How to Schedule Automatic Backups in Quickbooks Desktop
Data loss can prove disastrous to your business. If you lose accounting data, for example, you may have to rebuild it from the ground up by reviewing all of your bank and financial records. With Quickbooks Online, though, you can take advantage of automatic backups to protect against data loss. Automatic backups will ensure that your business’s accounting data is regularly and automatically backed up.
What Are Automated Backups?
Automated backups are exactly what they sound like: backups that are created automatically and without manual intervention. They are available in all versions of Quickbooks Desktop. Whether you use Quickbooks Desktop Pro Plus, Premier Plus or Enterprise, you can take advantage of this feature.
Quickbooks Desktop supports manual backups as well. Both automated and manual backups involve copying your company file. Your company file, of course, contains all of your business’s accounting data. While they both serve the same purpose of backing up accounting data, only automated backups are performed automatically.
Scheduling Automated Backups: What You Should Know
How do you schedule automated backups in Quickbooks Desktop exactly? The option to schedule automated backups is available under the “File” menu. After loading Quickbooks Desktop and switching to single-user mode, go to the “File” menu and select “Back Up Company,” followed by “Create Local Backup.”
You should see a new window after selecting “Create Local Backup.” In this window, choose the option for “Local Backup” and click “Next.” You can then choose the location for the backup. You’ll be able to navigate to your computer’s storage drive while choosing the specific directory to which the backup will be saved.
You’ll have to verify the backup file before proceeding. This is done by selecting the “Complete verification” option. When selected, Quickbooks Desktop will test the backup file. After the verification process has finished, select the option for “Save it now and schedule future backups.” Quickbooks Desktop will then create a backup while also allowing you to schedule additional backups for the future.
Quickbooks Desktop will display a confirmation message notifying you that your backups have been scheduled for the specified date. Of course, you can still create backups manually. Automated backups are simply an alternative solution. With automated backups, you can rest assured knowing that Quickbooks Desktop will back up your company file on the specified date. You can even schedule automated backups for intervals, such as every Monday or every Friday.
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What Are Centers in Quickbooks Desktop?
Quickbooks Desktop has become one of the most popular accounting solutions for businesses. It’s the locally installed version of Intuit’s signature accounting software. Intuit offers Quickbooks Online and Quickbooks Desktop. The former is cloud based, whereas the latter is locally installed. When using Quickbooks Desktop, though, you may encounter Centers. What are Centers in Quickbooks Desktop exactly, and how do you use them?
The Basics of Centers
Centers are portals for specific types of information in Quickbooks Desktop. There are three specific Centers available in Quickbooks Desktop. They consist of the Customers Center, the Vendors Center and the Employees Center.
You won’t find Centers in Quickbooks Online. Rather, this feature is exclusive to Quickbooks Desktop. Centers are designed to help business owners, as well as accounts, access information in Quickbooks Desktop more quickly.
How to Use Centers
By using Centers, you can access information more quickly. You won’t have to click or navigate through a bunch of links. Instead, you can pull up the Center for the information that you are trying to access. To access information about your business’s customers, for example, you can pull up the Customers Center. To access information about your business’s employees, on the other hand, you can pull up the Employees Center.
Using Centers is pretty straightforward. Just pull up the Center for the information that you are trying to access. As previously mentioned, there’s a Center for Customers, Vendors and Employees, each of which contains information about the respective group of users.
When you pull up a Center, you’ll see a list of names in the right-hand column. These are the names of the users added to the Center. For the Customers Center, you’ll see a list of all of your business’s customers in the right-hand column. Selecting a name and clicking the “Transactions” tab at the top will reveal all of the transactions for that user. You can also edit the user’s information in the top-right corner. If the user’s information is wrong or outdated, clicking the pencil icon will allow you to edit it.
In Conclusion
Quickbooks Desktop is loaded with features that can streamline your accounting efforts. One of these features is Centers. There are three Centers in Quickbooks. You can use Centers to quickly view, as well as edit, information about your business’s customers, vendors and employees.
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How to Apply Early Payment Discounts in Quickbooks
Want to encourage more customers to make early payments? If so, you should consider offering them a discount. You can reward customers who make early payments with a discount. Discounts will incentivize customers to make early payments. In Quickbooks Desktop, you can apply early payment discounts such as this in just a few simple steps.
The Basics of Early Payment Discounts
An early payment discount is exactly what it sounds like: It’s a discount that’s given to customers who pay their invoice before the specified deadline. When you send an invoice to a customer, he or she won’t have to pay immediately. Invoices allow customers to pay by a specific date. With early payment discounts, you can reward customers who satisfy their invoices by paying before this date.
Step #1) Pull Up the Customer’s Payment
To apply an early payment discount to a customer in Quickbooks Desktop, you’ll need to pull up his or her payment information. You can find this information by clicking “Customers,” followed by “Receive payments.” You should then see a “Receive Payments” window. In this window, enter the customer’s payment.
Step #2) Choose ‘Discount Info’
Once you’ve entered the customer’s payment, choose “Discount Info.” This option will automatically apply a discount to the customer’s payment. Keep in mind that Quickbooks Desktop automatically applies early payment discounts based on the payment terms and the date on which the customer made the payment. The sooner a customer pays his or her invoice, the higher the discount will be. With that said, you can customize the discount amount. Maybe you want to increase the discount amount, or perhaps you want to decrease it. You can specify the exact amount of the discount in the appropriate field.
Step #3) Choose the Tracking Account
While optional, you may want to track early payment discounts. Quickbooks Desktop supports tracking via custom account names. You can create a custom account that’s designed specifically for early payment discounts. When applying an early payment discount, you can then select this tracking account. All of the early payment discounts assigned to this account will then be curated. You can access the account to view the early payment discounts. Quickbooks doesn’t require the use of a tracking account. You can apply early payment discounts without a tracking account. Nonetheless, using one will result in cleaner records by organizing all of your early payment discounts.
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When to Use Adjusting Journal Entries in Quickbooks
Not all journal entries are the same. In Quickbooks, you can create journal entries that change the balance of a given account. Known as adjusting journal entries, they’ll directly change the balance of the account for which they are created. When should you use adjusting journal entries exactly? Below are several common instances in which journal entries can prove useful.
Record Bank Fees
You may want to use adjusting journal entries to record fees. Banks charge fees for different reasons. You may incur an overdraft penalty fee, for instance, if you attempt to pay for a product or service without a sufficient amount of money in your bank account. Whether it’s an overdraft penalty fee or any other fee, though, you can record them with adjusting journal entries. Creating an adjusting journal entry for a bank fee will change the account to the appropriate amount.
Record Credit Card Interest
In addition to bank fees, you can use adjusting journal entries to record credit card interest. Nearly all credit cards charge interest on the unpaid balance. You can avoid this interest by paying off your credit cards at the end of each month. Of course, most business owners and consumers will carry at least some balance on their credit cards. For business-related credit card interest, you may want to use adjusting journal entries. Adjusting journal entries will allow you to record both bank fees and credit card interest fees.
Record Deprecation Expenses
You can use adjusting journal entries to record deprecation expenses. Fixed assets lost their value over time. Just because you pay a specific amount of money for an asset doesn’t necessarily mean that it will hold that value indefinitely. Most fixed assets will gradually lose their value. It’s a process known as deprecation. With adjusting journal entries, you can record expenses associated with asset deprecation such as this.
How to Create Adjusting Journal Entries in Quickbooks
You can find create adjusting journal entries by using Quickbooks Online Accountant. From the “Go to Quickbooks” menu, choose your business and select the “+ New” option. You can then choose “Journal entry,” followed by ticking the box for “Is Adjusting Journal Entry?”
On the next screen, you can enter the information for the adjusting journal entry. Clicking “Save and close” will then add the adjusting journal entry while automatically updating the account with which it’s used.
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Quickbooks Online and Web Browser Cookies: What You Should Know
Quickbooks Online has become one of the most popular accounting solutions. It’s a cloud-based software service that you can use to manage your business’s finances. As a cloud-based software service, though, Quickbooks Online uses web browser cookies. It will store certain types of data in these temporary files. To learn more about Quickbooks Online and how it uses web browser cookies, keep reading.
What Are Web Browser Cookies?
Also known simply as cookies, web browser cookies are files that are designed to store data for a specific website or web page. They are typically created automatically. When you visit a website, the site may create one or more cookies while simultaneously sending those files to your web browser. Your web browser will then store the cookie or cookies.
Why Quickbooks Online Uses Web Browser Cookies
According to Intuit, web browser cookies allow Quickbooks Online to run faster. Quickbooks Online is a cloud-based software service. In other words, it’s accessed over the internet. And just like other websites, Quickbooks Online creates web browser cookies. It will store data about your account in these files, allowing for improved usability.
Problems can occur with web browser cookies, however. Normally, you’ll only have to sign in to your Quickbooks Online account a single time. Cookie-related problems, though, may require you to sign in multiple times. After entering your username and password, Quickbooks Online may ask you to sign in again. Alternatively, you may struggle to access specific features in Quickbooks Online if there are problems with your web browser cookies.
How to Fix Cookie-Related Problems
Fortunately, you can easily fix cookie-related problems. Whether you’re forced to sign in to your Quickbooks Online multiple times, or if you’re unable to access specific features, you can delete your web browser cookies to fix problems such as these.
When you delete your web browser cookies, you’ll lose certain types of data related to your Quickbooks Online account. Don’t worry, though. You won’t lose any important data. The data will typically consist of personalization settings as well as your login credentials. You can delete these cookies from your web browser’s settings menu. Different web browsers have different settings menu. Nonetheless, they all allow you to delete cookies. After deleting your web browser cookies, restart your web browser and log back in to Quickbooks Online.
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How to Manually Add Transactions in Quickbooks
Transactions are the building blocks of accounting records. When running a business, you’ll need to keep records of all business-related transactions. Some of these transactions may be classified as expenses, whereas others may be classified as revenue. Regardless, you’ll need to keep records of them.
Quickbooks, of course, can automatically record your business’s transactions. When you create an invoice, for example, it will track the transaction as revenue. With that said, you can manually add transactions in Quickbooks as well. It’s a quick and easy process that consists of the following steps.
Step #1) Access the Account
All transactions are tied to an account. To manually add a transaction in Quickbooks, you’ll need to access the respective account.
You can access accounts in Quickbooks by navigating to the Chart of Accounts. In Quickbooks Online, the Chart of Accounts is found under the “Accounting” menu. Click the “Accounting” menu on the homepage and choose “Chart of Accounts.” You can then search through the available accounts to find the one for the transaction. After locating the appropriate account, click the “Actions” column for it and choose “Account history.
Step #2) Add the Transaction
You can now add the transaction to the account. Assuming you’ve already accessed the account, you should an option to “Add journal entry, Add deposit or Add cheque.” Click this option and search for the transaction that you want to add.
Quickbooks will require you to enter some information about the transaction. There are several fields that you’ll need to complete. After completing the required fields, click “Save.” The transaction should now be added to the account. That’s all it takes to manually add transactions in Quickbooks.
What About Editing Transactions?
Along with manually adding transactions in Quickbooks, you can edit transactions as well. Editing a transaction is easy. You can search for the transaction in your account register. After pulling it up, you can then edit any of the transaction’s fields.
Keep in mind that some fields may be grayed out. To edit these fields, you’ll need to click the “Edit” link. Just go through the fields while editing adding or removing the necessary information. Like with adding transactions, you’ll need to save your changes by clicking “Save.” Hopefully, this gives you a better idea on how to manually add and edit transactions in Quickbooks.
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Quickbooks Primary Admin vs Company Admin: What’s the Difference?
How many users have access to your business’s Quickbooks account? If you operate a sole proprietorship business, you may be the sole user. LLC and S-Corp businesses, on the other hand, often allow multiple users to access their respective Quickbooks account. You can create users for your business’s Quickbooks while assigning them specific roles. Two of the most common roles supported by the popular accounting software include primary admin and company admin. What’s the difference between a primary admin and a company admin exactly?
What Is a Primary Admin?
A primary admin is the main, admin-level user for a Quickbooks account. Every Quickbooks account must have a primary admin. When initially setting up your business’s Quickbooks account, you’ll have to create a primary admin. Primary users have unrestricted access to all data and tools. As the primary admin, you can run reports, view balances, pay bills and even create or remove other users.
What Is a Company Admin?
A company admin is a secondary user for a Quickbooks account. Secondary admins can perform many of the same processes as primary admins. Among other things, they can run reports, view balances, pay bills and create or remove some — but not all — other users. Secondary admins are simply optional users that are under the primary admin.
Differences Between Primary Admins and Company Admins
You might be wondering how primary admins differ from company admins. While they can perform many of the same processes, they aren’t the same. A primary admin is required for each Quickbooks account. You can’t set up Quickbooks for your business without creating a primary admin. More importantly, you can only create a single primary admin for your business’s Quickbooks account. Quickbooks accounts don’t support multiple primary admins.
Company admins, on the other hand, are optional. You aren’t required to create a company admin when setting up your business’s Quickbooks account. You’ll have to create a primary admin, but secondary admins are optional. You can either create secondary admins, or you can omit them from your business’s Quickbooks account.
Company admins also have a slightly lower level of permissions than their primary admin counterparts. Company admins, for instance, can’t remove the primary admin associated with their Quickbooks account. They can add or remove other users, such as standard users, but company admins can’t modify or remove the primary admin.
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How to Record a Guaranteed Payment in Quickbooks
Are you trying to record a guaranteed payment? Guaranteed payments are used to provide compensation to partners or other individuals for performing work. While most businesses have employees, some of them have partners as well. These partners aren’t on the business’s payroll. Instead, the business will pay its partners by using guaranteed payments. In Quickbooks, you can record a guaranteed payment in just a few simple steps.
Step #1) Create a Check
The first step to recording a guaranteed payment in Quickbooks is to create a check. You’ll essentially use a check to pay the partner, after which you can choose the option to save it as a guaranteed payment. This is done by selecting the “Banking” menu in Quickbooks Desktop and choosing the “Write Checks” option. From there, you can select the bank account associated with the check from the “Bank Account” menu.
Step #2) Choose the Partner
You’ll also need to choose the partner for whom you are recording the guaranteed payment. As previously mentioned, guaranteed payments are those used to compensate partners, as well as other individuals, who perform work on behalf of your business. You can choose the partner by selecting the “Pay to the Order Of” menu. After selecting this menu, you should see a list of all known partners, vendors and other business associates. Just scroll through the list until you find the partner for whom you are recording the guaranteed payment.
Step #3) Choose the Account
The third step to recording a guaranteed payment in Quickbooks is to choose the account. Assuming you followed the steps listed above, you should see an “Action” column. Under this column is a list of accounts. Choose the guaranteed payment account that you created. Quickbooks will require you to enter some other basic information in the available fields. When finished, select “Save & Close.”
That’s all it takes to record a guaranteed payment in Quickbooks. If you aren’t comfortable recording guaranteed payments yourself, you may want to hire an accountant to do it. Nonetheless, Quickbooks simplifies the otherwise complex task of recording guaranteed payments. It only takes a few steps. Recording a guaranteed payment involves creating a check, choosing the partner and choosing the account. Once recorded, the guaranteed payment will show up your business’s general ledger. Just remember to double-check the partner to make sure it’s correct.
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Did You Know? How Projects Work in Quickbooks
Are projects are a part of your business’s money-making operations? If so, you may want to track them. Quickbooks offers a solution for tracking, as well as managing, projects. In the popular accounting software, you’ll find an option to enable projects. This feature will allow you to track all of your business’s projects. How do projects work in Quickbooks exactly? For a better understanding of this feature and how to use it, keep reading.
Overview of Projects
Projects is a tracking feature available in Quickbooks Online. As the name suggests, it’s designed specifically for projects. When you create a project, you can add material and labor expenses to it, add transactions to it and run reports for the project. Assuming you use Quickbooks Online Plus, Quickbooks Online Advanced or Quickbooks Online Accountant, you can take advantage of this tracking feature.
How to Enable Projects
To use projects, you must enable this feature in your Quickbooks account. The projects feature is disabled by default. Fortunately, you can turn it on in just a few simple steps. Click the “Settings” menu and choose “Company Settings.” Under the “Advanced” tab, search for “Projects” and choose “Edit.” You should see an option labeled “Use project financial tracking.” Click this option so that it toggles to the “on” position.” When finished, click “Save.” Projects should now be enabled in your Quickbooks account.
How to Create Projects
Once enabled, you can create projects for tracking purposes. This is done by selecting “Projects” and then “New Project.” Quickbooks will prompt you to enter a name for the project. You can enter any name in this field. With that said, it’s recommended that you should descriptive and memorable name for the project. Next, click the “Customer” drop-down menu and choose the customer for whom you are performing the project. You can add optional notes to the “Notes” section, followed by clicking “Save” to complete the process.
You’ll probably want to add transactions to the project. Transactions can consist of expenses, invoices and estimates, all of which can be added to projects. To add a transaction to the project, go back to the “Projects” section in Quickbooks and select your project. Next, click the option labeled “Add to project.” You can then choose the type of transaction that you want to add to the project. After filling in the required information, click “Save and close.” The transaction will now be added to the proejct.
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5 Reasons to Switch From Quickbooks Online to Quickbooks Desktop
What version of Quickbooks do you currently use to track your business’s finances? If you currently use the cloud-based version, you may want to consider switching to one of the desktop versions. Intuit offers several desktop versions of its popular accounting software, including Quickbooks Pro 2021, Quickbooks Premier 2021 and Quickbooks Enterprise 2021. Upgrading to a desktop version can prove beneficial for the following reasons.
#1) Work Offline
Quickbooks Desktop allows you to work offline. This alone is reason enough to consider upgrading. With Quickbooks Online, you’ll only be record transactions and make other changes to your business’s finances if you have an active internet connection. Quickbooks Desktop is locally installed, so it doesn’t require an active internet connection.
#2) One-Time Cost
As you may know, Quickbooks Online requires a subscription. The entry-level version of Quickbooks Online is about $15 per month, but some of the higher-tiered versions of it can cost over $50 per month. Quickbooks Desktop, on the other hand, doesn’t use a subscription payment model. You’ll only have to pay a one-time fee, after which you can use it indefinitely.
#3) Features
Both Quickbooks Online and Quickbooks Desktop are loaded with features. With that said, Quickbooks Desktop has more features than its cloud-based counterpart. Whether you choose Quickbooks Pro 2021, Quickbooks Premier 2021 or Quickbooks Enterprise 2021, you’ll probably discover that it offers more features with which to track your business’s finances than Quickbooks Cloud. By switching to Quickbooks Desktop, you can take advantage of these features.
#4) Payroll
You can use Quickbooks Desktop to manage your business’s payroll. Quickbooks Online doesn’t offer payroll management. Payroll management is exclusive to Quickbooks Desktop. It allows you to set up automatic deposits for your employees, perform time tracking, generate send tax forms, and much more. You can learn more about payroll management by clicking this link. Regardless, payroll management requires Quickbooks Desktop. You won’t find this option available in Quickbooks Online.
#5) Hosting Available
It’s also worth noting that hosting is available for Quickbooks Desktop. Hosting is an optional service that involves a third-party company hosting the Quickbooks Desktop on your behalf. With hosting, you’ll essentially get the benefits of both Quickbooks Online and Quickbooks Desktop. The third-party company will install and host the software on its own server. You can then access Quickbooks Desktop over the internet.
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