Tutorials

Looking to change the time and date format in your Quickbooks accounting software? If you are reading this, I’m assuming the answer is yes. Quickbook allows users to change this format to either a decimal or minutes, depending on the user’s preferences. Unfortunately, this option is somewhat hidden, leaving many users asking the question: how do I change the time and date format in Quickbooks?

First and foremost, it’s important to note that only the administrator can make these changes. If you don’t have admin privileges to your Quickbooks account, you won’t be able to change the time and date format. So, first log into your Quickbooks account as the administrator, after which you can follow the steps listed below to change the time and date format.

Once logged into Quickbooks as the administrator, choose Edit > Preferences > General > Company Preferences tab. From here, you can select either decimal or minutes for your preferred format. With the decimal format, Quickbooks automatically interupts time entries as decimal fractions, so 2 hours and 30 minutes would be represented as 2.5, for instance. The minutes format, on the other hand, is the standard format in which time entries are represented as hours and minutes, such as 2:30 for 2 hours and 30 minutes.

Now that you know how to change the time, you might be wondering how to change the date in Quickbooks. After all, this option isn’t available using the steps mentioned above. So, how do you change the date? Well, the date formats for Quickbooks is the same as your Windows operating system.

If you are running Quickbooks on a computer with either Windows 8 or Windows 10, you should open the computer window by pressing the Windows key + E, followed by Settings > PC Settings > Time and language. From here, click the option titled “Change date and time formats” under the “Date and time” section. You can then configure options for the first day of the week, short date, or long date.

The steps for changing the date format in Quickbooks is a little different if your computer runs Windows 7, however. To update the date format, open the Control Panel > Regional and Language Options > Formats > choose the format regional language that you prefer. Next, change the date formats to the desired way in which you’d like them to be display, followed by clicking the Apply button. Sorry if you were expecting more, but that’s all it takes to update your date format in Quickbooks!

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Want to delete one or more customers from your Quickbooks account? Launched by Intuit, Quickbooks has become the world’s most popular accounting software for small businesses. It offers both cloud-based and desktop solutions, allowing business owners of all shapes and sizes to keep track of their own accounting records. But if you’re new to the software, you may have some questions, such as how to delete a customer.

Within the Quickbooks interface is a helpful section that keeps track of your customers. Known as the “customer lists,” it allows users to organize and view information associated with either of their customers, such as their customers’ names, addresses, payments, balance due, etc. There are times, however, when a business owner or accountant may wish to remove a customer from this list. If the customer is inactive or no longer available, for instance, there’s no point in keeping him or her on your list.

There are a few ways to handle inactive customers such as this, one of which is to simply hide his or her name. After logging into your Quickbooks account, choose Customer Center > Customer & Jobs > double-click the customer whose name you wish to hide > Customer is Inactive > OK. Assuming you followed these steps, the respective customer’s name should no longer appear in your customer list.

Another solution, however, is to merge two or more customers’ name. Of course, this is only recommended if you have multiple copies of the same customer in your list. Merging them together helps to keep your Quickbooks account nice and tidy, making it easier to scour through data. To merge customer names, click Customer Center > Customers & Jobs > double-click on the customer’s name whom you wish to remove > chance the name to the name in the Edit window > OK > Yes.

A third solution is to simply delete the customer’s name. This is the option that many users prefer, simply because it’s the easiest. To delete a customer’s name, fire up Quickbooks and choose > Customer Center > Customers & Jobs > click the customer’s name whom you wish to remove > Edit > Delete Customer: Job. Congratulations, you’ve just deleted the customer’s name from your account. You can repeat these steps to remove additional names from your account.

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Looking to reduce the size of your Quickbooks company file? Like any other file on your computer, a large size will take up excessive storage space — storage space that could be used for other purposes. But as your business’s accounting needs grow, so will your company file. Thankfully, there’s a simple and effective way to reduce the size of Quickbooks company files. It involves moving the closed transactions into a general ledger; thus, you won’t lose any data but rather it organized your data into the general ledger.

To perform this operation, log into your Quickbooks account and choose File > Utilities > Condense Data > All Transactions > Next > Yes > Condense Data, at which point Quickbooks will begin to condense your data and subsequently reduce the size of your company file.

The process should only take a few minutes, although some larger files may take extra time to complete. In fact, some sources say the Condense Data utility tool could take several hours for large databases, so consider running the process towards the end of your workday. If you expect the process to take a while, simply let it run while you are away. There’s no other action required on your behalf once the Condense Data utility begins.

Keep in mind that you can’t undo the condense data process once it begins. Therefore, it’s a good idea to create a backup of your old company file just in case you wish to revert. Creating backups is a quick and easy process that can save you from heartache, so go ahead and create one before proceeding with the condense data process.

Another option is to simply remove all temporary data from your company file. If you don’t want to use the condense data utility, this is another viable option to consider. Basically, it involves removing all temporary data from your company file. Quickbooks automatically stores a variety of temporary data to the user’s company file. This data isn’t critical, but rather it takes up valuable space while increasing the total size of the user’s company file.

Hopefully, this gives you a better understanding on how to lower the size of your Quickbooks company file.

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Quickbooks has become the world’s leading accounting software for small businesses. But if you plan on using it, you’ll probably want to connect your bank accounts and credit cards to the software. Once your bank accounts are connected, Quickbooks will automatically download transaction from it, eliminating the need for manual entering these transactions. So, how exactly do you connect your bank accounts and credit cards to Quickbooks?

To connect a bank account, access the homepage of Quickbooks and choose “Connect an Account” under “Bank accounts.” From here, you can choose your bank and the username and password used to access your account online. Quickbooks will then display all of the accounts you currently have open at this open. You can choose the account you use for your business (not personal), after which you can specify its type. Quuickbooks will automatically download all transactions from the past 90 days, although it won’t display them in your account just yet.

When accessing the “Bank and Credit Cards” page, you’ll see an option for “Category or Match” column sorting. Click either of these to sort the transactions by the respective name. Also, you’ll notice that Quickbooks attempts to find categories for some transactions.

Go ahead and click the first transaction listed to open it. While Quickbooks automatically places transactions in a category that it believes is appropriate, some users may want to change the categories for their transactions — and that’s okay. To change the category of a transaction, open the transaction menu, choose the transaction, select Payee (if the payee is new, click Add), enter a name for the category and click Save.

You’ll also notice that Quickbooks allows users to split transactions if the associated item or items was purchased from different categories in a single transaction. To perform this, simply choose “Split,” after which you’ll see a new Split Transaction window. From here, choose the appropriate categories along with the total dollar amount spent on each category.

Now that you know how to connect a bank account to Quickbooks, you might be wondering how to connect a credit card to Quickbooks. Well, the process is exactly the same. Simply choose “Connect an Account” under the “Bank accounts” menu and follow the steps listed above. You’ll have to enter the type of credit card, along with the username and password used to access your account online. Once Quickbooks connects your credit card, it will automatically important the transactions to your Quickbooks.

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Quickbooks allows hosting in both single-user and mobile-user mode. When starting or stopping multi-user access, however, you must follow some specific steps. First and foremost, you should check to see if your current computer is already in multi-user access mode by visiting File > Utilities, at which point you’ll see the option “Stop hosting multi-user access” if your computer is currently set up for multi-user access.

So, to start multi-user hosting in Quickbooks, simply click the File drop-down menu, followed by Utilities, then Host multi-user access. It’s a quick and easy process that should only take a few minutes to complete.

To stop multi-user hosting in Quickbooks, click the File drop-down menu, followed by Utilities, then Stop hosting multi-user access.

As the name suggests, multi-user access mode allows Quickbooks to be accessed my multiple users. It’s not uncommon for business owners to allow multiple individuals access to their accounting. If you’re a business owner, for instance, you may want to provide your accountant with access to your Quickbooks, in which case you should set up Quickbooks with multi-user access mode.

Some users have reported an error message when the service user (QBDataServiceUser) fails to create with the correct system rights, however. This error message says “To start or stop hosting multi-user access to company files, you must be logged into Windows as a user who has Administrative privileges. Please log in using an Administrator account and try again.”

This is just one error message associated with Quickbooks multi-user mode. Other error messages may also appear. The good news is that most of these errors are easily fixed using the Quickbooks File Doctor Repair Tool. This tool automatically scans your Quickbooks installation, offering advice on how to fix them. Depending on the specific error, the File Doctor Repair Tool may even fix the error without any extra steps taken on your part.

To fix this error message, you should access Start > Settings > Control Panel > User Accounts > QBDataServiceUser > Properties > Group Membership, at which point you can change the access rights to Power User or Administrator. Click Apply, followed by OK, and restart your Quickbooks program to complete the changes. This should resolve the aforementioned error message.

Hopefully, this gives you a better understanding on how to start, stop and fix problems with multi-user access in Quickbooks.

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Does your business outsource some of its tasks to third-party independent contractors? If so, you’ll need to provide those contractors with a 1099-MISC form for tax purposes. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) requires this form for independent contractors earning at least $600 during the tax form. Thankfully, there’s a quick and easy way to set up vendors to receive a form 1099-MISC form using the Quickbooks accounting software.

When you ready to set up 1099-MISC forms for your vendors, log into your Quickbooks account and choose Vendors > Vendor Center. From here, right-click the vendor’s name for whom you wish to set up the 1099-MISC form and click “Edit Vendor.” Next, click the Address Info tab and double-check the vendor’s information to ensure it’s correct.

While accessing the Address Info tab, make sure the Address field contains a two-letter state abbreviation and postal code. If either of these elements are incorrect, you should correct them now. Next, make sure the vendor is listed is a person. As explained by Intuit, the vendor’s legal name should be displayed as his or her first name, middle initial, and last name. If you don’t know the person’s name, leave the Company Name field empty to prevent double names from being displayed on the 1099-MISC form.

When you are finished verifying the Address Info tab, click the Tax Settings tab, after which you’ll be prompted to enter the vendor’s tax identification number in the Vendor Tax IF field. Here, click the option for “Vendor eligible for 1099.” This tells Quickbooks to provide the vendor for a 1099-MISC form. Click “OK” to save the changes. Lastly, repeat these steps for any vendor earning more than $600 in the calendar year.

After setting up vendors to receive a 1099-MISC form, you should reach out to them to ensure they receive it. Of course, most vendors will contact YOU if they don’t receive, but it’s still a good idea to keep the lines of communication open. Because when tax time rolls around next year, you’ll probably be busy working on your own accounting needs. In any case, the steps listed here should allow you to set up the 1099-MISC form for any vendors with whom you do business.

Congratulations, you’ve just set up your vendor or vendors to receive a 1099-MISC tax form!

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Looking to delete a payment in Quickbooks? If you are reading this, I’m assuming the answer is yes. Quickbooks has become the world’s most popular accounting software for small businesses, and rightfully so — it’s versatile, easy to use, and backed by superior support. But some users may struggle when attempting to delete a payment. If this sounds like a familiar scenario, keep reading for step-by-step instructions on how to delete a payment.

Quickbooks allows users to edit or delete payments they’ve already included in deposits via the Make Deposits window. In order to use this feature, however, you must remove the payment from the deposit.

If you have Quickbooks set up to bypass the Undeposited Funds so it deposits payments directly to one or more of your accounts, you won’t be able to edit or delete a payment without it affecting your records and throwing off your books.  When you delete a payment, the payment no longer exists; thus, it can throw off your books. So to fix this problem, select the line containing the payment you wish to delete and access the Edit menu > Delete Line.

Quickbooks will now delete the payment from this deposit. The good news is that the payment still exists in your records. Rather than it being deposited, however, the payment will be deposited. Quickbooks then places the money back into you Undeposited Funds. You can remove the payment entirely by deleting it from your Undeposited Funds.

When you are finished, save the deposit by clicking “Save” in the Make Deposits window. This records the deposit without the payment you’ve deleted. Hopefully, this gives you a better understanding of how to delete payments in Quickbooks. Just remember that using the aforementioned tutorial moves the payment from deposited to undeposited. This is helpful because it doesn’t throw off your books, rather it keeps it on record for tax and other accounting purposes.

o edit or delete a payment you’ve already included in a deposit in the Make Deposits window, you must remove the payment from the deposit.

If you have set up QuickBooks to bypass Undeposited Funds and to deposit payments directly into an account, you can’t edit or delete a payment without affecting your records. When you delete a payment from the account register, the payment no longer exists in QuickBooks.

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Quickbooks is the catch-all accounting solution for businesses big and small. It contains all incoming revenue and outgoing business-related expenses, all in one convenient location. Perhaps this is why it’s the #1 accounting software year after year.

There are times, however, when business owners may need to export their transactions from Quickbooks. If you’re preparing your taxes, for instance, you may want a separate copy of your transactions. Rather than going into your financial accounts, you should pull them from Quickbooks. This is a relatively easy and painless task that should only take a few minutes. So, if you need to export your transactions from Quickbooks, keep reading for a step-by-step walkthrough on how perform this task.

There are actually two different ways to export transactions from Quickbooks, the first of which requires a transaction type for two more customers, vendors or employees. If you need to analyze or exchange filtered data, you should use this option. This is done by logging into your account and choosing the Find window. After accessing the Transaction Type menu, choose Invoice followed by the Find button. This should reveal the location of your transactions, after which you can click the export button to export them.

The export window offers several different options, including the ability to save the exported data as a comma separated value or Excel workbook. Keep in mind that exports using the Excel format are only compatible with Microsoft Excel versions 2000 and newer. If you have an older version, you should choose a different file format for your exported transactions. Also, the Advanced tab offers several additional customization features, which can you choose if needed. After selecting your preferred options, click Export to export the transactions.

The second method for exporting transactions involving the Customer Center. To do this, open the Customer Center and select the customer whose data you would like to export. Next, click the Excel button in the toolbar, then click the Export Transactions menu in the window below. After choosing the Export menu, you should see the transactions from the customer. From here, you can filter them by changing the values in the respective drop-down menu, or you can leave them as is. Once finished, you can export the transactions by proceeding with the on-screen instructions. It’s important to note that exporting transactions using this method does not offer the ability to save the transactions as a .csv file. Rather, you’ll have to use a different option, such as Microsoft Excel.

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Is Quickbooks asking you to change your password? Seeing this message appear every time you fire up the popular accounting software can be a nuisance. In most cases, you can fix this problem simply by changing your password. However, there have been reports of even this not working. So, what should you do if Quickbooks keeps asking you to change your password?

Seeing the password request is frustrating to say the least, but fixing it is actually quite easy. First and foremost, it’s important to note that password change requests are completely normal. Quickbooks — like many software and services — asks users to change their password on a regular basis for security purposes. The longer your password remains unchanged, the greater the risk of a hacker or other nefarious individual accessing your account and retrieving your sensitive data. More specifically, Quickbooks asks users to change their password once every 90 days. So in order words, you can expect to see a password change request notification once every three months.

But updating your password doesn’t always fix the problem, at least not for some users. There have been reports of Quickbooks continuing to prompt users to change their password, even after they’ve already done so. According to several sources, this is apparently a problem with the Quickbooks user rather than Quickbooks itself. To correct the problem, you’ll need to delete the problematic user, after which you can create a new one. Keep in mind, however, that only admins can delete and add new users, so you’ll need to log in as the admin to perform this operation.

To do this, fire up your Quickbooks accounting software and choosing Company > Set Up Users and Passwords > Set Up Users > under the “User List” menu, click the problematic user and choose “Delete User.” Next, click “Add User” to add the user back, giving them a unique password. This user should see a request to change their password the first time they log in, which is completely normal. Go ahead and change the password for the new user after you log in. Following this, however, Quickbooks shouldn’t ask you to change your password for another 90 days.

Hopefully, this resolves the issue you are having with Quickbooks asking you to change your password. And if you still have trouble with this issue, contact your Quickbooks hosting provider for additional assistance.

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Have you encountered the H101, H202, H303 or H505 error message when attempting to open your Quickbooks company file? It’s frustrating when errors such as these occur, especially when you’re trying to conduct other work like keeping track of your business income and/or expenses. However, Quickbooks provides these errors with unique codes so you’ll know what’s causing them and how to fix them.

The H202 error message, for instance, often appears when you attempt to open a company file located on a different computer, yet your copy of Quickbooks can’t reach the server on which the other copy is stored. The H202 error message may also occur when you have shared connections set up on your company but the actual Quickbooks software can’t connect to the host computer.

According to Intuit, the H101, H303 and H505 error messages may all occur when you attempt to work with a company file located on a different computer, but that computer needs additional installation and/or setup.

So, how do you fix these errors? First and foremost, download and run the Quickbooks File Doctor Tool. Available for free through Intuit’s own website, this tool is designed to identify and fix a wide range of problems. After downloading the tool to your computer, go ahead and open it, at which point it should scan your computer for possible problems associated with Quickbooks. If the tool finds any problems, it will provide recommendations on how to fix them.

If the File Doctor Tool did not find, or fix, the problem, you should verify your hosting next. This is done by accessing File > Utilities > at which point you should see whether or not your computer is hosting the company file. If your computer is hosting the company file, it will reveal “Host Multi-User Access.” If you see “Stop Hosting Multi-User Access,” select this option.  Choose “Yes” to confirm, followed by “Yes” in the “Company File Must be Closed” window. Repeat these steps for each computer. This should eliminate many problems associated with the H101, H202, H303 and H505 error messages.

In the event that you are still struggling to open your Quickbooks company file, contact your respective hosting provider for assistance. If you are using a Hosted version of Quickbooks, your hosting provider should offer help with problems such as these.

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