: To enter pledges, use invoices (Customers-> Create Invoices) and enter donations as sales receipts (Customers-> Enter Sales Receipts). Make sure that you apply the payment to the pledge when the donation is received (Customers -> Receive Payments). Group all of your deposits into undeposited funds (default) and record the deposit (Banking -> Make Deposits) when you take the payments to the bank.

Duplicate Customers (vendors or employees): You can merge names if you enter the same vendor, employee, or customer in twice. In Customer (Vendor or Employee) Center, right click on the customer that you do not want to use, and then click "Edit Customer." Change the customer name to the same name as the customer with which you're combining it. Click "Ok," and then click "Yes" to confirm that you want to merge the two customers.

Transaction History: To see all the transactions that are connected to the current one, press Ctrl-H or click the history button. This will provide you with a list of the connected transactions which you can open.

Backups: Remember to backup your QuickBooks file. If you are a current client, our IT department would be happy to set you up with a free automatic online back up for your QuickBooks file. Just give us a call.