Quick Start with a QuickBooks Online Expert

Hi QuickBooks Community!

Meet Leon! He's a Supportability Specialist with over a decade of experience, and he's here to share his top three tips  when getting started with QuickBooks Online. Leon knows everything there is to know about the platform and is excited to share his expertise with you all. 

So, whether you're a small business owner or just getting started with QuickBooks, don't miss the chance to get your questions answered during our upcoming AMA event on Tuesday, September 24th at 9am PST. We hope to see you there! 

Let’s now take a look at what Leon has to share! 

1. Set-up preferences before recording 1st transactions in QBO

As a new user, it's important to adjust your account settings to optimize your experience. By customizing your dashboard, you'll be able to quickly track your business's profitability, expenses, income, sales, and cash flow. 

Taking the time to personalize your homepage allows you to highlight the information that's most important to you, and with the shortcuts widget, you can create invoices, review banking transactions, record bills, set up customers, and monitor your payroll health with ease.

The QuickBooks dashboard has three tabs: Home, Cash flow, and Planner. Each tab helps you focus on important stuff in QuickBooks Online to make your work go faster. You can easily set up and see how your business is doing.

To learn more about how you can go about setting up your company, adding in new users, and managing sign in & contact information, make sure to check out this article. 

2. Import Chart of Accounts Templates

You can easily bring your custom Chart of Accounts templates into QuickBooks Online. Doing this  will help save you time, reduce mistakes, and help you categorize transactions like a pro.

If you didn't pick a standard template when you set up your account, don't sweat it. There's a CSV template ready for your specific industry in the QuickBooks Online Excel Import templates file. Just grab the template that fits your business best and follow the steps to import your chart of accounts from Microsoft Excel. 

To import a template, you can view a list of available templates here. From here, you can then see which template best suits your company. You can now open this file and download the selected template from it. 

This should be a breeze and will ensure your accounts are tailored to your needs. You can then go ahead and import your Chart of Accounts in to QuickBooks Online.

3. Use Keyboard shortcuts

You can use Keyboard shortcuts to help you navigate your account quicker and more easily. This will save you lots of time and get you back to running your business.

Typically any of our QuickBooks Online shortcuts will work in browsers such as Chrome, Internet Explorer, & Firefox. 

If you’re in need a handy list of keyboard shortcuts for QuickBooks, you can download or print a copy of the QuickBooks Online Keyboard Shortcuts reference guide or find it within your account by going to the ‘Help’ feature. It's got all the shortcuts you need, whether you're using a PC or a Mac.

Make sure to also check out some of the keyboard shortcuts we’ve covered in the QuickBooks Community previously in this article. We will be sharing more so keep an eye out!

And that concludes Leon's top 3 tips! We hope you found these helpful and we look forward to seeing you again on Tuesday, September 24th, for our Ask Me Anything Event where Leon will be on hand to answer any of your questions.