its taxes as an S corporation or regular C corporation, however (part of the reason accountants love LLCs). If you’re running an LLC that files its taxes as an S corporation, do select the S corporation tax return option. And if you’re running an LLC that files as a regular C corporation, select that tax return option.
Use the Tax ID # field to provide your business taxpayer identification number. If you’re a sole proprietorship without employees, your tax identification number may be your Social Security number. In all other cases, your taxpayer identification number is your Employer Identification number.
5. Indicate whether the business employs people.
Note that a sole proprietor is not an employee in his or her own business (though the proprietor’s spouse or child would be employees if they were paid for work performed in the business). Further, partners paid for work performed in a business are also not employees. Partners, for example, don’t get paid wages – they get paid something called guaranteed payments.
6. Click the Continue button.
7. On the next page, supply your business contact information.
When QuickBooks displays the Enter Your Business Contact Information dialog box (see Figure 2-3), verify that the correct business name shows in the Legal Name field. Then fill in the rest of the address and contact information. I hope you don’t feel cheated that I’m not giving you instructions like “Enter your street address into the Address box” and “Please remember that your telephone number goes into the Phone box.”
Figure 2-3: The Enter Your Business Contact Information dialog box.
8. Create the QuickBooks data file.
After you provide the business contact information requested by QuickBooks, click the Create Company File button. QuickBooks creates the data file it will use to store your financial information. (In some versions of QuickBooks, the file creation process takes a few minutes.) When QuickBooks finishes creating your file, it displays the You’ve Got a Company File! dialog box. (See Figure 2-4.)
Figure 2-4: The You’ve Got a Company File! dialog box.
9. Identify your customers, vendors, and employees.
With the You’ve Got a Company File! dialog box displayed, click the Add the People You Do Business With button. QuickBooks displays another dialog box that asks, “Perchance, are contact names and addresses stored electronically someplace else like Microsoft Outlook or Google Gmail?”
• If you do have contact name and address information stored someplace else that QuickBooks will retrieve: Click the appropriate button and follow the onscreen instructions.
• Otherwise: Click the Paste from Excel or Enter Manually button and then Continue.
When QuickBooks displays the Add the People You Do Business With dialog box (see Figure 2-5), use the rows of the displayed worksheet to describe your customers, vendors, and employees. To enter a contact into the next empty row
1. Select the Customer, Vendor, or Employee option button (as appropriate).
2. Describe the contact using the fields provided: Name, Company Name, First Name, Last Name, Email, Phone, and so forth. Each contact goes into its own row.
3. Click the Continue button twice when you finish identifying your contacts to return to the You’ve Got a Company File! dialog box.
Figure 2-5: The Add the People You Do Business With dialog box.
1. Identify the items (the stuff) you sell.
With the You’ve Got a Company File! dialog box displayed, click the Add the Products and Services You Sell button. QuickBooks displays another dialog box that asks what kind of stuff you want to describe: services, stuff that you track in inventory, stuff that is inventory but that you don’t track, and so on. (Which items QuickBooks lists depends on the industry that you specify in Step 3.) Click the appropriate button.
When QuickBooks displays the Add the Products and Services You Sell dialog box (see Figure 2-6), use the rows of the displayed worksheet to describe a product or service. For any item, you’ll always enter a name, description, and price. For some items, however, you can specify much greater detail than just this skeletal information. Click the Continue button when you finish identifying your products and services. QuickBooks may try to sell you some extra stuff (like Intuit checks) but go ahead and click “No Thanks” to return to the You’ve Got a Company File! dialog box.
Figure 2-6: The Add the Products and Services You Sell dialog box.
1. Describe your bank account(s).
With the You’ve Got a Company File! dialog box displayed, click the Add Your Bank Accounts button. When QuickBooks displays the Add Your Bank Accounts dialog box (see Figure
