Bookkeeping Basics #3: QuickBooks™ Desktop Fundamentals

COURSE INCLUDES FREE ACCESS TO QUICKBOOKS SOFTWARE™

Along with examining how to navigate and understand how QuickBooks™ works, learn to use the program for all aspects of small business bookkeeping to complete everything from writing checks, to entering and paying bills, through reconciling accounts and more.  Successful students will master the QB program where they can competently manage the day-to-day bookkeeping for their own company or those of others.

Throughout the entire course, quizzes and actual working "homework assignments" are used to reinforce the lessons as well as aid the student in understanding what they are grasping or needing to restudy.

Starting off, students will first learn what QuickBooks actually is and how it works to record and store information.  This helps the user realize how to set up or restore data files with information.  From there, an entire section explains how to navigate to the different functions and tools within the program and what they are all used to accomplish.

Banking is a vital aspect of QuickBooks so the course then rolls into teaching how to create and/or record checks to document money that has been spent.  Along with creating the checks in QuickBooks, students learn how to print checks and what happens when a mistake is made.

Moving on, the next section of the course is devoted to the several options on how to record sales into the books.  Whether it's recording a cash sale and issuing a Sales Receipt, or it's creating and invoice and follow up account statements for customers purchasing on credit, each step in the individual processes are explained with examples shown.

Of course, there can't be sales and income, without there also being expenses so an entire section of the course is devoted to that process.  Learn what the Vendor List is and how it works, along with learning how to enter and pay Bills, both using your checking accounts, as well as paying with debit or credit cards.

Another vital part of bookkeeping is reconciling bank, credit card, and other types of accounts.  Ron leads several lessons in how the process works, what each step along the way does, and how your figure out what happens if there is a mistake somewhere along the process.  Following the Reconciling section of the course, an entire set of lessons explains the Reporting activities in QB that breaks everything down to "content" versus "format."

And then there's the "Additional Stuff" section of the course.  A collection of smaller, independent lessons that cover a variety of topics designed to answer student questions and tie everything together.  Items such as:

• The differences between the Online and Desktop versions and do you need to upgrade every year

• How do you set up additional users and passwords?

• How do QuickBooks backups work?

• Can you still use a Journal Entry to record data?

• And, most importantly, how do you actually get started using QB for your company.

CPE (Continuing Professional Education)

Learning Objectives

1. Understand what QuickBooks™ actually is and how it records transactions

2. Demonstrate the different methods of navigating the QuickBooks™ Desktop (QBD) program

3. Operate the QBD program to record and print checks and other payment forms

4. Describe the methods of recording different types of sales activities in the QBD program

5. Use the QBD program to record deposits of customer payments and other funds received

6. Operate the QBD program to record and process bills and vendor payments

7. Examine differences and similarities in reconciling various account types in the QBD program

8. Examine the differences in customizing content and formatting on QBD reports

9. Examine the advantages and disadvantages of QB Desktop versus QB Online

10. Demonstrate the process of creating a new company file in the QBD program