Not all habits are bad. Here are five good ones you should develop during each QuickBooks Online work session.
Where do you go first when you sign into QuickBooks Online? Sometimes, you may have a specific reason for consulting your company’s financial information: Maybe you’re checking to see whether you sent out a specific invoice, or you’re wondering if you’re running low on a popular product.
Other times, you probably open QuickBooks Online to see how your business is performing. Do you have a specific set of pages you check? If you don't already have a routine established for the actions you take whenever you enter QuickBooks, we have a couple of recommendations for areas that display the most critical, time-sensitive information in your company file.
QuickBooks Online offers multiple ways to:
Get an overview of your cash flow (money coming in and going out),
Drill down to see the details, and,
Take needed actions.
Here’s what we suggest you do—at minimum—when you open QuickBooks to retrieve an update on your finances.
STEP 1: Look at your most recent transactions.
The beauty of connecting your online bank and credit card accounts to QuickBooks Online is that you can always easily see what’s come in since your last session! To view all of your connected bank accounts in QuickBooks Online, click Transactions in the toolbar, then Bank Transactions to open your table(s). Your accounts will appear in boxes at the top. Check that the connections are still active. If the link is no longer active, you'll see a little circled "i;" click the pencil icon to go through the connection process again if needed.
It's a good idea to process any unreviewed transactions whenever you log into QuickBooks in order to prevent them from piling up!
To review your most recent transactions, you'll find them listed when For review is highlighted. These are transactions you haven’t reviewed and confirmed yet. Click Transactions to view them and add or edit anything necessary. Make sure to choose the correct Category. QuickBooks Online automatically chooses a category; just make sure it’s the one you want! This is also a good time to attach any payment records, like receipts or invoices, to their respective transaction. And if an expense was incurred on behalf of a customer and you plan to bill them, click Billable and select a Customer. Once a transaction looks correct, click Confirm. Learn more about billing customers for time and expenses in QuickBooks Online in our helpful tutorial here.
Tip: If you have multiple transactions that are always assigned to the same Payee, you can click Create a rule in the expanded transaction to treat them the same. We can show you how.
STEP 2: Check the All Sales page
Want to know the status of your sales that are in progress? Click Sales | All sales to find out. This page provides a terrific overview that you can take in quickly. Colored bars and dollar totals at the top of the page tell you how much money you have tied up in estimates, unbilled income, overdue invoices, and open invoices and credits. You can also see what’s been paid recently.
Click one of the bars, and the table below will change to only include related transactions. You can also take actions from this page, including converting estimates into invoices and receiving payments.
STEP 3: Visit your Bills page
The Bills page (Expenses | Bills) works similarly, minus the bars and dollar totals. You can instantly see what bills need to be paid by clicking the Unpaid tab. The due date, bill amount, open balance, and status (Overdue, Due later) are displayed in the table for each vendor. Actions here include scheduling payments (if you’re using QuickBooks Bill Pay), viewing and editing individual bills, and marking them as paid. If you haven't set up your QuickBooks file to also help you manage your bills, doing so can help ensure you never miss an important payment, among other benefits. Reach out if we can share more on this topic.
STEP 4: Take a look at your inventory levels
You can quickly see if it’s time to order inventory products.
This is an especially important routine to get into if your supply chain isn’t particularly speedy. Click Products & services in the toolbar. You’ll see instantly whether it’s time to send a purchase order, or make a phone call, or place an order online. Click Low Stock or Out of Stock to display a list beneath the relevant icon. This table provides a lot of information about the items, including the quantity on hand and the reorder point. If you think there’s something wrong with your count, the Action column contains links for adjusting the quantity or starting value. However, you need to be very sure of what you’re doing here, especially if you’re going to adjust the starting value. In fact, we recommend that you ask us if you think this is warranted. Ask us about add-on software that expands the use of QuickBooks inventory.
STEP 5: Examine your Business Overview
These first four suggestions are very focused. To get a broader overview, click Dashboards in the toolbar, then Business overview. This page displays several charts and lists, including your account balances, which you need to keep a close eye on. Data on this page is interactive, so you can click entries to see the underlying details. You can also customize the layout, adding or removing individual “widgets” (data boxes).
Reports at your fingertips
You can also look at reports every time you log into QuickBooks Online. We’d recommend:
The Business Snapshot
Profit and Loss
Balance Sheet
Open Invoices
Unpaid Bills
For more detail, review:
Accounts receivable aging summary
Accounts payable aging summary
Tip: Click the star next to reports that you want to appear in the Favorites list at the top.
Want to learn more about pulling reports in QuickBooks Online? This tutorial from our team does just that!
This is all fairly self-explanatory, but if you’d like additional help with any of the features available to you in QuickBooks Online or think you may be outgrowing your current version, please contact us!
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