How To

Job costing in QuickBooks tells you whether a specific job made money, not just whether the business as a whole did. For contractors juggling several jobs at once, this is the difference between knowing which types of work are actually worth bidding on and guessing. Here is how to track job costing in QuickBooks for … Read more

Closing the books at year end in QuickBooks locks a full year of transactions into place so nobody can accidentally change a number after your taxes are filed. Here is how to close the books at year end in QuickBooks correctly, in an order that catches problems before they get sealed in. Last verified: October … Read more

Owner draws vs payroll in QuickBooks comes down to one thing first: how your business is legally structured, not personal preference. Get the entity type wrong and the IRS treatment is wrong too, regardless of how carefully you record it in QuickBooks. Here is how each option works and how to record it correctly once … Read more

Giving your accountant access to QuickBooks the right way means they see exactly what they need to do their job, without you sharing your actual login or handing over more control than the task requires. Here is how to give your accountant access to QuickBooks safely, whether you use Online or Desktop. Last verified: October … Read more

If you sell physical products, your stock is one of the biggest numbers on your balance sheet and one of the easiest to get wrong. QuickBooks can keep the count and the cost for you, but only if it is set up correctly from the start. Here is how to track inventory in QuickBooks Online, … Read more

Every business eventually has an invoice that will never be paid. Leaving it open makes your receivables look healthier than they are, and deleting it erases a real sale from your records. This guide shows how to write off bad debt in QuickBooks the clean way, so the invoice closes, the loss shows up where … Read more

Recording a loan in QuickBooks takes two moves that people often collapse into one. The money that arrives is not income, and the payment that leaves is not entirely an expense. Here is how to record a loan in QuickBooks so your balance sheet shows what you owe and your profit and loss shows only … Read more

A messy QuickBooks file rarely breaks all at once. It gets a little worse every month, with duplicate vendors, uncategorized transactions, and a bank account that stopped matching sometime last spring. This guide shows how to clean up a messy QuickBooks file in the right order, so each fix builds on the last one instead … Read more

Setting up sales tax in QuickBooks correctly before you send your first invoice saves you from amending filings later, since fixing tax on invoices already sent is far more work than configuring it right from the start. Here’s how to set up sales tax in QuickBooks for your specific state, and what to check before … Read more

Undeposited Funds is one of the most confusing accounts in QuickBooks for new users, but it exists for a genuinely practical reason: it holds customer payments you’ve received until you actually deposit them at the bank, since a single bank deposit is often several customer payments bundled together. Here’s how to handle undeposited funds in … Read more