Quickbooks

Classes or Types? When To Use Them in QuickBooks

QuickBooks’ standard reports are critical to understanding your company’s past, present, and future. But the program also offers innovative tools that can make them significantly more insightful and comprehensive.

QuickBooks offers two simple conventions that let you identify related data: classes and types. Classes are used in transactions. Types are assigned to individual customers, vendors, and jobs.

For example, you might use classes to separate transactions that relate to different departments, locations, or types of business. A construction company might want to track classes using New Construction, Remodel, and Overhead. Your customer types might help you isolate groups by characteristics like Industry or Geographical Location.

Creating Classes

First, make sure that QuickBooks is set up to use classes. Go to Edit | Preferences | Accounting | Company Preferences. Make sure that Use class tracking is checked. If you want to be prompted for a class designation in transactions, check that box, too. QuickBooks already contains a Type field in customer, vendor, and job records.

It’s easy to build lists of options for both. To define classes, go to Lists | Class List. In the bottom left corner of the screen, click on Class, then select New from the menu. You’ll see this:

Figure 1: To create a class, just give it a name and click OK

Let’s say that you’re a contractor and you want to separate remodeling jobs into room types, like Bathroom or Kitchen. Go through the above steps again. Enter “Bathroom” in the Class Name field and click the box next to Subclass of. Open the list and choose “Remodel.” Click OK.

Tip: If your class list grows lengthy and you want to tidy it up, you can make classes that you’re not currently using inactive by checking the box in this window. It will remain in your QuickBooks records and can be reactivated again.

Putting Classes to Work

Now you can use classes in transactions. Open a blank invoice and select a customer. The Class field will be next to the customer name. If the entire invoice will be assigned to the same class, click the drop-down list and select it. You can also assign separate classes to individual line items:

Figure 2: You can assign different classes to individual line items in transactions.

Not all invoice templates include a column for classes. You can add this by selecting the invoice form you want to modify and clicking Customize in the toolbar.

QuickBooks comes with two reports specially designed for tracking class-based transactions: Profit & Loss by Class and Balance Sheet by Class (both can be found in the Reports menu, under Company & Financial). Of course, you can filter other reports to include a class column. You can also create a QuickReport for individual classes. Go to Lists | Class List and select a report or graph.

Figure 3: You can filter by class in QuickBooks reports.

Warning!
The Balance Sheet by Class report is complicated and may produce unexpected results. Let your ProAdvisor help you work with this one. They can also help you set up a solid class structure.

A Simpler Assignment

Customer, vendor, and job types are a bit less complicated. Job types are especially useful; you can track, for example, profitability and time spent on individual projects. Customer and vendor types can produce output for things like targeted mailings and reports.

Creating types is very similar to creating classes. Go to Lists | Customer & Vendor Profile Lists, and select the type you want to work with. You’ll follow the same instructions here as you did for classes. Types do not appear on transactions; they’re designed for your own internal use, and they’re stored in records.

Figure 4: Customer, vendor, and job types are specified in their records.

Classes and types can be used very effectively in your bookkeeping, but they require a good deal of thought and planning upfront to get accurate, meaningful reports. Let your ProAdvisor know if he/she can assist as you attempt to use these powerful forms of classification.

By Leon Clinton
October 6, 2011

Protecting Your QuickBooks Data Against Hackers

Every month, we provide information on how to better use QuickBooks. By implementing the best methods for managing your accounting data, you can actually improve your financial bottom line.

But all of your careful work is for naught if a malicious hacker gets in to your computers, or if you experience identity theft by an employee. Social Security and credit card numbers, home phone numbers and addresses, an excruciatingly detailed profile of your company – all can be lost in the time it takes to realize that it’s gone.

Are you guarding all of that precious data? QuickBooks provides ways to help you. Some are automatic, but you have to initiate others.

Control Cyberspace

QuickBooks displays some screens using Internet Explorer (IE); the browser opens when you access certain features. It’s important that you set the security level correctly so that you’re not exposed to shady outside influences.

To check your configuration, launch IE and go to Tools | Internet Options. This window opens:

Figure 1: Be sure that your Internet zone in Internet Explorer is set to Medium.

Click on Security, then on Internet, and move the slider bar to Medium (Intuit recommends this). Click OK and close IE.

Your best defense is a good antivirus program. If you’ve hesitated to buy one because of the price or the software’s intrusiveness, consider Microsoft Security Essentials. It’s free, it’s good, it can be used in businesses that have up to ten PCs, and it guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software (malware).

Limit Access

If you have QuickBooks on a network, or multiple people sign in and out on the same PC, you will want to limit the access of employees to only their work areas. Go to Company | Set Up Users and Passwords | Set Up Users, and you’ll see the User List window. Click Add User, and enter a username and password in the next window (if you’ve already set up passwords but not permissions, highlight a name and click Edit User). Click Next.

Unless the person should have full access, choose Selected Areas of QuickBooks and click Next. You’ll see this:

Figure 2: As you go through each module, you’ll select an access level for the current employee.

You’ll work through a series of windows, including Inventory, Checking and Credit Cards, and Payroll and Employees, indicating in each window how much access should be granted to the user. When employees sign in, they will only see the allowed screens.

Payroll – A Special Case

Be very careful when you assign Payroll permissions. Employee Social Security numbers are stored there, and anyone granted full access can see them. If you’ve assigned Selective Access to an employee for creating and printing payroll transactions and reports, he or she will still be able to view them on printouts and in reports.

To prevent this, go to Edit | Preferences and click the Payroll & Employees tab, then Company Preferences. At the bottom of the window, you’ll see a line that reads Display employee social security numbers in headers on reports. Make sure this is checked only if you want the numbers to appear.

And, of course, you may not want Social Security numbers printed on paycheck stubs and vouchers (though you may not have a choice; the state of California, for one, requires it). In this same window, click on Pay Stub & Voucher Printing to make your wishes known. You’ll see this:

Figure 3: Do not check the box next to Employee social security number unless you want it printed on paycheck vouchers.

Intuit and You

Intuit, publisher of QuickBooks, works hard to keep your data safe. The company:

uses a data encryption technology similar to that used by major financial institutions for QuickBooks’ online banking and online vendor payment tasks
does not know your passwords
offers a subscription-based, automatic online backup service, so that your files are safe in case of loss or damage (QuickBooks 2011 only; QuickBooks Online Backup works with all versions)

Figure 4: Regular backup is more than a good idea. It could save your business someday.

But it’s important that you do your part. Use passwords wherever offered, make them complex, and change them frequently. Maintain regular backup files on your own if you don’t subscribe to Intuit’s service. Cross-train employees so that if you experience a disaster, more than one employee knows the ropes. Know a lot about who is managing your network.

To be doubly safe, ask us to evaluate your whole system’s security profile. We can help you if your business suffers a breach, but better to try to avoid it ahead of time.

Tracking Bills in QuickBooks, Worth the Effort

Next to payroll, paying bills is probably your least favorite task in QuickBooks. You don’t have to use this feature — you can keep stacking bills on your desk, scrawling the due dates on a paper calendar, and writing checks.

If you’re still operating this way, though, you’re missing out on the numerous tools that QuickBooks offers to track your accounts payable, including the ability to:

Enter bills as they come in
Set reminders for bills due
Pay bills easily
Locate a bill or payment quickly
Enter bills as (or after) you receive items
Link bills to purchase orders
Have instant access to a bill’s status

Receiving the goods

When an expense bill comes in (from a utility company, for example), click the Enter Bills icon on the home page, or Vendors | Enter Bills. A window like the one displayed above opens. Select the vendor and fill in the blanks. Make sure that the Expenses tab below is selected and the appropriate account number and amount fields are completed. If it’s a bill for an item that already has a related Item Receipt (the shipment preceded the bill), QuickBooks instructs you to use Vendor | Enter Bill for Received Items. Follow the prompts. Note: Dealing with incoming inventory is complex. Consult with us if you plan to use this feature. If the bill came simultaneously with items, click Vendors | Receive Items and Enter Bill. When you select the vendor from the list, this box opens (if you have sent a purchase order):

Figure 2: QuickBooks is telling you that you have open orders with this vendor.

Click Yes. The Open Purchase Orders box opens, containing a list of open POs. Select the one(s) you want and click OK. The bill form opens, containing the details of that purchase order. Change quantities if they don’t match the shipment, and edit other fields as necessary. Save the bill.

Settling your debts

It’s good to set reminders for bills. Go to Edit | Preferences and click Reminders. Make sure that the Show Reminders List…box is checked, then click Company Preferences. Find the Bills to Pay row and enter the advance notice you’d like. Indicate whether you want to see a list or a summary, then click OK. When bills are due, click the Pay Bills icon or select Vendors | Pay Bills. A window opens displaying all outstanding bills. You can pare this down by selecting a date in the Due on or before field and filtering by vendors. The screen will look something like this:

Figure 3: You can easily select the bills you want to pay.

Enter a check mark next to the bills you’re paying, and change the amount in the Amt. To Pay field at the end of the row if necessary. At the bottom of the screen, you can set the payment date and type, use any discounts or credits, and make sure the correct payment account is selected. When you’re done, click Pay Selected Bills. Tip: You can have credits and discounts automatically applied by going to Edit | Preferences | Bills

After You’ve Paid Up

There are a number of places where your bills appear in QuickBooks, including:

The Unpaid Bills Detail report
The A/P Aging Detail report
The Vendor Center
QuickReports
In the Recent Transactions pane of some forms
On the bills themselves

Figure 4: QuickBooks displays the Paid status of bills.

QuickBooks also lets you void and delete bills, and copy and memorize them. Check with us before voiding and deleting, as this can make some complicated changes in your accounts.

You can just pay bills by using Banking | Write Checks or Enter Credit Card Charges. But the payoff for tracking bills is instant access to your accounts payable status, better relations with vendors, and a more insightful accounting of your company’s cash flow.