Online classes in bookkeeping with an emphasis on Quickbooks?

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sw_ross

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I started my business a year ago. Years ago I had some college classes in accounting but obviously my life went a different route than continuing to pursue that field!

Now I find that I wish I'd have paid more attention in those classes!

I use Quickbooks which is fairly intuitive and helpful for someone whose more comfortable which a pair of strippers than a keyboard! My problem is the inefficiency of teaching yourself how to do the various tasks in keeping the books for my business. It's kinda like a DIY'er teaching them self how to wire up their own house!

I'm wondering about the idea of taking an online class in bookkeeping that uses/teaches with Quickbooks?

Anyone have any experience with this concept?

Thanks!
 
While Quickbooks is designed to look easy to use, there are a lot of fine points that only a very experienced user who is also an accountant will understand. This becomes particularly apparent at tax time. I recommend you hire an accountant to help setup your Quickbooks (especially the chart of accounts) and do the data entry for you for at least a few months so you have a lot of example entries you can refer to when doing it yourself. Let the accountant show you how to generate daily, weekly, quarterly reports, do complex entries, adjust your COA, generate payroll, do tax filings, and other things that will be needed over time. Then when you feel competent, you can take over doing day-to-day stuff and save the accountant fees for more complex stuff.

I recommend you set up the chart of accounts to match closely the categories on the schedule C tax form. This will make doing your taxes much easier.
 
As someone with an accounting, ACCA, and book keeping..IAB certificate, along with years of doing taxes and books for taxicabs etc, I agree that hiring someone to set you up and give you examples to follow, or every year when tax time comes, you will pay more for them to set up your accounts for the taxes, or you will lose out on some tax deductions that you could be taking. Knowing the right tax codes could actually save you money, by letting you know before buying what is tax deductible.

it is not that a lot of information is not available, or that the various programs are not set up to do the jobs well, but that if set up by an expert, they do the jobs so much better. Just like anyone can use excel, but if you actually learn the use of the shortcuts and functions then you can make excel work for you.
 
as others have said my wife echos (cpa and qb pro): initial set up is the key
linking accounts, payroll, etc
it is pretty much data entry after that
but entries must be made correctly
hire someone or hire an accountant with set-up service
it will simplify taxes, banking, payables/recievables, payroll, etc
it will save you time and money
pay them to review it quarterly until you get the hang of it
 
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