Getting Started With Quickbooks

If you are reading this I probably met you at Workbench Con. Howdy! Have you recovered?

As promised I am going to share here why I use Quickbooks, benefits of using Quickbooks and links to tutorials to getting started! So here goes…

This post is not sponsored. All opinions are my own. I am not a CPA or accountant. I am just sharing my personal recommendations and the things I use. For accounting advice please speak to your accountant.

Getting Started

• Open a business checking account. To run any business, even a side hustle, and reap the tax benefits, you must treat it like a real business. And that means keeping your income and expenses separate from your personal finances.

• Choose an accounting software. I recommend and use QuickBooks Online Simple Start.

For pricing and to find a plan that fits your business best, click here!

Next I am going to share benefits of using QuickBooks. I have them separated into three (3) categories… Income, Expenses and Taxes. This was the easiest way I found to help highlight most of the benefits.

Income

Show me the money! This is the best part about our businesses, so I thought we would start with income, sales, revenue… whatever you what to call it.

Benefits of using QuickBooks:

• Create/Email Proposals to customers. You can create custom, professional looking proposals right in Quickbooks to send to your customers. You can accept mobile signatures and convert proposals into invoices.

• Invoicing and Payments. You can accept payments in QuickBooks and keep track of who owes you what and when and send custom payment reminders.

• Connect all your sales channel. As a maker you probably sell your products all over the place… online, in-person, at events, in the TikTok Shop, on Etsy, etc. With QuickBooks you can integrate most platforms that you sell on. This not only save times, but you don’t have to worry about typos because your sales information is pulled directly into Quickbooks. That way you can see how much money your are making in one place.

  • Popular Sales Channel that Integrate with QuickBooks

    • Amazon

    • Shopify

    • TikTok Shop

    • Square

    • eBay

    • Etsy

    • Squarespace

• Calculate sales tax automatically. Once you have the cities that you sell in set-up when you create an invoice with a sale of a taxable item the sales tax with automatically be added to the invoice for you. No guessing or doing math to figure out how much you have to collect. Quickbooks also has reports when it comes times to pay your sales tax that show you how much you owe.

• Track income with different income accounts. When you are setting up your Chart of Accounts (COA) you can create one than one income account. That way at the end of the month or end of the year you can see how much money you made in each category. There isn’t one way to do this and it should make sense to you and your accountant, but this is how I have mine setup.

  • Income - Adsense

  • Income - Affiliate Income

  • Income - Furniture/Builds

  • Income - Sponsored Posts

  • Income - Teaching Fee

  • Income - Website Build Plans

  • Income - Website Product Sales

I do this so that I can see where I am making my money, what areas are my most profitable and it helps me make decisions on where I should spend more time in my business. Your business could look totally different, so when you are setting up your business and COA just think about the information that you want to get out of your reports and that will help determine how to put information into the system.

Expenses

Do you have a box of dreaded receipts that you give to your accountant every year? Or do you enter them into an Excel spreadsheet manually? Well, using QuickBooks makes managing the dreaded receipts so easy.

Benefits of using QuickBooks:

• Securely import transactions and organize automatically by link to bank/credit accounts. Once you have your accounts setup transactions will automatically be entered for you. You then only have to make sure they are coded correctly (mostly in the beginning) and then match them with receipts.

• Snap photos of your receipts and categorize on the go. No more holding onto to receipts, you can simply using the QuickBooks app on your phone and take a picture of the receipt and it is uploaded into the system.

• Forward email receipts. Stores are getting more and more sophisticated and are emailing us receipts. Well when you get those you can forward them to your personalized QuickBooks email and they will be uploaded for you.

• No more box of receipts or excel spreadsheets.

• Print reports for easy year end tax filings. Or just to know thru-out the year where you are spending your money. Maybe you need to cut some overhead expenses or maybe get a need lumber supplier, with reports you will know.

• Easily share books with accountant. At the end of the year, after I have reconciled all my accounts I share my QuickBooks with my accountant. That way he can review my work and fix any errors in coding I might have made. And he can all pull all the numbers he needs to file my tax returns.

Taxes

Benefits of using QuickBooks:

• Share books with accountant for tax time. You can do this anytime really and he can help make sure you are coding things properly, depreciation big purchases, etc.

• Easily organize income and expenses into tax categories. This is important so that you can ensure that you are keeping more of what you earn.

• Automatically sort business expenses into the right tax categories. When you import your bank accounts QuickBooks with code the expense for you. In the beginning you will need to verify the proper category was selected, but as QuickBooks gets to know your reoccurring expenses it gets better and better at coding.

• Calculate sales tax automatically. Once you have the cities that you sell in set-up when you create an invoice with a sale of a taxable item the sales tax with automatically be added to the invoice for you. No guessing or doing math to figure out how much you have to collect. Quickbooks also has reports when it comes times to pay your sales tax that show you how much you owe.

• Keep track of contractors and prepare and file 1099’s. Do you pay someone over $600 to help you throughout the year? A video editor, shop help, etc.? Well, then you probably need to file a 1099 for them at the end of year. And it is easy to do in Quickbooks, you just set that person/vendor up as a contractor in the system, select the proper expense code when you pay them and then run a report at the end of the year.

• Automatically track business mileage. Do you use your personal vehicle for picking up lumber or delivery your work? Then you might be eligible for deductions of mileage on your taxes. QuickBooks will automatically track your mileage with your smartphone’s GPS and then you can swipe to indicate if it is a business or personal trip right on your phone in the app!

Quickbooks can do way more than the highlights above… like payroll, job costing and inventory!

Find the right plan for you here!

Need more help choosing a plan, here is a comparison chart for the reports that come with each version of QuickBooks.

Once you select your plan, start here with step-by-step of setting up your account.

And if you don’t use QuickBooks that is okay with me, I just recommend you find an accounting system that works for you and will grow with you as you grow your business.

Other Benefits:

• Can access your account anywhere with internet access.

• Mobile App - you can do almost everything in the mobile app as online.

• QuickBooks has been around forever and most accountants are going to be familiar with it for help when needed or for setting it up.

• They have lots of online help including video tutorials.

I hope this was helpful and wish you the best with growing your AWESOME business!!!

Remember Build LOUD, Build WILD and have an AWESOME day!

Sadie Mae