Thursday, December 1, 2011

Quick Books Setup Made Simply Simple

By Rashar Vick


These simple ones can also be adapted to other variations of firm but follow these general guidelines- 100 for assets, 200 for liabilities, 300 for equity, 400 for sales, 500 for COGS or regular expenses, 600 for overhead expenses, 700 for other expense, 800 for other income. Within each, use the nice even numbers for your principal things, like 100 to your main operating checking account, 110 for A/R, 150 for building or equipment, 200 for A/P, 250 for loan, write out your primary accounts very first leaving gaps between, then go back and fill during the secondary accounts. For accumulated depreciation, use the following number so it's an odd range and will usually glimpse promptly after, like Building 150, A/D Building 151.

The Chart Of Accounts (COA) must list everything in order from nearness to dollars and from short term to long word for the balance sheet items 100-399. Nearness to income ways petty funds if you have it must be first, checking second, savings third, CD forth, receivables 5th, note receivable 6th, inventory 7th, supplies, then equipment, then realty. In other words, the harder it would be to sell, the farther it's from getting cash.

Current assets are those people which will hopefully be converted to money inside 1 year. Inventory is current, Note Receivable is not. Modern liabilities would be paid inside a year, like A/P, Mortgage would be lengthy term. It must list Dollars and then expenses by COGS, materials, labor, tooling, equipment rental, then overhead- rent, utilities, insurance, issues that can not be traced back to particular jobs.

Things having nothing to do on the normal operation of the business should be last 700-999. An example is the corporation received a settlement for insurance. Inside the funds and expenses, use your even, easy to remember numbers for your principal accounts. Use increments of Five among account numbers 500, 505, 510... creates it simpler to deal with and remember. Leave gaps in between your principal accounts, write first, last, main ones within the middle and then space out and fill in gaps. Even when your done leave gaps in case you can for future account additions.

But a word of caution, maintain it simple. I've seen some men and women add accounts for everything and they end up bogged down inside a quagmire of confusing minutiae with a COA so challenging and long, it defeats the function of providing interesting information. One more caution, do not add accounts according to particular customers or specific vendors, retain it extremely general. You will usually be able to "drill down" and get specific answers. Also, if you can group the funds and expenses in the firm into classes, like numerous locations, or various lines of business, or several properties in case you are a landlord, you have to use classes in QuickBooks.

So you'll not be producing separate COA accounts for these "divisions". Often boil the COA down on the simplest 1 possible. Do not have accounts in there that you don't use, just remove them. The easier the better. I as soon as saw a contractor who literally had hundreds of accounts, his bookkeeper had issues so convoluted and in talking with them, she didn't believe anything was wrong and he couldn't make sense of a thing but was afraid to contradict his bookkeeper, what a mess!




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