Frequently Asked QuickBooks Questions (and Answers!)
Just a quick note: I’ve started a companion blog that has short answers to common questions that I’m asked by people in comments in this blog as well as in the Intuit Community Forums. QuickBooks FAQ is updated on no particular schedule, just whenever I have an answer that I’m asked multiple times. Less in depth than Practical QuickBooks, but it may be of value to you. Let me know what you think!
UPDATE: The QuickBooks FAQ blog/web site has been discontinued – too many different blogs to maintain! But, have no fear, I am still writing. You can find me at two blogs:
- QuickBooks and Beyond: This is the place I’m writing MOST of my articles, including information on the latest updates to QuickBooks. This blog is a bit more oriented towards accounting professionals, but it still has a lot of basic QuickBooks information.
- Practical QuickBooks: THIS blog, where you have already found me. I’ll be posting my “FAQ” kinds of articles here, although not as frequently.
You can post a question in this article, but I can’t guarantee that you’ll get a response, as blog comments aren’t a great way to provide answers.
Category: General Tips
About the Author (Author Profile)
Charlie Russell is the founder of CCRSoftware. He’s been involved with the small business software industry since the mid 70′s, focusing on inventory and accounting software for small businesses. Charlie is a Certified Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisor. Look for Charlie’s articles in the QuickBooks and Beyond blog, as well as his California Wildflower Hikes blog.
Connect with Charlie at Google
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This is a good idea Charlie. There are always a number of questions that keep on coming up in the UK. If it’s okay I’ll pinch the idea for my UK QuickBooks site.
Mind you I don’t suppose that you can copyright FAQs!
Andy, you can’t copyright an idea, but you can copyright the expression of an idea. If you take the concept of the FAQ blog, more power to you. If you copy the text of my articles verbatim, that is a copyright violation…
If you want to talk about that in more detail feel free to email me directly.
Charlie, I just sent you an email asking you if I could link your blog to my company website. As a QB Certified ProAdvisor I found your site would be helpful to my clients, as I answer the same questions over and over again. Rather than recreate the wheel it would be great to just link your blog to my website and you get the credit for answering the question and I get credit for finding your blog – what do you think?
I found you via the LinkedIn discussion tonight.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Diane, I’ll look for that message (there are over 45 messages in my in box just from Saturday…). I do allow others to link to my blog, as long as it is done properly. The more links the better!
Charlie,
My quickbooks computer does not have an internet connection and the company does not want to install one. Whenever I go to ” Recieve Payments” , I get a pop up saying internet connection not detected. How do I get rid of this?
Thank you in advance for your help
Not sure, Valerie. Take a look at this info, maybe it will help: http://qbfaq.ccrsoftware.info/2009/11/30/turn-off-quickbooks-reminders/
Valerie: On further investigation, try this. Select “File” then “Edit” and select “Service Connection”. In the “Company Preferences” un-check the box “Allow background downloading of service messages” and see if that makes a difference…
Ok Charlie I am really hoping that you can answer a question for me……I’m going CRAZY!!!! I need to know how to go back and edit old receiving vouchers once they are saved so we can correct our profit margins. These vouchers are not yet a year old but will be in June 2010. Do I then have to delete the old ones once I have corrected them or are they automatically deleted? Also, can u explain the reverse voucher process for me if thats what I should be doing with these old incorrect vouchers. Thanks so much! Hope you can solve this for me before I pull the rest of my hair out.
Confused…..Troy,OH
Charlie,
Thanks, the link worked just fine
Julie, I’m sorry, I need more detail before I can answer that question.
You can edit older transactions, but they take effect as of the date of the transaction. That might not be what you want. If you delete and reenter, the transaction takes place on the date you give to the transaction. Depending on what kind of transaction this is you might create big problems if you change the date.
I am just setting up Quickbooks Premier 2010 for the first time in a manufacturing setting. Question: My client receives a sales order and dispaches against that order. At the end of the month they issue an invoice for the dispached amount. Every once in a while they issue an invoice for an amount that is different to what has been dispached (in agreement with the customer for whatever reason). I have created an estimate for a sales order, and understand that when I issue an invoice my inventory is deducted for the amount invoiced. Is there another way to do it–i.e. somehow reflect the dispaches when they happen and not related to the invoice? I am trying to keep an accurate count of both income and inventory and without a way to reflect dispaches this is difficult. Ideas/advice? Thanks!
Heidi, I’m not sure that I follow exactly what you are doing. You would generate an invoice for each amount that is shipped to the customer, and the invoice deducts from inventory…
I am trying to associate online banking in QB 2007 to a bank in Toronto, Ontario and cannot find it in the dropdown list. Consequently the link will not happen. Does anyone know that the step would be to get a foreign or international bank linked from within the states?
Is there a way to delete obsolete messages from the drop down box that is shown when invoicing? I have a few messages that list our old address and it is easy to accidentally pick the wrong one (because they say the same thing except for the address.) The issue is that the address doesn’t show up in the invoice prep and you can miss it if you wait until the point when you print it out. Hope my question is clear. Many thanks.
Serena, you don’t mention which dropdown box you are talking about. If you mean the “customer message” box in the lower left of the screen, you can make messages “inactive” (so they don’t show on the dropdown list) by going to “Lists”, then “Customer & Vendor Profile Lists”, then “Customer Message List”. Right click on a message and make it “inactive”.
The work flow diagram I use to move around and do tasks has dissappeared under home. Help Please.
Thank you,
RP
I have been using QuickBooks 2005 and just purchased the 2010 edition (for nonprofits). We want to back and store the current data in QuickBooks before downloading the new version, which will overwrite current data. How best to handle the backup/secure storage of current data?
Dorothy- separate the program from the data. If you download and install the 2010 program, that won’t affect your data. In fact, you can install the 2010 program without uninstalling the 2005 program, so you would have both on the computer.
The data – not affected by installing the new program. It is only affected by opening it with the 2010 program, which should convert the data to the 2010 version.
In any case, before you install the new program make a backup copy of the company file with the 2005 program – there should be a function to back up the data in the 2005 “File” menu. Then install the new program, placing it in a different folder than the 2005 program. Then open the file with the 2010 program. You may find that it doesn’t convert (going from 2005 to 2010 is a big jump), but if that happens you still have your 2005 program to use and you can restore the backup, so that you can continue with the 2005 program until you figure out what is going on with the 2010 converted file (if there is a problem).
I have recently started new company in quuickbooks and now when entering an expense from the bankstatement the system is not accepting the entry. This is the firt entry I am attemting and cannot get it accepted, Can you offer some advise.
Many thanks
Ralph Elliot
Ralph, if you aren’t using the US versin (since you seem to be from South Africa), I can’t help you here…
I am hoping this doesn’t get laughed at. I am a new Quickbooks Premier 2010 Accountant version. My accountant set it up on my computer at work. In order to input 2010 from 1/1/10 faster, I installed Quickbooks on 2 computers at home and 2 of us entered different vendoe data. Now I cannot merge all this data–keep getting an abort error from Quickbooks. Can this data be merged onto my office computer? Do I have to reenter it all? Help and THANK YOU!
Allan, nobody laughing here. QB has it’s own way of doing things, sometimes it is hard to figure out.
I’m not sure what “abort error” you are referring to – what are you doing at the time, what is the exact error?
As far as merging – if you have two separate company files that each have info that is unique, there isn’t a way in QB to merge them easily depending on what exactly you have been entering. To “merge” info, if it is just vendors, you can play with exporting the vendors to IIF (in the file/utilities menu), then importing them to the other file through file/utilities. If you have been entering transactions like PO’s or bills, that won’t help. You can use the Data Transfer Utility (which you have to purchase) to move stuff over, see my article on this at http://qbblog.ccrsoftware.info/2008/05/review-data-transfer-utility/
To work out of home, you can use several different approaches – one is to use a product like LogMeIn to access the office computer from your home.
i have a quick book program that i use for my now closed business,(i had 3 employees). i need to know if i can generate 1099 and w2′s. if so, is it difficult? thanks
Patrick – “probably” – depends on the QB program you have, and year of program you have, and how it is set up
If someone goes and buys some supplies for a company and gets a gift certificate in exchage, how do you journalized the exchange?
Can’t seem to find an answer anywhere to this question, and it might be a silly one- My girlfriend and I own separate small businesses and want to purchase Quickbooks to help us with our accounting. Do we need to purchase 2 copies of the software to operate individually, or can 1 copy be set up to handle 2 separate accounts? I know one can have several different ‘users’ for the same account, but this is the extent of my knowledge. Can you help? Thanks!
Richard, not a silly question. It is asked often.
If you buy one copy of QuickBooks and install it on a computer, you can have as many “company” files as you want. The restriction is that you can only install this on one computer, so you can have your company file and your girlfriend’s company file going, using the one licensed copy.
Actually, that isn’t quite true – you can install your one copy on two computers (a desktop and a laptop, usually), but only ONE copy can be in use at a time. The intent is that you only have one person using the program at a time.
Cool- thank you for the response, and a very quick one at that!
Why is it when i try to import an accountant copy i cannot see the files on the portable hard drive, but when i open the portable hard drive directly i can see them? How can i solve this issue?
Roy, QuickBoks doesn’t like removeable media in many instances. Try copying the file to your hard drive and then opening it from there. Might make a difference.
I use Premier QuickBooks 2010 for Contractors. I have received payments and applied it to the correct invoice which put the $ into the undeposited funds account. Made the deposit into the checking account which zeroed out the undeposited funds account. Everything there is fine. However, in the Customer’s file in the Customer Center the payments still show they are sitting in the undeposited funds account. Did I miss something?
Dee, what in the customer center is telling you that this is in “undeposited funds”?