QuickBooks Online Student Guide

Chapter 1
New Company
Setup
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Table of Contents
Lesson Objectives  3

Setting Up Your Company   3

Basic Setup Company Steps   6

How QuickBooks Is Built?   10

Importing Lists  12

Setup Users  15

Sales Tax  20
 New Company Setup 3

Lesson Objectives
In this chapter you’ll learn how to create a new company. You’ll learn how to get started by
importing list information, customizing the settings for your company and other important tasks
such as setting up sales tax, and adding new users. Setting up is easy to do and QuickBooks guides
you through the process.

• Create a new QuickBooks Online company

• Customize company settings

• Import list information

• Enable sales tax

• Set up users in your company

Setting Up Your Company

After signing up for a QuickBooks Online account, you’ll need to complete the setup of your
QuickBooks Online company.

Steps for Creating a New QBO Company

1. Using your web browser, navigate to qbo.intuit.com.

2. Enter your Email or user ID and Password.

3. Click Sign In.

QuickBooks requires additional information to complete the basic company setup. QuickBooks asks
you to name your company.

1. Answer the question What’s the full, legal name of your business?

2. Tell QuickBooks How long have you been in business?

3. Answer the question How would you describe what your business does?
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4. Click Next.

NOTE  The checkbox labeled I’ve been using QuickBooks Desktop and want to bring
in my data refers to converting data from the QuickBooks Desktop version to QuickBooks
Online. This is not relevant for this class.

1. Click the options that apply to your business including Send and Track Invoices, Organize your
expenses, and Track your sales tax. You can add payroll and time tracking at a later time.

2. Click Next.
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QuickBooks asks: What’s your role at your business? Click Accountant or Bookkeeper. After making
your selection click All set.

QuickBooks displays the QuickBooks Home Page or Dashboard.

To learn how to setup a company watch this video: https://youtu.be/T5uazZwPeaY

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Basic Setup Company Steps

After completing the initial setup of your QuickBooks company, there are several important tasks
to complete the setup. It’s a good idea to enable and customize features and settings that apply
to your company. The following settings are important to ensure that you’re QuickBooks data file
is secure.

Company Settings
Company settings let you configure QuickBooks to work the way you want.

NOTE  It’s recommended to edit the settings as you work in different areas of
QuickBooks.

To access the Accounts & Settings:

1. Click the Gear Icon.

2. Click Account & Settings.

Use the categories on the left to navigate the various settings. There are several settings that should
be updated or enabled immediately after you setup your company.
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1. Click Company to update information like the Company Name, Company type, Contact info,
and Address.

Company Name: The business name you enter will be displayed on your Dashboard. QBO
uses your business name extensively in correspondence with your customers, including it in the
subject line of emailed invoices, on statements, at the top of reports, and much more.

Your business name is also the default filing name of your business for payroll taxes forms if you
use payroll through QuickBooks.

2. Click the Company Name section to expand and edit the information.

3. Click the + to add a logo. You can add multiple logos if needed.

4. Edit the Company name if necessary. Click Legal Name to add a legal name if different than the
Company Name.

5. Enter the Business Number (BN) in the correct field.

6. Click Save. This saves the changes to the Company name section of the settings. Now you can
proceed to edit other settings under the Company category.

NOTE  Remember, the logo should be:

• a .gif, .bmp, .png, .jpg, .jpe, or .jpeg file

• smaller than 10 MB

• 24-bits or less in bit depth (or colour depth)

• square-shaped, since rectangles don’t work

• using the standard RGB colour space

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Contact Info & Address

1. Click Contact Info to update the Company email, Customer-facing email, Company phone
and Website.

2. Click Save.

3. Click Address to edit the Company Address, Customer-facing address and Legal Address.

NOTE 

Add Customer-facing email: This is an address where customers contact you or send
payments. Shown on sales forms. If left blank, Company address is used.

Add Legal Address: Address used for filing taxes. If left blank, Company address is used.

Add customer email: Email where customers can contact you. If left blank, Company
email is used.
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Advanced Settings
Click the Advanced Settings link to update additional settings in your company. The important
settings in the advanced section are the following:

Accounting
The accounting settings let you determine the following:

• First month of fiscal year: For reporting, you can specify any month as the start of your fiscal
year (also called your financial reporting year or accounting year).

• First month of the income tax year: Talk to your accounting professional about this option. Not
relevant for this class.

• Accounting Method: This defaults to accrual, but if required it can be edited.

• Close the books: The Closing Date marks when your company’s books have been closed.
You’ll set a closing date password to protect your records against changes that would
alter balances for closed accounting periods. These changes include editing or deleting
transactions entered on or before the closing date, and entering new transactions dated on or
before the closing date.

• Default tax rate selection: This lets you choose Exclusive of Tax, which means that amounts on
transactions would be entered before the tax is applied. You can choose Inclusive of Tax which
means that amounts on transactions would be entered including tax. Alternatively, you can
choose Out of Scope of Tax if tax is not used.

To update the Accounting settings:

1. Click the Accounting section to edit the settings.

2. Choose the First month of the fiscal year.

3. Select the Close the books option.

4. Enter the Closing date. QuickBooks lets you choose to allow changes with just a warning or a
warning and a password. Choose the option that works for your company.

5. Enter the Password if required.

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6. Click Save.

7. Click Done to update the Company Settings.

NOTE  It’s recommended that you choose the option that includes both a warning and
password. If you decide to set a password, QuickBooks requires the password for changes that
would alter balances for the accounting period you have closed. This includes adding, editing,
or deleting transactions dated on or before the closing date. You can change the password
at any time.

To learn how to update the company settings watch this video: https://youtu.be/l5sTgWPJbqA

How QuickBooks Is Built?

QuickBooks is based on lists and transaction forms. Together they make up most of the information
in QuickBooks. See below for more details.

Lists in QuickBooks
Lists are the framework of QuickBooks. Use lists to fill out most QuickBooks forms. For example,
to pay a bill, choose a name from your supplier list on the Enter Bills form. QuickBooks enters the
list information on the form for you. This saves you time and prevents typing errors. You can also
change the information directly on the form if necessary.
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Although most lists are easy to set up in QuickBooks, some lists—such as the Chart of Accounts,
Products and Services list, and Class list—require careful planning.

QuickBooks Transaction Forms

You record most of your daily business transactions on a QuickBooks transaction form. You will
use QuickBooks lists to complete transaction forms. Behind the scenes, QuickBooks records the
accounting entries (debits and credits). The invoice is an example of a transaction form.
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Importing Lists
If you keep important list information in Microsoft Excel you can import it directly into QuickBooks.
You can import customers, suppliers, accounts, and products and services. This will help you add
information to QuickBooks faster than if you created each list entry from scratch.

To import customers:

1. Click the Gear Icon, then click Import Data.

2. Click Customers.
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3. Click Browse and then navigate to the Excel or CSV file that contains your customer data. Click
Open, and Next at the bottom right.

4. On the Map Data window you see two columns. The first Column is the QuickBooks Online
field. This is the field name contained in QuickBooks. The second column is Your field. In other
words the column’s name in your MS Excel sheet. QuickBooks automatically matches the fields
it recognizes. If the fields are not matching as needed, choose the correct fields manually by
clicking the drop down selection under Your Field. Click Next.
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5. In the final window, you can confirm the data that QuickBooks is importing and make any
final changes. If QuickBooks encountered any errors, you will see them displayed in red. After
reviewing the information, click Import.

NOTE  You can import other lists using the same process as above. See
information below.

Steps for Importing Products and Services

1. Click the Gear Icon, and then click Import Data.

2. Click Products and Services.

3. Click Browse and then navigate to the Excel or CSV file that contains your products and services
data. Click Open, and Next at the bottom right.

4. On the Map Data window you see two columns. The first Column is the QuickBooks Online
field. This is the field name contained in QuickBooks. The second column is Your field. In other
words the column’s name in your MS Excel sheet. QuickBooks automatically matches the fields
it recognizes. If the fields are not matching as needed, choose the correct fields manually by
clicking the drop down selection under Your Field. Click Next.

5. Confirm the data that QuickBooks is importing and make any final changes. If QuickBooks
encountered any errors, you will see them displayed in red. After reviewing the information,
click Import.

To learn how to import list information watch this video: https://youtu.be/RBPLeVIGex0

 New Company Setup 15

NOTE  Opening Balances: Chart of Accounts can be imported through the same
means as customers, suppliers and products & services, and by doing so the balances
of various accounts can also be imported. This is helpful because if you have a chequing
account, loans or assets, it is important for you to integrate the balances of those accounts into
QuickBooks before entering any transactions that relate to that account. For instance, before
you enter cheques that you’ve written, you first want to enter the amount of money that is
currently in that chequing account.

Importing your Chart of Accounts is the easiest method for integrating those opening
balances, but other methods can be employed:

• Manual Entry: When you create a new account on the Chart of Accounts, if the
account is a Balance Sheet account (asset, liability or equity) you have an option for
entering an opening balance and an as of date for that balance.

• Historical Transactions: You can enter historical transactions that make up account
balances through the same methods as entering any other kind of transaction. As long
as you enter the appropriate date QuickBooks will update your financial information
for that time period, and the appropriate accounts will also be affected.

• Journal Entries: If you are well-versed in debits and credits and how they are used
to generate account balances in a double-entry accounting system you can build a
journal entry that summarizes all of your business’ financial information on a single
journal entry. Doing so will incorporate your accounts’ balances. This is an advanced
method, however, and should not be attempted unless you have extensive knowledge
of accounting and bookkeeping or your accountant has built an appropriate journal
entry for you.

Setup Users
QuickBooks Online can be customized to let multiple people sign-in and work in QuickBooks
simultaneously. You can grant different permissions to different users based on the access needed
within QuickBooks.
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Regular Users for Your Company

To set up a new user, click the Gear Icon and then click Manage Users.

1. In the Manage Users window, click Add user to create a new user. The first option you must
select for a user is their level of access:

• Admin: Admin users can enter any type of transaction and run any kind of report. Admins also
have access to company billing information and can create other users.

• Regular or Custom: These users can be customized so that they can only perform tasks and
view reports in relation to sales, expenses or both. During the setup process you can also set a
regular or custom user to be able to enter their own time into QuickBooks so that their hours
can be recorded for the work they perform. You can also customize their access to company
account and billing information.
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• Reports Only: Reports Only users are only able to view and customize reports. They cannot
enter any transactions and cannot access company account information.

• Time Tracking: A time tracking user can log into QuickBooks Online and enter their own time.
They are limited to only timesheets.

Once you’ve chosen the type of user you want to create and their access level do the following:

2. Select the user type.

3. Click Next.

4. Select the user’s access rights. If you choose Limited, select Customers and Sales or Suppliers &
Purchases.

5. Click Next.

NOTE  You can give All access to the new user. This means they can access and do any
transaction or task in QuickBooks. Selecting None will eliminate their rights in QuickBooks.
Selecting Limited lets you assign rights to the user for Customers and Sales and/or Suppliers
& Purchases.
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6. Select the User settings including the following:

• Do you want this user to add, edit, and remove users? This means that the user can add
new users.

• Do you want this user to edit company info? This means that the user can access and edit
company address and other contact information.

• Do you want this user to manage subscriptions? This means that the user can update or edit
your QB subscription.

7. Click Next.
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8. Enter the user’s contact information including First Name, Last Name, and Email.

To learn how to setup users watch this video: https://youtu.be/1PaCaC4F2RY

9. Click Save. QuickBooks invites the new user to the QuickBooks file.

NOTE  The number of users your company can have is determined by your
subscription level. Easy Start accounts can only have one user. Online Essentials accounts
can have up to three users. Plus accounts can have up to five users. Reports Only and Time
Tracking users, however, do not count towards this limit so a company can have as many
as they like.

Accountant Users
On the same window you use to set up new users is an option to create accountant type users.
A company can have up to two free accountant users, and these users have unlimited access to
all areas of QuickBooks. In addition to transactions and reports, accountant users have access to
special tools and features in the QuickBooks Online Accountant version.

To invite an accountant:

NOTE  Invite your instructor to be your accountant. This gives your instructor access to
your company file.
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1. Click Accountants tab at the top of the Manage users window.

2. Enter the Accountant’s email address.

3. Click Invite.

To learn how to connect to your instructor watch this video: https://youtu.be/YdzGt2-_l7s

Sales Tax
If you collect sales tax in your business, QuickBooks helps you automate your tax tracking. This helps
you keep accurate records of the tax that you collect and pay.
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When you set up sales tax, you should have your business tax information available from the Canada
Revenue Agency or your Minister of Finance.

NOTE  You must register for GST/HST when your total worldwide taxable supplies of
goods and services is more than $30,000 in a calendar quarter, or in four continuous calendar
quarters. At less than this amount, registration is optional.

To setup sales tax:

1. Click Taxes in the navigation bar.

2. Click Set up Sales tax.

3. Choose your Province or Territory and then click Save.

4. Choose the month in the Start of the current tax period field. This tells QuickBooks what tax
period you’re in. This information will be provided to you by the Canada Revenue Agency, when
you register your company for sales tax.

5. Choose your Filing Frequency. You can choose Monthly, Quarterly, Half-Yearly, or Yearly. This
information will also be provided to you by the Canada Revenue Agency.

6. Select your Reporting Method.

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7. Enter the company GST/HST Number.

8. Click Next.

9. Click Got it to complete the basic setup.

You’re now ready to start tracking sales taxes on sales and expense transactions.

NOTE  If you’re located in a province with GST, PST or QST, you’ll be required to add
provincial information in addition to the federal tax setup. See sample below.

To learn how to setup sales tax watch this video: https://youtu.be/YSHX05i9bUE