Subtitles of the Movie

One of the first steps that we need to take with QuickBooks is to set up our accounting books. To do this, we will use a feature called the Easy Step Interview. To get to the Easy Step Interview, I'm going to simply go to my files menu and down to new company. When I click on new company, you will notice that the dialog box for the interview appears. Now, I would like to not that although it is possible to skip this interview, it is strongly recommended that you go through this procedure. QuickBooks has developed a plan to insure that we do not skip any of the fundamental elements that are required for a solid foundation. Although we can skip the interview, and I will address those concerns, do keep in mind that it is best to choose the interview when setting up your books. Although we will be going through the interview on each of the dialog boxes, I'd also like to emphasize that I will be concentrating on the tips and tricks to insure a proper foundation, rather than the fill in the blanks of the interview itself. There's a lot of ideas I'd like to share with you to make QuickBooks easier. Let's get started. On the very first screen, you'll notice that it asks for our company information. I'm going to go ahead and type in VTC. Now, something I'd like to point out is that if you have not gone through the interview before, it's nice to go through the entire interview without setting up your main set of books. I'll use this as a sample company. It allows me to go through each screen, see what's going to be asked of me and then I can insure that I have all the information I need available. This sample company also sets a wonderful groundwork so that I can go back into it and I can test transactions and procedures that I'm not sure of. This allows me to build my confidence in a sample company without worrying about what I'm doing in my real books. In this case, I'm going to consider this to be a sample company and not worry about filling in all of the information. Let's go to our next screen. Here's where I'm going to select my specific industry. Remember earlier we talked about the industry solutions that QuickBooks has to offer. This is one of those areas where it comes into play. If I'm in the legal area, I can choose legal services. Construction can choose their general contractor area and if I go down towards the bottom, you'll even notice non-profit and rental. If you do not like any of the choices that you've seen here, I'd recommend choosing one of the general services or product-based businesses. I'm going to keep mine right on rental and go to the next screen. Our next question is how is your company organized? This is important for year-end. If we choose our structure, QuickBooks will ensure that our accounts are set up to correlate directly to a tax return. This can save you a bit of money at the end of the year when you're giving your books to your accountant. Before you select one of these, do make sure you check with your accountant to choose the proper set up for your company. If you're not sure or if you're not worried about this feature, just select other or none. Let's go to our next screen. Here it's asking us for the start of our fiscal year. This will vary for each of us. I'm going to accept the default of January. On the next screen, we're going to be asked for an administrator's password. Now, this is an important screen. When you're choosing this password, make sure that you choose something that you can remember and also make sure you write it down. In QuickBooks, there will be certain events that will require us to actually log on as the administrator. Keep in mind that it will not be enough to have given ourselves full rights as the administrator, but we will actually have to use administrator as our login. In these cases, if we do not remember our password, we might find ourselves in a bit of a jam. I like to recommend to my clients to use a passphrase. Here I'll ask them to think of a date and to think of an individual and marry the two together. A common answer might be what was the anniversary date of the business and what is the name of your oldest child? Combine the two of those together and you have a passphrase. I find this makes it a little easier to remember the passwords while still making them complicated enough so that a hacker can not get through. Keep this in mind on this particular screen and then we'll know that we have a good setup for QuickBooks. Let's go on to our next screen. We're ready to create our company file. One more next and it takes us to where are we going to store our file? Another piece of information on this screen. I recommend that you store your file in an area that is normally backed up. If you're on a network, we normally have public drives. If you're on a standalone station, consider the drive that you normally find yourself backing up every night. Very commonly it's my documents. Take some time to make sure that you put QuickBooks in a secure place that's readily available for those daily backups. When you're finished, I'll put mine in my documents for the example. Just hit save. QuickBooks is now going to set up our new company file. Now, keep in mind that this may take a little bit of time. It's actually going to set up all the accounts in the background and when it does, it'll leave you at the home page and you'll be ready to start using QuickBooks.