the slightly awkward way, you don’t need to find the last item that I describe in the preceding list. You can just use the year-to-date income and expense numbers from the trial balance.
Stepping through the QuickBooks Setup
After you decide when you want to convert, prepare a trial balance as of the conversion date, and collect the additional raw data that you need, you’re ready to step through the QuickBooks Setup. You need to start QuickBooks and then walk through the steps.
Starting QuickBooks
To start QuickBooks 2015 in Windows 8 or 8.1, click the QuickBooks 2015 tile on the Windows Start screen. In other versions of Windows, click the Windows Start button and then click the menu choice that leads to QuickBooks. (For example, I choose Start⇒All Programs⇒QuickBooks⇒QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 15.0.) Or in either version of Windows, double-click the QuickBooks program icon if you put one on the desktop during the installation.
✔ QuickBooks Pro: The Pro version includes the advanced job costing and time-estimating features, which I briefly describe in Chapter 16; it also includes the capability to share a QuickBooks file over a network, as I describe in Appendix C.
✔ QuickBooks Premier: The Premier version adds features to the QuickBooks Pro and also comes in a variety of “industry-specific” flavors, including an Accountant edition, which mimics most of these other flavors.
✔ QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions: This version is nearly identical to QuickBooks Premier but allows for very large QuickBooks files, including much larger customer, vendor, and employee lists.
If this is the first time you started QuickBooks, QuickBooks starts by telling you how it plans to use your Internet connection to regularly update the QuickBooks software. After you click the button that indicates, “Okay, yeah, I’m good with that,” QuickBooks displays the No Company Open dialog box (not shown). You then click the Create A New Company button so that QuickBooks displays the QuickBooks Setup window with the message, Let's get your business set up quickly! (See Figure 2-1.)
Figure 2-1: The first QuickBooks Setup window.
I should mention that the first QuickBooks Setup dialog box (the one shown in Figure 2-1) identifies some other setup options you can use to get started. For example, the dialog box gives you the option of a Detailed Start (where you get to control the setup and fine-tune the company file). The dialog box gives you the option of creating a new file from an old file. And the dialog box also suggests that you might want to upgrade from Quicken or some other accounting system. (Basically, that upgrade just means that you want QuickBooks to try using your existing accounting system’s data as a starting point for QuickBooks.)
Two simple bits of advice: Don’t fiddle with the Detailed Setup unless you’re an accounting expert. And don’t attempt to “upgrade” Quicken or some other accounting program’s data. It’s just as easy and usually considerably cleaner to work from a trial balance.
Using the Express Setup
QuickBooks 2015 provides you with a very fast setup process compared with other accounting software programs and even with past versions of the QuickBooks software. Basically, you’ll fill in some boxes and click some buttons, and, voilà, you find that you’ve largely set up QuickBooks. Because I can give you some tips, identify some shortcuts, and warn you of some traps you want to avoid, I’m going to provide step-by-step instructions.
1. Choose to use the Express Setup.
With the first QuickBooks Setup dialog box displayed (refer to Figure 2-1), click the Express Start button. QuickBooks displays the Tell Us about Your Business dialog box, shown in Figure 2-2.
Figure 2-2: The Tell Us about Your Business dialog box.
2. Specify the business name.
The name you specify goes on QuickBooks reports and appears on invoices you send customers. Accordingly, you want to use your “real” business name. And if your business is incorporated or formed as a limited liability company (LLC), you want to use the right suffix or acronym in your name. For example, don’t use Acme Supplies, but rather, Acme Supplies Incorporated or Acme Supplies LLC.
Note: QuickBooks also uses the company name for the QuickBooks data file.
3. Identify your industry.
For example, if you’re in the construction business, type construction. When you type something into the Industry field, QuickBooks turns the box into a drop-down list showing the industries that it recognizes. You can pick an industry from this list (or pick the industry that’s closest to your business).
4. Identify the tax return you file and your taxpayer identification number.
Use the Company Type field to specify the tax return that your business files. You can click in that field and then select from the list that QuickBooks provides.
