Lesson1 QB Intro Chapter 1

Introduction Welcome to my course! My name is Scott Paxton, and I'll be your instructor. Over the next six weeks, I'll be introducing you to the basics of business accounting using QuickBooks. We'll be practicing many new skills in this class, so it's important that you have a copy of QuickBooks installed on your computer before you begin. Please be aware that there are many versions of QuickBooks out there. These instructions apply to QuickBooks Pro 2013 or QuickBooks Premier 2013, both for Windows. Unfortunately, the SimpleStart and Online versions of QuickBooks aren't suitable for this course because they don't include most of the features we'll be discussing. If you're planning on using the Macintosh version of QuickBooks for this course, please bear in mind that while this version has all of the same features, the navigation tools are quite different and will vary significantly from the lesson steps illustrated in this course. As a result, we don't list this version as a supported version for the course. My main objective is to help you acquire the skills I'm introducing to you, and the best way to acquire a new skill is through hands-on practice. As such, I have developed a project-oriented approach to teaching QuickBooks. Each lesson will present you with opportunities to gain practical expertise with QuickBooks. Some students prefer to print out each lesson as they're working through the steps. I think this is a good idea, and you'll find a Printer-Friendly link for each lesson on the Lessons tab. Plus, if you print all the lessons, you'll have a copy of everything after the course is finished. At the conclusion of each lesson, you'll complete an assignment and short quiz. You don't need to turn in the assignments, but they are critical to helping you to practice with the material. Also, you'll notice that I've included some key check figures throughout the course to help you verify that you're on the right track. The lesson quizzes are there to help you prepare for the Final Exam, and you can take the lesson quizzes over and over again for additional practice. You'll only have one shot to pass the Final Exam, so make it count! This course also comes equipped with 12 Discussion Areasone for each

lesson. If you run across any difficulties or have any questions about one of my lessons, I urge you to post a message in the Discussion Area for that lesson. While you're there, please be sure to carefully read any posted messages from me. From time to time, I'll post important information regarding the course material. Also, please take a moment to read the messages posted by your classmates. If you know the answer to any question you read, please don't hesitate to respond. Another good way to acquire a new skill is to teach it to someone else. We'll all learn so much faster and so much more if we work together to share our experiences with this program! As we progress through this course, you'll learn what types of accounting information youas a business owner, manager, bookkeeper, or accountantneed to monitor. Then, I'll show you how to enter that information into QuickBooks so that you can track it with ease. By the time you complete my course, you'll understand how to get your business finances in order. I think you'll also be pleasantly surprised by the time you'll save with this powerful and useful tool.

Chapter 2
Creating a QuickBooks Company Today, let's set up a fictional company that you can use to practice with as you work through this course. If you've already been using QuickBooks to track the finances of your real business, don't worry. QuickBooks will allow you to create and track more than one company at a time. Each company you create will be walled off in its own distinct file so that there can be no cross-contamination of data. Financial transactions that you enter into one of your company files won't pass through to any of the other company files that you create. When it comes to managing files, QuickBooks is really no different than your favorite word processing program, like Microsoft Word or Excel. Just as Word or Excel will let you create and edit hundreds or even thousands of distinct document files or worksheet files, QuickBooks will allow you to create and edit as many different company files as you wish.

Because QuickBooks is able to handle multiple company files, professional accountants and bookkeepers can rely on one copy of QuickBooks to monitor the financial health of dozens of different businesses simultaneously. This capability will allow you to create a practice company file for this course and another separate company file for your real-world business needs. As you proceed through this lesson, you'll learn how to place the practice company in a new and completely separate file so that it can't disturb the contents of your real company file (if you have one). You'll also learn how to switch back and forth between your practice company file and your real company file, should the need arise. Please feel free to print out this lesson. You may find it easier to set up your company if you're working from a paper copy of the lesson. To do so, click your browser's File menu, and choose Print (or press CTRL+P) or, better yet, use the Printer-Friendly link under the Lessons tab. Creating a Company File QuickBooks is a very nosy program. Before it will allow you to set up a company file, it's going to ask you for all sorts of information about the company. It will want to know the company's name, its business address, the type of business it's engaged in, whether or not it collects sales tax from its customers, whether or not the company has employees, whether or not the company stocks inventory, and much, much more. It uses this information to create a customized experience for you. The more information you give QuickBooks about your company, the easier it will be for you to use. If you get stuck or don't know the answer to one of the questions QuickBooks asks, you don't need to be all that concerned. QuickBooks is a very flexible program. When QuickBooks asks you a question you don't quite understand, you can provide it with your best guess at an answer for now. You can always change your answers later (I'll show you how easy that can be at the end of this lesson). And finally, if you get stuck, please remember that you can get all the assistance you need in the Discussion Area for this lesson. Let's begin by starting QuickBooks. Here's how: First, if you already have the QuickBooks program installed on your PC,

you'll probably notice an icon right on your desktop that you can use to open the main program. Just double-click this icon to open QuickBooks. If you don't see an icon, click the Windows Start button in the extreme lower-left corner of your screen. Select All Programs (or Programs), and choose QuickBooks. A short list of applications will appear. Click QuickBooks Pro 2013 or QuickBooks Premier 2013, and QuickBooks will launch. We're now ready to create a new company file. Bear in mind that you can repeat each of the steps that follow as many times as you want to create as many different company files that you want. Setting Up the Practice File If you've used QuickBooks before, it's likely that the program will automatically open the company file you last worked on. We want to be sure to create a brand-new practice company file for this course. To create a practice company file for this course, click the File menu in the top-left corner. The File menu

Note If the QuickBooks File menu is inaccessible, there might be a dialog box on your screen that requires your attention. Look for an OK or Cancel or Close button on the dialog box, or tap the ESC key on your keyboard, and the dialog box should disappear. Once the dialog box is out of your way, you should have no trouble accessing the File menu.

After you click the File menu, click New Company. You should now see a window giving you some options to create your new company file. The quickest path to creating a new file would be to choose the Express Start button. Don't actually select this option just yet. Let's assume that you want to customize the setup of your file a bit more than just doing an Express Start. To do this, you'll need to click the Advance Setup button. Go ahead and click this button now.

 Creating a new company file The EasyStep Interview window will appear on your screen. QuickBooks is now ready to interview you so that it can collect all the information it needs to set up your company file. Enter your company information Remember, we're going to create a fictional company so you have a place to practice all the new skills you'll be learning in this course. This means that I'd like you to fill in this form using the following steps. 1.Let's pretend that the name of this fictional company is Ace Photography. To begin setting up the company, type:

Ace Photography in the Company Name field.

2.Press the TAB key on your keyboard, and you'll move to the Legal Name field.

Note If you pressed the TAB key too aggressively and now find yourself in the wrong field, just hold down the SHIFT key and tap TAB gently once or twice to back up to the Legal Name field. The legal name of your company is the business name that you registered with your state or local government, tax agencies, and your bank. For most businesses, the legal name is the same as the company name. Let's assume that to be the case with the fictional photography company we're setting up. If the Legal Name field hasn't already been filled in for you, type:

Ace Photography in the Legal Name field.

3.Press TAB again to move to the Tax ID field. In this field, QuickBooks wants you to type the taxpayer identification number that the government uses to identify your company. QuickBooks can use this information to help it complete certain tax forms that you might need to print and file for your business. If your company is incorporated in the United States, is a U.S. partnership, or has U.S. employees, you would want to enter the company's official Internal Revenue Service Employer Identification Number in this field. If the company is located in the U.S. and has only one owner with no employees, you would need to enter the business owner's Social Security number instead. Please note that the Tax ID field is optional. If you'd rather not divulge your tax ID number (or if your business is located outside of the United States), you can leave this field blank when you set up your real company. You can always enter it later, should that become necessary. For our practice company, I'd like you to assume that it's located in the U.S. and that it has a taxpayer identification number. For the purposes of this course, I'd like you to enter a phony taxpayer identification number in this field. Please type:

12-3456789 in the Tax ID field.

4.Press TAB again to move into the Street Address field, and type the

following street address: 1405 Elm Ave 5.When you finish, press TAB to move to the second street address field and type: Suite 237 6.Tap the TAB key again to move to the City field. When you get there, please type: Encinitas 7.TAB to the State field, and use your mouse to select CA from the dropdown list. 8.TAB to the Zip field, and type: 92024 9.Next, TAB to the Country field, and use your mouse to select U.S. from the drop-down list. If you reside outside of the U.S., feel free to choose another country in this field. However, if you do, you'll likely notice some differences in features as we progress throughout this course. Most of the differences are in the areas of taxes and payroll. While we will discuss sales taxes in this course, we won't be covering payroll. 10. Please TAB to the Phone field. Then, enter the following:

123-456-7890

11.

Next, tap the TAB key once to enter the Fax field. Type the following:

123-456-7891

12.

Tap TAB again, and enter a fake email address in the E-mail address field.

13. 14.

Please leave the Web site field blank. When you finish filling in the form, please click the Next button.

Selecting an Industry After you click the Next button, a Select your industry form will appear. You'll see a list of industries, QuickBooks will ask you to select from this list a single industry that's closest to your own. Your response will give QuickBooks a better understanding of your needs. For this course, I'd like you to scroll through the list of company types until you find Art, Writing, or Photography. Click once on Art, Writing, or Photography to select that as your fictional industry. Select your industry

Warning Please do not select any other industry from this list, or you'll have trouble following along with the rest of the class. Later on, when you're setting up your own company, you'll have the opportunity to select an industry that more closely matches your line of business. But now would not be an appropriate time for you to diverge from the lesson. One exception: if you're using an older version of QuickBooks and Art, Writing, or Photography is not available as a selection. If that happens to you, please select another industry that is as similar as possible to the one I asked you to select.

When you're ready, please click the Next button. Business Type QuickBooks now wants to know how your business is organized. It needs this information to determine which type of business tax forms you might be required to file. What type of business?

For this fictional company, please go with Sole Proprietorship, because that is the most common business arrangement. Later, when you're setting up your own company, you can choose a more appropriate response for your type of business. When you're ready, click the Next button. Beginning of Fiscal Year Your next task will be to select the month your company uses as the beginning of its fiscal year. When is the beginning of your fiscal year? Most businesses start accounting for income and expenses and setting budgets anew each January, so the beginning of the fiscal year for the vast majority of businesses should be January. However, do be aware that some corporations start their accounting periods to coincide with the month that the business first incorporated. Also, most government agencies begin their fiscal year in July. For our fictional company, I'd like you to start the fiscal year with January. This is the most typical arrangement. To do so, use your mouse to click the drop-down list and select January. Once you make your selection, click the Next button to proceed. Setting Up a Password QuickBooks will now give you an opportunity to create a password to protect your company file. Create a password Ordinarily, this is a very good idea. Creating a password for your company file will help prevent unauthorized users from viewing or changing your company's financial records without your knowledge. However, I'd like you to leave the practice company unprotected. That way, you won't have to worry about remembering yet another password as you work through this course. Please leave the Administrator Password and Retype Password fields blank, and click the Next button.

Creating Your Company File QuickBooks is now ready to create a company file in which it can save all of the information you've entered so far. To make this happen, click the Next button again. A Filename for New Company dialog box will appear, and QuickBooks will suggest that you name your company file Ace Photography or some variation thereof. Select Filename Note You'll notice that the Save as type field defaults to QuickBooks Files (*.QBW,*.QBA). This is normal. The three letters are an abbreviated form of the phrase QuickBooks Windows. Those three letters (called an extension) have been added to the end of your company filename in order to help your computer recognize that the company file belongs to QuickBooks. When setting up a new company file as we are here, you'll want to accept this default choice so that QuickBooks knows that you're creating a basic company file. At this point, it's a good idea to note exactly where QuickBooks is proposing to save this new company file. Notice that the Save in box near the top of the window indicates that the new file will be saved in the Company Files folder. You can usually find this folder within the Intuit folder on your hard drive if you ever need to find the file using either the My Computer or Windows Explorer features. Don't worry if your Company Files folder looks a little different from mine. The key here is that you are sure to pay attention to where your file is being saved. To accept the name QuickBooks is proposing, click the Save button in the lower-right corner of the dialog box. After a brief pause, your company file will be created, and the interview will resume.

Chapter 3

Customizing QuickBooks for Your Business In the next few screens, you will be asked some specific questions about

your business. Customizing QuickBooks To answer the questions, just click Next. 1.First, you will be asked what you sell. Let's assume that Ace Photography, our fictional company, sells products (such as photographic prints and frames) and services (such as wedding photography, portrait photography, and image editing). Please select Both services and products, and click Next. 2.You will then be asked if you charge your customers sales tax. Let's suppose our fictional business does so. Please select Yes, and click Next. 3.The next question you will be asked is whether or not you would like to use QuickBooks to create printed estimates, quotes, bids, or proposals for your customers. Let's answer Yes so that we can explore this feature in a later lesson. When you are ready, click the Next button. 4.If you're using the QuickBooks Premier version, the next window will ask if you'd like to have the option to create Sales Orders each time you make a sale. This feature isn't available in the Pro version, but that's okay because we won't be discussing Sales Orders in detail in this course. So if you have this option on your screen (Premier users), go ahead and answer No. Remember, we can always change these options later if need be. Click Next to proceed. 5.Next, you will be asked if you would like to have the ability to create monthly billing statements for your customers. Why not? Please answer Yes, and click Next. 6.You will then be asked if you sometimes use progress invoicing so your customers can make partial payments each time you meet an important milestone during a lengthy project. Let's answer Yes to this question, as well. Then, click Next. 7.Next, QuickBooks wants to know if you'd like it to help you keep track of the bills you receive from your vendors. This is a very powerful and time-saving feature, and we'll be exploring it in detail in an upcoming

lesson. Please select Yes, and click Next. 8.QuickBooks will now ask if you'd like it to help you keep track of your inventory (the things you sell). Sounds great! Go ahead and answer Yes, and then click Next. 9.Next, QuickBooks will want to know if you'd like to keep track of the amount of time you spend on projects for your customers. That sounds like it might prove helpful, so let's answer Yes. Then, click Next. 10. The next question asks if you have employees (who you will report to the Internal Revenue Service using IRS form W-2) or work with independent contractors (who you will report using IRS form 1099). Let's say both situations apply in our fictional business. Click Yes, and then check the We have W-2 employees and We have 1099 contractors check boxes. When you are ready, click Next.

Chapter 4

Final Steps Whew! That was quite a barrage of questions. I'm glad you made it through. I have some good newsyou're almost done. QuickBooks just needs to set up something called a Chart of Accounts for your company, and then you'll be good to go. Using Accounts in QuickBooks What Is the Chart of Accounts? When you perform accounting tasks for a business, you will need to monitor many things, including the amount of money your business: has received from paying customers is owed by customers who pay on credit

 has paid to vendors in the past owes vendors who extended you credit has paid to acquire inventory is holding on reserve in bank checking and savings instruments owes on credit cards and other loans In order to help you monitor the flow of money into and out of your business, QuickBooks will provide you with a collection of financial management tools known as accounts. If you decide that you want to track the amount your business owes on a credit card, the amount you spent on insurance or electricity over a certain time period, or the amount of money owed to you by your customers on a certain date, your first step will be to set up accounts that you can use to track each of those activities. In order to accomplish all of the tasks described above, you'd need to create an account specifically for the purpose of monitoring your credit card activity. You'd need to create another account to track payments sent to or received from your insurance agent, another to keep tabs on your electricity expenditures, and yet another to tally up the amount of money you are owed by each of your customers. Before I started working with QuickBooks, I relied on paper registers, folders, envelopes, and boxesstuffed full of receiptsto track the movement of money. I had a paper register that I carried with me everywhere so I could keep tabs on the balance of my bank money market. I had an envelope in my glove compartment that I used to keep track of fuel, parking, road tolls, washing, and other assorted expenses relating to the use of my car. I had a box on my desk to hold all of the utility bills that found their way into my office. And I had a folder in my file cabinet filled with copies of all my customers' outstanding and past due invoices. In other words, each of my registers or folders or envelopes or boxes functioned like a QuickBooks account. In essence, my motley collection of storage devices helped me to figure out where my money was coming from and where it was going. Don't worry if you're still not quite clear on the conceptyou'll be setting up

and using your fair share of QuickBooks accounts over the next few lessons. By this time next week, you'll have plenty of concrete, firsthand experience with accounts. In no time at all, you'll have a solid understanding of why accounts are needed, how they are created, and how they can simplify the process of tracking what your business pays, what it receives, what it owes, and what it is owed. For now, all I need you to remember is that the collection of accounts that you will be using to track the flow of money into, through, and out of your business has a name. In QuickBooks, we call this collection of accounts the Chart of Accounts. In the next portion of the interview, you will answer some questions to help QuickBooks custom-design a Chart of Accounts just for your business. To begin answering this last batch of questions, please click the Next button. The first question you will be asked is to identify the date you would like QuickBooks to start tracking your business finances. Start Date Really, the QuickBooks start date isn't determined by your choice in this window. Your QuickBooks start date is simply the date that you decide to begin entering transactions into QuickBooks. You can start using QuickBooks at any time, for now I'd like you to select Beginning of this fiscal year. Then, click Next. QuickBooks will now give you an opportunity to begin adding accounts to your Chart of Accounts and will present you with a list of income and expense types that are common in your industry. Income and Expense Accounts What Is Income? Any money your business receives from your customers in exchange for products and services you provide is considered to be income. For example, if a customer were to pay you $75 for a product you sell (or, in a service business, for an hour of your time), the $75 would be

considered income. What Is an Expense? Money your business spends on services or consumable goods is considered to be an expense. For example, if you were to pay for legal representation, consulting services, advertising, repair work, or janitorial services, the money you spent would be considered an expense. Any money you spend on items you consume (such as postage, electricity, ink, or pencils) would also be considered an expense. We'll learn how to add, edit, and remove income and expense items from this list in our upcoming lessons, so I'd like you to just accept things as they are for now. To do so, just click Next without changing anything. QuickBooks will congratulate you for completing the EasyStep interview. Finished You're just about ready to exit the EasyStep interview, so now's a good time to review if you need to make any changes to your previous selections. If so, click the Back button to go back to any of the previous steps. Once you leave the EasyStep interview, you can't return to it to make changes. However, after you have the file created, there are other locations where you can make any necessary changes to the file. We'll cover those features later. Click Go to Setup, and there will be a brief pause while QuickBooks sets up your company file. Congratulations! Congratulations are definitely in orderyou have just finished setting up your first QuickBooks company. Go ahead and take a victory lap around your computer before proceeding to the next chapter. Adding Information When you complete the interview and click the Go to Setup button, the QuickBooks Setup window will appear and offer a three-step process to setting up your contacts, customers, and bank accounts. We'll cover each of these functions in much more detail throughout this course.

 Adding Information For now, click the Start Working button near the bottom of the page. The QuickStart window will appear. Quick Start Center The Setup and Quick Start windows are great features, and you can use them to accomplish most of the setup tasks in QuickBooks. However, we're going to cover many of the setup tasks in separate lessons throughout this course. Not only will this approach give you a solid understanding of how to set up your company file, it will also give you the tools you'll need to find and modify these settings at any time in your business. So, for now click the small X in the upper right-hand portion of this window to close the window.

QuickBooks Home Page

The Home page displays a number of helpful icons, which represent some of the most common activities you'll be performing in QuickBooksfrom creating invoices to paying bills and everything in between. Clicking any of these icons will bring up a window that will allow you to perform the task it represents. As you might imagine, we'll be spending plenty of time with the Home page as we work through this course. We'll start exploring this useful tool in our next lesson. Changing Company Information The Greek philosopher Heracleitus once said that the only constant is change. Nowhere is that statement more true than in the world of business. Fortunately, QuickBooks is one of the most flexible accounting programs I've ever had the pleasure of using. You can change almost anything at any time. To illustrate that point, I would like to show you how to modify the company name, address, phone number, and some of the other information you just entered using the EasyStep interview.. First, click the Company menu at the very top of the screen. A menu will

drop down. Company Menu Please select Company Information from this menu. You'll see a form that you can use to change your company name, address, phone number, fax number, and any of the other information you entered earlier in this lesson.

Company Information

If you need to make any corrections to your company information, please do so now. When you finish, click OK and you'll return to the QuickBooks Home page.

Chapter 5

As I mentioned earlier in this lesson, QuickBooks can handle as many companies as you need. You can set up another company at any time by clicking the QuickBooks File menu, selecting New Company, and repeating the steps outlined in Chapters 2 through 4 of this lesson. Each company you create should be saved under a different file name. For example, you already have a company file named Ace Photography. Therefore, you will want to make sure and avoid saving any other company with that particular name. To switch back and forth from one company to another, all you need to do is click the QuickBooks File menu and choose Open or Restore Company followed by Open a company file and Next. A list of all the companies you have ever created will appear. Click once on the company file you wish to use (remember, the practice company file we created for this course is named Ace Photography), and click the Open button. Creating a new QuickBooks company file is only just the beginning. But, after completing this lesson you can see just how easy it is. Remember that you can create as many company files as you wish. This is really handy if you run more than one company. Just be sure to give each file a unique name. When creating these files, the EasyStep interview gives you the opportunity to tailor the file to your particular business. However, if you ever find the need to make changes, such as to your company address or

phone number, you can enter these revisions in the Company Information screen at any time. That's all there is to it! And that's probably enough for our first lesson, don't you think? Now that we have a practice file to work with, in Lesson 2, you'll learn how to enter Customers and Vendors in QuickBooks. See you then!

Next Steps Okay, you've finished your first lesson. Now what do you do? You'll want to take the following steps, in any particular order you like: Take the quiz. Reinforce what you learned in the lesson by testing yourself with a short five-question quiz. You can access the quiz for each lesson by clicking the Quizzes link. Do the assignment. Want some hands-on practice applying what you've just learned? Then roll up your sleeves and dig into the assignment! Just click the Assignments link to get to each lesson's assignment. Check out the FAQs. Since learning something new usually raises questions, every lesson in this course comes with an FAQs section. To get to the FAQs, click the Resources link, and then click FAQs. Drop by the Discussion Area. Come talk with me and your fellow students in the Discussion Area! Ask questions about anything that came up in the lesson, and share your insights with everyone. This is where we'll create a learning community. View the index. If you want to find a topic but can't quite remember where it was, then the index is the place to go. You'll find it by clicking the Resources link, and then clicking Course Index. Browse resources for further learning. I've included a list of recommendations for books so you can continue learning more about this topic long after our time together ends. You'll find these by clicking the Resources link.

Supplementary Material
QuickBooks Online Community
http://community.intuit.com/quickbooks This site provides manufacturer support, articles, and advice for small businesses, user forums, a glossary of financial terms, and more.

Compare QuickBooks Versions

http://quickbooks.intuit.com/product/accounting-software/quickbookscomparison-chart.jsp This is a comparison chart showing the feature differences among the QuickBooks products.

FAQs
Q: How do I copy my QuickBooks file so I can take it from my work computer to my home computer and back again? A: You first need to back the file up to a flash drive or rewritable CD. 1.Insert the flash drive or CD into your computer and wait for the drive to be recognized. Once the drive is ready, start QuickBooks. 2.When you see the QuickBooks Home page, click the File menu, and choose Create Copy. 3.A Save Copy or Backup dialog box will appear. Select the Portable Company File option, and then click Next 4.You should now see a Save Portable Company File dialog box. Look for a Computer (or My Computer) icon on the left side of this dialog box. Click this icon, and then select the drive which should receive your backup file. 5.Click the Open button in the lower-right corner of the dialog box after you've selected your preferred drive. Then, start the backup by clicking the Save button. 6.When your backup is complete, you can insert the backup flash drive or

CD in the other computer. Start QuickBooks, and click the File menu followed by Open or Restore Company. A dialog box will appear. Click Restore a portable file, and click Next. 7.Click the Computer or My Computer icon, select the drive where your backup file resides, and click the Open button. Select the appropriate file, and click Open again. Q: I typed the company name incorrectly on my first go-round, and I was able to change it successfully using the technique for changing company information as you described in your lesson. The title bar at the top of the QuickBooks program window shows the new name, but the screen where you go to open the file still shows the old company name. Do I need to fix that? A: This happened because the company name, the legal name, and the company filename are three different things. They are not one and the same, so you can change one without impacting the others. Your company name appears on printed invoices, checks, and other forms. Your legal name appears on tax forms and pay stubs. And your filename will appear when you go to open or backup your data. Although it may be possible to change the filename with a file management utility, there is really no reason to do so and you could damage or lose access to the file. The filename is for your eyes only. It does not appear on any reports or other printed matter. As such, I do not recommend changing the filename. Q: When I was creating the practice file, I forgot to make one of the selections detailed in the lesson. Can I return to the EasyStep interview? Or should I just delete the file and try again? A: There's no need to delete the file. After you've created the file, you can't return to the EasyStep interview. However, you can make most changes either in the Company Information window (Company Company Information) or in the Preferences window (Edit Preferences).

Assignment
Your assignment today is to take a little time to get familiar with some of the navigation features in QuickBooks. In this lesson, we already discussed the QuickBooks Home Page. However, there are numerous other methods to get around in the program. Note that some of the features below are new to QuickBooks 2013. So, if you're using an older version, try to follow along the best you can using the options that you have available under the View menu.

1.Click the View option on the upper menu and choose the Top Icon Bar option. Notice that your screen changes to include an icon bar listing many of the standard features available. 2.Once again, click the View option on the upper menu and this time choose the Left Icon Bar option. You'll now see an icon bar on the left that you can use to navigate directly to certain features. 3.Next, click again on the View option and choose the Multiple Windows option. This option will allow you to open several windows in your file at the same time. 4.Now that you have elected to have the ability to open multiple windows in your file, click the View option and select the Open Window List option to view a list of open windows on the left icon bar. Notice that you may need to click the My Shortcuts option in the lower portion of the icon bar to return to your previous view.