Hey everyone, my name is Riley and this video is a complete QuickBooks tutorial for beginners. I will be showing you how you can use QuickBooks to track your income and expenses, how you can send out invoices and get clients to pay through QuickBooks with their credit card, how you can organise your bills and once again pay these through QuickBooks, and how you can set up and manage your taxes. So if you are brand new to QuickBooks, then this video is going to take you from beginner to expert.
Now the very first thing that we need to do is sign up for a QuickBooks account. I will leave a link to QuickBooks in the description of this video and that should take you over to this page on QuickBooks. We can see right now QuickBooks has an offer allowing you to save up to 50% off for three months and you might be wondering which of these plans should you choose. Now if you do your own accounting and taxes then you will be fine with this simple start option right here.
This is going to allow one user and you get everything that you can see right here. So we can track income and expenses, we can create invoices and payments, we can do tax deductions, and pretty much everything that you need is included in this plan. If you have an accountant or you have somebody else that does your accounting and taxes for you, then you might want to go with this essentials plan. As you can see, the essentials plan includes up to three users. This allows you to use multiple currencies and also allows you to connect three sales channels.
So I do recommend coming in here and just checking out what you get with each of these plans. I would say advanced is definitely more for medium-sized businesses, so keep that in mind. And for most people, you will want to be picking one of these first three. So once you have decided on your plan, we just click on choose plan right here.
We can then choose if we want to get the QuickBooks payroll add-on. So if you want to also run your payroll through QuickBooks, we can select one of these. And then we can complete the sign-up in this checkout area.
From there, QuickBooks is then going to ask you a set of questions to get an understanding of you and your business and really be able to tailor your experience from those questions. Once you have gone through that, though, we should then be taken over to this area. And this right here is the QuickBooks dashboard. So in here, we have some shortcuts where we can get into run payroll, creating an invoice, add a bank deposit. We can see the linked bank accounts that we have.
We can see the profit and loss. for the company. We can see things like the invoices that we have sent, our expenses, and this dashboard is completely customizable. So at any time, if you want to customize the layout of this, you can add or remove widgets in this area and you can choose what you want to see in this dashboard.
So you can set this to your preferences, back out, and then you will be able to see an at-a-glance overview of your entire company financials. Now, aside from that, the very first thing that we want to set up inside of QuickBooks is the company bank accounts that you will be using. So to do this, we want to head over to transactions on this left hand side and click into bank transactions right here.
The first thing that it's going to do is it's going to ask us to connect up a bank account or credit card to get started. So that is exactly what we are going to do. We want to click on connect account down here and then you can search for the name of the bank that you want to connect. So as an example, if I wanted to connect American Express, I search for this, click on American Express right here, and then we can go through and link up American Express to our QuickBooks account.
So I now have my bank set up, and when we connect this, you will see that it's automatically going to bring over all of the transactions from that bank account. However, QuickBooks does not yet understand what these transactions really are, so we need to help it in doing that by... categorizing these items.
So what we would do is click into each one of these. For example, we have a laptop and then you can see we can categorize it. So the first thing that we would do is go in here and add a payee. So who did we actually buy this laptop from? So we can click in and we need to actually add the vendor that I purchased this from because this is going to be Apple.
So we click on add new and then if I bought this Apple laptop, we can go in here and fill out this information. So I'm just going to go in and type in Apple. We don't really need to worry about the rest of this because this is not somebody we have contact with.
This is a big company, so we can enter that right there. Now that's going to show up as Apple. And then in the account section, this is where we can categorize this transaction right here into one of these different options. So we have things like advertising, bad and doubtful debts, bank charges. And I want to class this as computer equipment.
So we can search for this right here. and then we can add this as computer equipment. And as you can see, this is now going to categorize. So in the memo, this is just where we can add some more information. So I might add Apple.
MacBook. We can enter that there. And then once we have this set up, we just click on add.
And this is now going to be added to categorized. And QuickBooks now understands what this is. So we would just go down.
And in this example, this is a payment that I actually received for one of my services. So we can click into this right here. Then we can go down to the supplier and customer.
And we need to add Bob's building. Now, as this is a client, rather than something like Walmart or ClickUp. or a phone contract, we want to add some more information about this.
So we go add new and then for the company name, we can say Bob's building and then we can fill out the rest of the information like the first name, the last name, the email and all of this. We can also go down and fill out the address right here and then once that is added, we can click on save. Once again, we need to categorize this to a certain account and this is best going to be fit for income and services. So we can select this and then for the memo, we might say Bob's building and we ran Facebook ads for this. So we just want to add this as a little bit more information.
We can then click on add. And once again, this is now going to be taken over into this categorized section. If there is anything on here, as an example, if for some reason you have a charge on your card that isn't specifically related to the business, then you can exclude this. So let's say phone contract is a perfect example. We can click in here and then what we would do is just click on exclude and this is going to exclude it and basically said this isn't a business purchase.
I don't want you to categorize this. Another important element of this area is going to be the reconcile area. Now, we just want to click on get started and it's then going to ask for the ending statement balance and the ending statement date. So we enter this in and then click on save.
And in this area, it's going to show us. So right now, this is up to date. But essentially, if there is something off, so the ending balance of your bank account doesn't match up with everything that you have entered into QuickBooks, then it's going to tell you there is a difference right here.
So in this example, let's go edit info and say that my ending balance was $1,500. Well, we can click in and as you can see, it's going to tell me, hey, there is a difference between your actual bank statement and what you have entered into QuickBooks. So in here, we can essentially go through and check all of these out. and make sure that this all matches up. So we would go down and look at all of the deposits and expenses, the ingoings and outgoings, and then anything that doesn't need to be here, you can just uncheck this and make sure that the bank account actually matches up with what you have entered into QuickBooks.
Now, the next thing that we can do inside of QuickBooks is we can come in here and we can start creating invoices. Now, there is something very important that we need to do before we create the invoice. And it just takes the level of professionalism of your invoices to that next level. So all we want to do is go to the settings icon in this top right corner, go to account and settings right here.
And then once this loads up, you will be able to add a logo right here. So by default, you shouldn't have one. Click in and you just upload your logo into this area.
And then to actually add this to the invoice, we want to go to sales on this left hand side. And right here at the top where it says customize, customize the way forms look to your customers. We click right here on customize look and feel. And in here, this is the standard invoice template. So we can click into this and this is how the invoice looks right now.
So the first thing that we want to do is click make logo edits and show this logo and it's then going to show up. And then another cool thing that I like to do is just go to try other colors. and match this up.
So this is blue. So I would go in and set this to the same blue color as my logo. And now this looks a lot more professional. So then we can click on done. And now we can actually go in and create an invoice.
So to do this, we just go over to sales right here and then click into invoices. And then we can create an invoice. So once this loads up, this is going to take us into the invoice area. And the first thing that we need to do is add a customer.
If this is an existing customer that QuickBooks already knows exists, then we can click in here and we can choose from all of these existing customers. Alternatively, if this is a new customer, we just click on add new. And then once again, we can add all of this customer's information over here on the right hand side. Once we have the customer added in, we can then choose the terms and how quickly this customer needs to pay the invoice.
So we can set this to net 60, which is 60 days from the initial billing. 30 days, which is net 30 is 30 days, 15 is 15 days or due on receipt. We can choose that right here. And then all we now need to do is add in the product and service, add in the price and create the invoice for this client.
So the first thing that we can do is go to service right here. and click on this drop down menu. And then once again, any services that you have that QuickBooks not exists, they are going to show up in this area.
Alternatively, we can add a new service. And then once this loads up, we can choose if this is a product or a service. So we would just click in and then enter the information. So the name, we can add a category to this.
We can add a description. We can add that all in and then we just select this. So I have a consulting service right here.
We can select the service date. So let's say this was the first of the month, just like this. We can then choose the quantity, the rate. So how much the item costs per quantity.
So let's say $3,500. And then it's going to give us the total amount. So if I was to go in and change this to three, you can see that's going to update right there.
Once this is all filled in, you can also go up and all of these cards are automatically added. So people can pay through QuickBooks. The only one that isn't is PayPal.
So you might want to go through and set that up. There should be a button here to set PayPal up. And then we can click on accept card payment with PayPal.
Once we have the invoice created, we can then go down to send and save. It's then going to show us a preview of this invoice right here. So the from email, the to email, who this invoice will be sent to, the subject. So we can edit this and just say invoice from GeForce North. And then we can also customize the body.
And this is how it is going to look for your client. So they will be able to come in here, click on review and pay. And just to show you how this looks, if we actually send and close, I can grab this invoice link and open this up. And then they will be able to pay in this area by choosing a debit card, a credit card or PayPal. And when somebody pays through QuickBooks, it is automatically going to be added in here.
We already categorized it when we set up the service. So there's not really much that we need to do on top of this. The next thing that we can do is go to expenses.
and make sure that we have our expenses and bills tracked. So if we go to expenses right here, this is where we can go in and just track all of the expenses that we have. So this one is already set in here, the Apple laptop that I bought.
And the reason is because I categorized this. But if we have a new expense, we can go up to new transaction and choose what this is. So let's just say this is a regular expense. We can add this in and let's say, who did you pay? We can add in a new client and we could add this as QuickBooks because this is a new monthly recurring expense.
So we can enter that in and then click on save. We can then choose the payment date, the payment method that we paid with. So let's say credit card. We can add a reference number. And then in here, this is where we have the category, the description and the amount.
So we have the description and the amount. We can go in here and choose a category. And in here we can enter in subscriptions.
So subscriptions expense. Perfect. We can then go down and add a memo. So maybe in here I can say QuickBooks first billing cycle, just like that.
Save and close. And just like that, this expense is now added. Bills is slightly different because when we click into bills, we can go ahead and we can either create the bill. So we go in and we can create the bill right here, but a much better and more effective way to do this. is to actually get the invoice and upload this from your computer.
So I have downloaded this invoice as a PDF. We can go ahead and open that up. And it's now going to go ahead and scan this document to take all of the information from it.
So that bill is now uploaded and we can look along here. And this definitely wasn't for rent. So we might need to go in and change a few things.
So anything that it has wrong, we can go in and click review. And then we can make any amendments. So this was really for marketing services. So we can tag this as advertising right here. Everything else on the invoice is correct.
Just make sure you get the amount correct. That's very important. And up here, we can select the payee who we paid this to.
So as this is a new person, we once again want to go in and we can tag the company as GeForce. North, add in the rest of the information and then click on save. And just like that, we now have that bill reviewed.
However, we haven't paid it yet. So if this is unpaid, we can leave this as it is. But as soon as we have paid this, we need to remember to come in to the unpaid category and mark this as paid. Just like that, this has now been saved.
So we can go to the paid area and QuickBooks is now going to track this as a paid expense. Another important thing that we can access inside of QuickBooks is going to be the reports down here. So if you remember at the start, we can see the dashboard and this is a very minimalistic and very simplistic view of the company. But to take a deep dive into some of the more advanced reports, we can go to the report section over here and click into reports. Now we have a bunch of different reports that we can get access to with QuickBooks.
We have things like a balance sheet, profit and loss by tag group. profit and loss by month. So you can really look down here and if there are any reports that you want to see, rather than flicking through all of these, you can just go up here and we can say maybe profit and loss and we can see all of these different types of profit and loss.
We just click in and it's then going to open up this report right here so that we can see it. In terms of taxes, QuickBooks makes this extremely easy. So we can go to taxes right here and this is of course going to be different depending on...
which version of QuickBooks you are on, depending on the country. So I am here in the UK and we can see I have things like VAT, income tax, but essentially QuickBooks is going to automate all of this. And all we have to do is go in and set up these different tax areas.
So we just fill in this information right here. We can go back, we can go to income tax, and we can once again set all of this up. And once you have this set up, if you are in the US, I know you have to pay different taxes depending on the states that you are selling in and the states that you are selling to.
So as long as when we are creating invoices, if we create an invoice right here and we create a new person, well, when we enter in the address, it's going to get their information and it's going to know what state they are in. So it will know what taxes you owe and it will track all of this in the taxes area. The final section that we are going to talk about is payroll.
So in the payroll area. Once again, QuickBooks makes this extremely easy. So we just click into payroll right here and go into the overview.
And then we can click on get started. QuickBooks is then going to ask us step-by-step questions. For example, when is the next payday?
We enter that in. We can then go next. Have you paid your employees for the last month? We can say no in this example. What is your business name and address?
So we enter this in right here. We can then enter in the payroll contact. So who is in charge of payroll? Of course, that is going to be me. So I can enter my information in right here.
We can click on next. And now it has the business information. We can start entering employee information.
So let's say that I just have one employee right here. He is called James Clarkson. We can then add the employee right here. And it's then going to take us over to this screen where we can add some more in detail view, such as the tax information.
we definitely want to make sure we do this. We can then add the payment method, the pay types, essentially fill all of this information in. And then once all of that is entered, we can click on done right here.
And once we have all employees set up, we click on done again. And then we can click on pay my team. In here, it's going to calculate all of the employees, the amount of hours that they worked, the gross pay, from all of the information that you entered in the previous step. And then all we need to do is preview the payroll right here.
select the account that you are going to be paying this from and then we can click on submit payroll right here. Just like that the payroll is now done and one payment to make, make sure you pay your employees by this date. That is how we can set up payroll. So that is my tutorial on QuickBooks. If you found this video valuable don't forget to smash that like button and tap that subscribe button and until next time take it easy.