QuickBooks is accounting software that allows individuals and small business owners to track and manage their finances. Accountants, bookkeepers, financial managers, and financial analysts can all directly use or reference QuickBooks to record and review their clients' expenses, manage payroll and bill payments, help clients create a budget, and offer investment advice. Individuals can also use QuickBooks for similar purposes such as tracking income, setting goals, creating a budget, making payments, and estimating taxes. If you are unsure whether learning QuickBooks is right for you, consider reading on to learn more about the myriad uses of QuickBooks tools and techniques. Not only will learning QuickBooks open up a number of new career opportunities, but it also has a lot of potential personal uses.
What is QuickBooks?
QuickBooks is widely used accounting and bookkeeping software from Intuit. Primarily used by small and medium businesses, QuickBooks helps businesses to track and manage everything to do with their finances. Using QuickBooks, businesses can monitor their cash flow, profits, and losses by tracking sales, expenses, customers, and payments. QuickBooks is also often used to create and send invoices, manage a business’s inventory, and handle employee payroll. It also has budgeting, time tracking, and daily task features to keep businesses running efficiently.
QuickBooks helps businesses ensure the accuracy of their records by directly connecting sales channels to QuickBooks and reconciling bank transactions with the information entered. The software also has features to help with tax preparation and can be used as a way to collaborate and share documents with an Accountant. QuickBooks is a subscription-based software with tiered pricing that comes in different versions depending on the user’s storage and business needs. Intuit offers QuickBooks with basic to premium plans for its cloud-based QuickBooks Online, a computer-installed QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise version for larger or more complex companies, and a version for freelancers and independent contractors called QuickBooks Solopreneur.
Professional Uses for QuickBooks
Learning QuickBooks is especially useful for those wanting to pursue a career as a Bookkeeper or an Accountant. These jobs closely align with how one tracks and manages finances using QuickBooks, and many in bookkeeping and accounting will end up needing to use QuickBooks or look over their client’s QuickBooks accounts. Additionally, those with QuickBooks training can find themselves working as financial managers, analysts, or advisors, though this often requires additional training and education beyond QuickBooks.
Track and Record Financial Transactions
One of the main responsibilities of professionals using QuickBooks is to track and record financial transactions. This can include any income and sales that a business generates, as well as the expenses necessary to run a business and payments made by the business. QuickBooks itself can automate much of this process, though it will be important for accountants and bookkeepers to understand the underlying processes behind the QuickBooks software.
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Manage Finances
Not only is record-keeping a responsibility for bookkeepers, accountants, and others working in finance, but more direct involvement such as managing and overseeing various financial processes, is also required. This can include managing payroll or billing, overseeing cash flow, credit and expense accounts, and preparing financial reports. A Financial Manager, in particular, will be charged with making sure a business is functioning efficiently and profitably.
Read more about how to learn finance in the comprehensive guide.
Audit Financial Records
Professionals using QuickBooks will often find themselves needing to audit financial records as part of their job. Reviewing a business's accounts, transactions, and other finances will help to ensure accuracy and maintain the reliability of financial records.
Offer Investment Advice
Finance and accounting professionals are often sought out for their advice on how to store and grow a client’s money. QuickBooks itself has limited features for tracking investments, but one will likely need to reference their client's accounts in QuickBooks while offering investment advice. QuickBooks can provide accountants, financial managers, and financial advisors with useful historical data to aid their advising strategies.
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Plan Budgets
Accountants, financial managers, and financial advisors will likely be tasked with helping a business plan and strategize for success. This can include directly working with a business to create a sustainable budget, which can be set up through QuickBooks.
Other Uses for QuickBooks
Not only can professionals benefit from the use of and training in QuickBooks, but QuickBooks can also be used by individuals to track and manage their own finances. Intuit offers a version of QuickBooks called QuickBooks Solopreneur (formerly QuickBooks Self-Employed or SE) that is geared toward self-employed individuals, freelancers, and independent contractors. Even if someone is not self-employed, QuickBooks can be a way for individuals to track their financial records and grow their income over time.
Track Income and Expenses
At its core, one of the most useful features of QuickBooks is that it allows one to link personal and business accounts for banks and credit cards. This makes it easier to track and monitor income and expenses. Not only is this useful for small business owners, but it can also be useful for individuals, especially if they have more than one income stream.
Create Budgets
Individual QuickBooks users will also want to take advantage of QuickBooks’ features for budget creation. For those who need to set a budget for the upcoming fiscal year, QuickBooks has budget templates that users can utilize to set a budget in line with current and projected finances.
Set Financial Goals
Using QuickBooks, one can set the appropriate financial goals for one’s needs. Creating a budget is the first step toward setting or meeting income and profitability goals. In addition, you can use QuickBooks forecasting features to help plan for the future and use a feature called Envelopes to set aside a certain amount of money to help achieve your goals.
Make Online Payments
QuickBooks has online bill payment options that can be useful to individuals. While small business owners might use QuickBooks to pay vendors directly, for instance, individuals can still use the features of QuickBooks to set up bills to pay or schedule payments.
Estimate Taxes
Many people use QuickBooks for help preparing their taxes, whether they are small business owners or individuals. Once you've set up your profile in QuickBooks, the software makes it easy to collect the documents you need and prepare your books for tax season.
Learn QuickBooks Skills with Noble Desktop
Noble Desktop offers expert in-person and live online training for those interested in learning QuickBooks. Every Noble Desktop class includes expert, hands-on guidance, small class sizes, free retake options, and many classes offer both part-time and full-time schedules to suit your needs. For fast and comprehensive training in QuickBooks, consider enrolling in Noble Desktop’s QuickBooks Bootcamp which teaches students everything they need to know about how to use QuickBooks to track and manage a business’s finances. This bootcamp uses interactive training to teach students the basics of QuickBooks such as configuring a company profile, working with customer, vendor, and inventory lists, invoicing and processing payments, as well as more advanced management and customization features. Noble Desktop offers this bootcamp live online from any location, and it can also be taken in-person at Noble Desktop’s training facility in New York City.
Noble Desktop also has accounting classes and bootcamps which are a great option for anyone interested in developing their skills or learning more about finance and accounting. The Intro to Financial Accounting & Financial Statements class uses hands-on exercises to teach students the fundamentals of analyzing financial statements and reports. After completing this introductory class, students can progress to the Intermediate Financial Accounting class which teaches more complex topics like earnings per share and deferred taxes. For those who want a comprehensive, accelerated class that tackles both beginner and intermediate topics of accounting, consider the Financial Accounting Bootcamp which teaches everything students need to know in two class sessions.
Noble’s finance and accounting classes are great for those who want to grow their financial literacy beyond learning about QuickBooks. These classes are also useful for those interested in becoming a Bookkeeper or Accountant. If this is something that interests you, you can learn more about the career path of an Accountant by reading Noble Desktop’s comprehensive guide to accounting, a free resource that covers essential information about accounting and how to learn the skills necessary to make this one’s career. Learning principles of accounting or receiving QuickBooks training can be the first step on the path to becoming a Financial Manager or Financial Analyst. For those who want to work in finance, Noble Desktop’s guide to finance is a useful way to read about different career options and how to receive training for careers in finance.