Welcome to the FitSmallBusiness free QuickBooks Online tutorials. Whether you are brand new to QuickBooks Online or could use a better understanding of the program, these tutorials are designed for you. FitSmallBusiness readers can receive up to 50 percent off their purchase of QuickBooks Online.
QuickBooks Tutorial: What’s Covered
Our course starts at the very beginning with setting up QuickBooks for your business. We cover how to record your income and expenses, how to manage bank and credit card transactions and how to run financial statements. There are a total of 39 tutorials in our QuickBooks course spanning seven lessons. Each lesson has been broken down into bite-sized tutorials. Each QuickBooks tutorial includes a video where we demonstrate the concepts presented in each lesson.
If you are a seasoned QuickBooks Online user, then feel free to take the QuickBooks tutorial in any order that you prefer. However, if you are brand new to QuickBooks Online, then I would recommend that you begin with Lesson 1 and learn QuickBooks from there.
Lesson 1: Setting Up QuickBooks
In this lesson, you will learn how to set up key areas of QuickBooks like bank card and credit card accounts, invoice templates, products and services and the chart of accounts. By the time you complete this QuickBooks online tutorial, you will be ready to start using QuickBooks to manage all of your income and expenses.
The features and settings that you will make decisions for in this lesson will affect every area of QuickBooks. For example, setting up the default payment terms for customer invoices and vendor bills as well as turning on inventory quantity and cost tracking are just a few examples of what takes place in this lesson.
The Setting Up QuickBooks lesson includes the following tutorials:
Tutorial 1: How to Set Up Company Information (5:24 video watch time)
Tutorial 2: How to Customize Invoices, Sales Receipts & Estimates (5:40)
Tutorial 3: How to Set Up Invoices, Sales Receipts & Estimates (5:57)
Tutorial 4: How to Set Up Products and Services (3:55)
Tutorial 5: How to Set Up Messages (2:37)
Tutorial 6: How to Set Up Statements (2:13)
Tutorial 7: How to Set Up Expenses (5:56)
Tutorial 8: How to Set Up Advanced Settings (9:31)
Tutorial 9: How to Import Bank Transactions (12:26)
Tutorial 10: How to Import Credit Card Transactions (10:21)
Tutorial 11: How to Set Up Multiple Users (13:01)
Tutorial 12: How to Set Up the Chart of Accounts (6:36)
Tutorial 13: How to Set Up the Products and Services List (10:01)
Tutorial 14: How to Set Up Customers (13:41)
Tutorial 15: How to Set Up Vendors (12:41)
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Lesson 2: Managing Sales and Income in QuickBooks Online
This lesson covers how to record your sales and track your income in QuickBooks Online. In QuickBooks, there are two types of sales: credit sales and cash sales. By the end of this lesson, you will be able to keep track of your credit sales by creating invoices for your customers and sending them via email.
In addition, you will also learn how to apply payments to outstanding invoices so that your accounts are up-to-date. Learn how to stay on top of unpaid invoices by reading our Ultimate Guide on the Accounts Receivable Aging Report. In this QuickBooks tutorial, we will also show you how to create sales receipts to keep track of your cash sales.
The Managing Sales and Income in QuickBooks lesson includes the following tutorials:
Tutorial 1: How to Create Estimates (Quotes or Bids) (9:26 video watch time)
Tutorial 2: How to Create and Send Invoices (8:00)
Tutorial 3: How to Receive Payment (5:51)
Tutorial 4: How to Create & Send Sales Receipts (7:01)
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Lesson 3: Managing Bills and Expenses in QuickBooks Online
This lesson covers how to manage your bills and record expenses in QuickBooks. If you’ve been in business long enough, you know that it doesn’t matter how much sales you have if you don’t learn how to manage your expenses. By the end of this QuickBooks tutorial, you will be able to keep track of expenses in a couple of ways.
First, you can write and print checks directly from QuickBooks to pay for expenses that require immediate payment. Second, you will be able to manage what you owe to vendors who have extended payment terms to you.
The Managing Bills and Expenses in QuickBooks lesson includes the following tutorials:
Tutorial 1: How to Write & Print Checks (5:26 video watch time)
Tutorial 2: How to Enter Bills (6:19)
Tutorial 3: How to Pay Bills (5:30)
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Lesson 4: Managing Banking Transactions in QuickBooks
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to manage all of your downloaded banking transactions. You will also understand how to enter basic banking transactions manually. Finally, you will be able to use the reconcile tool to ensure that the transactions on your bank statement match up with what has been entered into QuickBooks. This will result in up-to-date financial statements.
The money that flows into your business in the form of sales and out of your business in the form of expenses will eventually end up going through your business bank account. In Lesson 1, Tutorial 9, we walked through how to import your banking transactions into QuickBooks.
The Managing Banking Transactions in QuickBooks lesson includes the following tutorials:
Tutorial 1: How to Manually Enter Banking Transactions (7:17 video watch time)
Tutorial 2: How to Manage Downloaded Banking Transactions (9:47)
Tutorial 3: How to Record Bank Deposits (4:22)
Tutorial 4: How to Transfer Funds Between Bank Accounts (3:51)
Tutorial 5: How to Handle Bounced Checks from Customers (6:57)
Tutorial 6: How to Process Bank Reconciliation (15:31)
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Lesson 5: Managing Business Credit Card Transactions in QuickBooks
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to track your credit card purchases in QuickBooks and reconcile them with your credit card statement to ensure that they match. This will result in up-to-date financial statements.
A business credit card can be a great way to establish business credit. Similar to banking transactions, you can connect your credit card to your QuickBooks Online account so that your credit card purchases will automatically download into QuickBooks.
The Managing Business Credit Card Transactions in QuickBooks lesson includes the following tutorials:
Tutorial 1: How to Manually Enter Business Credit Card Transactions (8:42 video watch time)
Tutorial 2: How to Manage Downloaded Business Credit Card Transactions (14:04)
Tutorial 3: How to Enter a Credit Card Refund (4:00)
Tutorial 4: How to Reconcile Business Credit Card Accounts (14:37)
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Lesson 6: Managing Credit Card Sales in QuickBooks
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to manage credit card sales if you have an Intuit Payments account that is integrated into QuickBooks. You will also be able to manage your credit card sales if you use a third-party credit card processor.
To make payment convenient for your customers, you should consider accepting credit card payments. By accepting credit card payments, you will need to understand how to reconcile those transactions, which is what we are going to cover in this lesson.
The Managing Credit Card Sales in QuickBooks lesson includes the following tutorials:
Tutorial 1: How to Manage Credit Card Sales with Intuit Merchant Services (12:59 video watch time)
Tutorial 2: How to Manage Credit Card Sales with a 3rd Party Credit Card Processor (10:39)
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Lesson 7: Reporting in QuickBooks Online
By the time you complete the following QuickBooks tutorial, you will understand the importance of five key reports and how to create them in QuickBooks. This includes the profit and loss report, balance sheet report, statement of cash flows and accounts receivable and accounts payable aging reports.
One of the primary purposes of using a bookkeeping system like QuickBooks Online is so that you can determine the health of your business at any given point in time. Having the ability to produce solid, accurate financial statements can benefit you in the following ways:
- You could gain potential investors
- Give you the ability to secure a business loan or line of credit
- Provide info that will help you determine if you should sell a new product or service or drop one that is not doing so well
The Reporting in QuickBooks lesson includes the following tutorials:
Tutorial 1: How to Run a Profit and Loss Statement (10:57 video watch time)
Tutorial 2: How to Run a Balance Sheet Report (8:26)
Tutorial 3: How to Run a Statement of Cash Flows (7:27)
Tutorial 4: How to Run an Accounts Receivable Aging Report (8:05)
Tutorial 5: How to Run an Accounts Payable Aging Report (6:29)
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The Bottom Line
Now that you have completed our QuickBooks Online tutorials, you should be convinced that you don’t have to be a certified public accountant or have an accounting background to learn how to use QuickBooks. You should also know that QuickBooks is a much better solution than using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to keep track of your income and expenses.
If you haven’t already done so, sign up for up to receive a 50 percent discount on a paid QuickBooks subscription. There are no contracts which means that you can cancel your subscription if you change your mind.
Sandra Jimenez
Hi Cristalynn,
I’m having problems when I try to synch my Bank of America credit cards with my online Banking. BOA divides the credit card in two accounts even thought it is the same credit card. How can I setup BOA account so the credit card transactions are automatically transferred to QuickBooks online?
Crystalynn Shelton
Hi Sandra,
I don’t have a ton of experience with setting up Bank of America credit cards. However, when I have it didn’t split it up into two cards. If the instructions I provided in our video tutorial on how to set up credit card accounts is not working (see below), I recommend that you contact the Intuit Support team. The best way to reach them is to log into your QBO account and click on the Help button. You should see a link to chat with a support rep or a telephone number that you can call.
Link to video tutorial:https://fitsmallbusiness.com/import-credit-card-transactions-into-quickbooks-online/
Best of luck,
Crystalynn Shelton, CPA
Franchesca Trudeau, CPCU, CLU, SPHR, ARM
Hello,
I just subscribed to Quickbooks Online and started your videos. The first video was fine but the second one does not match my screen. The screens are very different. I’m accessing QBO using a MacBook-is that why there’s a difference? My page layout was different and I didn’t have the same options you talked about in video#2.
Thank you! I really appreciate these wonderful videos!
Crystalynn Shelton
Hi Franchesca,
I’m glad that you are enjoying the QBO videos! This course was created in 2016 so it is very possible that the screens will look different from the current version of the program. Your Mac computer has nothing to do with that unless you are using the Mac Desktop version of QuickBooks which is quite different from QuickBooks Online. At the end of the day, the premise of each video and terminology remain the same it’s just the screen and the layout may differ.
Best-
Crystalynn Shelton, CPA
@CrystalynnPens
Kellie
Is there a video that shows how to generate automatic reminders to a client when an invoice is past due?
Crystalynn Shelton
Hey Kellie,
I don’t think there is a way to set up automatic payment reminders in QuickBooks Online. If so, that is news to me. However, give the tech support team a call and see if that is a new feature that they added.
Best-
Crystalynn Shelton,CPA
@CrystalynnPens
Alice L Sutherlun
It was the set up first video. It starting working later. Must have just been a glitch.
Crystalynn Shelton
Hey Alice! That was I suspected. Sorry about the issue but I’m glad it’s working now. Feel free to reach out anytime if you encounter anymore issues.
Hope you enjoy the video tutorials!
Best-
Crystalynn Shelton
Alice L Sutherlun
Is this still available? When I click on the video it says no longer available.
Crystalynn Shelton
Hi Alice, yes the video tutorials are still available. Can you tell me which video is not working so I can check it out for you?
Thanks!
Crystalynn Shelton