Quick Books help pretty please!!

[Pristina]

Hi there,

I finally decided to purchase quick books to help the office side of my business run more smoothly. I didn't realize how confusing it would be to get this all set up.

For those of you that use quick books, could you please send me in the right direction on how to get this set up?

I used General products to describe my business: Candles and Suds

Is that correct or should I change it?

Also, It is almost July and I am really stuck on how to enter January through June's expenses for the business.

I am not fully profitting yet so most of my expenses are being paid out of personal accounts. How do I input those?

As for July through December, should I start recording my supplies into my inventory?

Also, I just created a good candle inventory, should I enter that for the start of July?

I am soooo lost, don't even know where to begin. If anybody could help me, I would truly appreciate it.

Thank you

~Christina

[Candybee]

Wow! its been a while since I entered my biz in quickbooks. Sounds like you have a good start. Remember you can enter as many bank accounts as you use but its best to start one primarily for your biz and use that one. I hate using inventory but go ahead and list products if you want to keep track of them. You can always update your inventory when you need to.

Can't help you with entering data from previous months. Its been a while since I did that but the account had already been set up so it was just a matter of filling in the months.

Don't let it intimidate you. If you feel you really screwed up you can always start a new business account. Just change the name slightly. I used a 'practice' biz before I started entering in my real biz.

[mparadise]

I was going to suggest working in the practice business that QB has loaded to get comfortable with it. I still have not entered my business in QB but use it for my husband's IT consulting business books.

As far as entering everything going back to January....if you have the time I can tell you from experience it is worth doing. We switched hubby's business over to QB last May. It was a PIA at the end of the year last year doing tax reports using data from the old system Jan-April then adding it to the QB data from May-Dec. I can't tell you how many hours I spent on Excel worksheets to send to the accountant to make it all make sense. Not to mention we couldn't effectively use many of the reports because we were missing 4 months of data.

You can set it up any way you want. Know that you do not HAVE to use all of the features available in QB but the more precise you are the more info you will be able to pull out of the reports. I am currently working on reclassifying a bunch of charges from earlier in the year because we are now breaking out fuel costs instead of just lumping them into auto expenses. If I didn't enter a subcategory I can't track it easily.

Anyway....I PROMISE the more you work in it the easier it will be to understand it. THe first few months I was pulling my hair out! Now I plug along like an old pro. Check with your local schools and colleges or professional training places. I know I have seen 1-2 night QB classes thru the local high school adult night classes as well as at the local community college that were reasonably priced. I just took one with a professional training place that my hubby works with (also have Microsoft Office classes, etc). It helped me get more in depth into the categories as well as customizing things to work better for us. WELL worth the $$ spent in time saved.

[Stella1952]

Before I can answer any of your questions specifically, have you discussed your business with either an accountant or an attorney? What kind of business are you forming - sole proprietorship, LLC, S-Corp, what? Is this a "real" business or a hobby business? Will you be a wholesaler or a retailer or both? Do you plan to report the income on your personal taxes or will your company be set up as a separate taxable entity? Do you have a federal EIN? State tax number? Business and product liability insurance? Local licenses, etc.? Or are you merely trying to keep general track of your hobby expenses from your personal account? These are important questions to answer first before you even begin to consider how or whether you will use Quickbooks. For example, if you are simply starting a hobby business to be able to write off some of your expenses on your personal income taxes, you need to be aware that you may only show a loss for 3 out of the first 5 years without coming under heavy scrutiny by the IRS and potentially having to pay taxes on your hobby that wasn't a real business. Doing things right from the start can prevent unexpected tax issues from cropping up later on. Talk with experts to prevent problems (not someone who tells you that "they heard" thus and such was the way to do something).

If you are actually starting a real business, simply getting Quickbooks is NOT the place to start! You need to write a business plan and speak with an accountant (or your tax preparer or personal attorney) so that they can give you startup advice specific to the type of business you are forming and the laws in your particular state, county, city, as well as how a hobby-business can affect your personal tax situation.

I am not fully profitting yet so most of my expenses are being paid out of personal accounts. How do I input those?

Profit has nothing to do with keeping books. The first step in setting up any kind of business after making your business plan and consulting with an accountant, is to open a business checking account (or personal account used ONLY for business purposes). Keep personal transactions OUT of the business checkbook and vice versa if you are starting a real business. Your accountant will advise you on how/when to enter investments in your business prior to its start date, depending on what kind of business you are starting. If you mention to your accountant that you have Quickbooks, they can provide you with a Quickbooks Chart of Accounts from which they will pull key information for tax preparation & reporting purposes. You can add more accounts to the basic CoA they provide to you for your own information as well (for example, separate expense sub-accounts to track certain key expenses such as wax purchases, FO purchases, container purchases, etc. Or sub-accounts to track income derived from wholesale customers, internet customers, trade shows, etc.) to keep your finger on the pulse of your business.

If you don't know the answers to the questions I asked in the first paragraph, back up and discuss them with someone in your area who is professionally knowledgeable about starting businesses and all the ins-and-outs of what to do and how it will affect your tax picture. Keep all your receipts, etc. and when you are ready to actually start a real business, you will already have the information you need to input to do it right from the get-go.

When you can provide more specific information about your new business, I can be more accurate an explaining how you do stuff in Quickbooks.Good luck!