Introduction; About This Book; What You Can Safely Ignore; What You Should Not Ignore (Unless You're a Masochist); Three Foolish Assumptions; How This Book Is Organized; PART I: You Gotta Start Someplace; PART II: Daily Chores; PART III: Stuff You Do Every So Often; PART IV: The Part of Tens; PART V: Appendixes; Conventions Used in This Book; Special Icons; PART I: You Gotta Start Someplace; Chapter 1: The Big Interview; Getting Ready for the Big Interview; The big decision; The trial balance of the century; The mother of all scavenger hunts; Doing the EasyStep Interview; Tip 1: Learn the interview protocol; Tip 2: Take your time; Tip 3: Get industry-specific advice; Tip 4: Accept the suggested filename and location; Tip 5: Go with the suggested chart of accounts; Tip 6: Consider tracking all your expenses with your checkbook; Tip 7: Add accounts you need; The Rest of the Story; Should you get your accountant's help?; Adjusting for accrual-basis accounting; Supplying the missing numbers; Checking your work one more time; Chapter 2: Lots of Lists; The Magic and Mystery of Items; Adding items you may include on invoices; Creating other wacky items for invoices; Editing items; Adding Employees to Your Employee List; Customers Are Your Business; It's Just a Job; Adding Vendors to Your Vendor List; The Other Lists; The Class list; The Other Names list; The Sales Rep list; Customer, Vendor, and Job Types list; The Terms list; The Customer Message list; The Payment Method list; The Ship Via list; The Memorized Transaction list; The Reminders list; Working with Your Lists; Organizing lists; Jotting down notes for list items; Printing lists; Exporting list items to your word processor; Chapter 3: Sharing QuickBooks Files; Sharing a QuickBooks File on a Network; User permissions; Record locking; Installing QuickBooks for Network Use; Designating the QuickBooks Administrator; Setting Up User Permissions; Specifying Multi-User Mode; Working in Multi-User Mode; PART II: Daily Chores; Chapter 4: Invoices and Credit Memos; Making Sure That You're Ready to Invoice Customers; Preparing an Invoice; Fixing Invoice Mistakes; If the invoice is still displayed on-screen; If the invoice isn't displayed on-screen; Deleting an invoice; Preparing a Credit Memo; Fixing Credit Memo Mistakes; Printing Invoices and Credit Memos; Loading the forms into the printer; Setting up the invoice printer; And now for the main event; Sending Invoices and Credit Memos via E-Mail; Customizing Your Invoices and Credit Memos; Chapter 5: Reeling In the Dough; Recording a Cash Sales Receipt; Printing a Sales Receipt; Correcting Cash Sales Receipt Mistakes; If the cash sales receipt is still displayed on-screen; If the cash sales receipt isn't displayed on-screen; If you don't want the cash sales receipt; Recording Customer Payments; Correcting Mistakes in Customer Payments Entries; In the Bank; Improving Your Cash Inflow; Tracking what your customers owe; Assessing finance charges; Chapter 6: Paying Bills; Pay Now or Pay Later?; Recording Your Bills by Writing Checks; The slow way to write checks; The fast way to write checks; Recording Your Bills the Accounts Payable Way; Recording your bills; Entering your bills the fast way; Deleting a bill; Remind me to pay that bill, will you?; Paying Your Bills; Paying the Sales Tax; A Quick Word on the Vendor Details Window; Chapter 7: Inventory Magic; Setting Up Inventory Items; When You Buy Stuff; Recording items that you pay for up front; Recording items that don't come with a bill; Paying for items when you get the bill; Recording items and paying the bill all at once; When You Sell Stuff; How Purchase Orders Work; Choosing a purchase order form for you; Filling out a purchase order; Checking up on purchase orders; Receiving purchase order items; Time for a Reality Check; Dealing with Multiple Inventory Locations; Manually keep separate inventory-by-location counts; Use different item numbers for different locations; One more thought; Chapter 8: Keeping Your Checkbook; Writing Checks; Writing checks from the Write Checks window; Writing checks from the Checking register; Changing a check that you've written; Packing more checks into the register; Depositing Money into a Checking Account; Recording simple deposits; Depositing income from customers; Transferring Money between Accounts; Setting up a second bank account; About the other half of the transfer; Changing a transfer that you've already entered; To Delete or to Void?; The Big Register Phenomenon; Moving through a big register; Finding that darn transaction; Chapter 9: Paying with Plastic; Tracking Business Credit Cards; Setting up a credit card account; Selecting a credit card account so that you can use it; Entering Credit Card Transactions; Recording a credit card charge; Changing charges that you've already entered; Reconciling Your Credit Card Statement and Paying the Bill; So What About Debit Cards?; PART III: Stuff You Do Every So Often; Chapter 10: Check Printing 101; Getting the Printer Ready; Printing a Check; Printing a check as you write it; Printing checks by the bushel; A few words about printing checks; What if I make a mistake?; Oh where, oh where do unprinted checks go?; Printing a Checking Register; Chapter 11: Online with QuickBooks; Web Sites You Can Access; Doing the Electronic Banking Thing; So what's the commotion about?; Should I get wired?; Making sense of online banking; Signing up for the service; Making an online payment; Transferring money electronically; Changing instructions; Transmitting instructions; Message in a bottle; Using the Online Payroll Service; A Quick Review of the Other Online Opportunities; Chapter 12: Payroll; Getting Ready to Do Payroll without QuickBooks' Help; Getting Ready to Do Payroll with QuickBooks; Doing taxes the right way; Paying Your Employees; Paying Payroll Liabilities; Paying tax liabilities if you use the Deluxe Payroll Service; Paying tax liabilities if you use the Basic Payroll Service; Paying other non-tax liabilities; Preparing Quarterly Payroll Tax Returns; Using the Deluxe Payroll Service; Using the Basic Payroll Service; Filing Annual Returns and Wage Statements; Using the Deluxe Payroll Service; Using the Basic Payroll Service; The State Wants Some Money, Too; Chapter 13: The Balancing Act; Selecting the Account You Want to Balance; Balancing a Bank Account; Giving QuickBooks the information from the bank statement; Marking cleared checks and deposits; Ten Things to Do If Your Account Doesn't Balance; Chapter 14: Reporting on the State of Affairs; What Kinds of Reports Are There, Anyway?; Creating and Printing a Report; Visiting the report dog-and-pony show; Editing and rearranging reports; Reports Made to Order; Processing Multiple Reports; Last but Not Least: The QuickReport; Chapter 15: QuickBooks Dirty Work; Backing Up Is (Not That) Hard to Do; Backing up the quick-and-dirty way; Knowing when to back up; Getting back QuickBooks data if you've backed up; Accountant's Review; Shrinking Files That Are Too Big for Their Own Good; Condensing defined; Condensing made simple; How condensing is summarized on registers; Chapter 16: Building the Perfect Budget; Is This a Game You Want to Play?; All Joking Aside; Some basic budgeting tips; A budgeting secret; Two things that really goof up Secret Plans; The Nelson philosophy; Setting Up a Secret Plan; PART IV: The Part of Tens; Chapter 17: (Almost) Ten Knowledge Nuggets about Web-ifying Your Business; The Mechanics Are Simple; Web Publishing Is Relatively Cheap; Why the Web Is Better Than Paper; Big benefit number one; Big benefit number two; Big benefit number three; Mom, Don't Read This; Lessons from those "other" Web sites; Applying the lessons to your business; The Web's Information-Sharing Risk; About Those Content Costs, Dude; A Scary Thought I Shouldn't Share; A Scary Prediction I Shouldn't Share; An Opportunity Comes A-Knocking; Chapter 18: Ten Tips for Business Owners; Sign All Your Own Checks; Don't Sign a Check the Wrong Way; Review Canceled Checks Before Your Bookkeeper Does; Choose a Bookkeeper Who Is Familiar with Computers and Knows How to Do Payroll; Choose an Appropriate Accounting System; If QuickBooks Doesn't Work for Your Business; Keep Things Simple; Chapter 19: Ten Tips for All QuickBooks Users; Tricks for Learning QuickBooks If You're New on the Job; Getting Started; Starting QuickBooks; Using QuickBooks; Cross-Referencing Source Documents and Filing Them; Reconciling Bank Accounts Promptly; Things You Should Do Every Month; Things You Should Do Every Year; Using Debits and Credits; Converting to QuickBooks; Income Tax Evasion; Segregating Payroll Tax Money; Chapter 20: Tips for Handling Ten Tricky Situations; Selling an Asset; Selling a Depreciable Asset; Owner's Equity in a Sole Proprietorship; Owner's Equity in a Partnership; Owner's Equity in a Corporation; Multiple-State Accounting; Getting a Loan; Repaying a Loan; Chapter 21: (Almost) Ten Little Ideas for Saving Big on Business Taxes; Trick 1: Benefit from the Appropriate Pension Device; Trick 2: Don't Take Any More Personal Vacations; Trick 3: Don't Depreciate - Expense; Trick 4: Incorporate; Trick 5: Consider the Sub S Election; Trick 6: Enjoy the Best of Both Worlds; Trick 7: Create Some Legitimate Job for Your Kids; Trick 8: Relocate Your Business; Chapter 22: (Almost) Ten Secret Business Formulas; The First "Most Expensive Money You Can Borrow" Formula; The Second "Most Expensive Money You Can Borrow" Formula; The "How Do I Break Even?" Formula; The "You Can Grow Too Fast" Formula; How net worth relates to growth; Calculating sustainable growth; The First "What Happens if " Formula; The Second "What Happens if " Formula; The Economic Order Quantity (a.k.a. Isaac Newton) Formula; The Rule of 72; PART V: Appendixes; Appendix A: How to Install QuickBooks in Ten Easy Steps; Appendix B: If Numbers Are Your Friends; Keying In on Profit; Let me introduce you to the new you; The first day in business; Look at your cash flow first; Depreciation is an accounting gimmick; Accrual-basis accounting is cool; Now you know how to measure profits; Some financial brain food; In the Old Days, Things Were Different; What Does an Italian Monk Have to Do with Anything?; And now for the blow-by-blow; Blow-by-blow, part II; How Does QuickBooks Help?; Two Dark Shadows in the World of Accounting; The first dark shadow; The second dark shadow; The Danger of Shell Games; Appendix C: Project Estimating, Billing, and Tracking; Turning On Job and Project Costing; Setting Up a Job; Creating a Job Estimate; Revising an Estimate; Turning an Estimate into an Invoice; Charging for Actual Time and Costs; Tracking Costs; Appendix D: Timing Yourself; Timing Activities; Real-time recording of the time you're spending; After-the-fact recording of the time you spent; Index; Book Registration Information
