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As with everything in life, there's always good practices, good habits and things we really should remember to do. This is no exception in Quicken. When working in Quicken, it's really a good idea to just keep in mind some basic components, some basic tips and some different things that we can do. Number one; make sure that you customize your toolbar. Keep in mind that the customization of the toolbar will make your life really easy. You can put any icons there, take any icons off and really make a day-to-day experience trouble free. Also, personalize that home page. Keep in mind that every time you open up Quicken, what you see on that screen can be set by you. This is a very personalized decision. We all have different things we'd like to look at, different components we use every day, so take advantage of the feature and make your home page truly your home. Simplify your categories also. Working over the years in accounting, the most common component that I've seen in the system is way too many accounts. Put in just what you need. Keep in mind that at a later time you can always increase the number of accounts. No sense starting with something overcomplicated at the beginning. The rule of thumb is it'll always grow. So keep them simple with the categories itself. If you do need individual breakdowns, use tags instead. Remember, the tags are subdivisions of those categories. You can keep your categories simple and clean and then do further breakdowns with the tags themselves. Also remember to take advantage of the quick calculations that are built in Quicken. Any time you are on a field where you would enter an amount, you have the ability to get to the calculator. Simply press a Plus or a Minus. There is absolutely no need to use an adding machine or go to another program within the computer. Quicken has the calculator built right into it. Continuing on, also remember to use the Scheduled Payments. Setting up your bills to be paid on a monthly basis can save you a lot of time and it also serves as an immediate reminder. It's a good idea to set up as many of your bills as possible on these schedules. That way you'll have somebody reminding you when it's time to pay the utility bills rather than getting a late notice in the mail. Reconciliations are also exceptionally important. Reconcile regularly. I am a big advocate of monthly reconciliations. Not only will it assure that Quicken is correct and accurate, it will also keep you in tune with where your accounts are. This is actually an important part of budgeting. One of the ways we see if we're on track is to reconcile our accounts and then keep them in tune with our budgets. Do consider tracking your household inventory also. It is actually worth the time to set up the Inventory component of Quicken and put that list in a safe place. If for any reason you need to track your inventory such as in an insurance claim, it'll be handy and you will have been so glad that you had actually tracked it. And most importantly, under no circumstance should you skip backups. There will be a day when you will be happy you have your backup. Eventually we all switch machines. From time to time machines crash and we can't get back into them. This is when the backup is so very important so under no circumstances should you skip those backups. And finally, do consider setting goals and using a budget. Being able to obtain those things we want in life comes from these items. First we need to know what it is that we do want to accomplish and then second, we need that plan that will get us there. If you utilize these tips and these tricks with the calculator and scheduled payments, you will find that Quicken is very easy to use and becomes your most powerful tool.