The Three Year Upgrade Cycle: Why?

It's about that time again.  Time when those who are using a version of QuickBooks 3 years old or older (QuickBooks 2005 users, this means you!) need to think about upgrading.

Intuit's sunset policy means that if you use payroll, process credit cards in QuickBooks, or care about getting techincal support directly from Intuit, you must upgrade by May 31, 2008.

If you don't use these features and don't care - you can continue to use QuickBooks 2005 as long as you like.  (Unless of course you hope to upgrade to Windows Vista).  In the next few blog entries we'll talk about the upgrade process.

Customizing QuickBooks: Part Seven Forms

Create your own distinctive and professional-looking forms, by choosing from over 100 pre-designed templates. Add your logo, your company colors, and essential information to your estimates, purchase orders, invoices, and packing slip.

1. Go to the Lists menu >> Templates

2. There are many different forms to choose from. Select the one you would like to customize by
double clicking on it. This will launch the Basic Customization window.

3. Now, you can easily add your logo, change your fonts and add important company information to your form.

For further assistance seting up, customizing, configuring or installing QuickBooks, don't hesitate to contact us in Sacramento or Reno/Tahoe.

Customizing QuickBooks: Part Six Reports

Set up your own custom reports, and see only the information important to your business.

You can create customized income statements which show the profitability of some aspect of your business, by choosing the columns and rows to display.


Go to the Reports menu >> Custom Summary Report


For even more QuickBooks tips, visit the QuickBooks Gal podcast. If you are using Microsoft Office Accounting, be sure to check out the handy tips at Micropods.custmbiz.com

Customizing QuickBooks: Part Five Report Formats

Change the formatting on reports to better reflect your unique business needs. You can easily change your fonts and add a header or footer to your reports. For instance, if your report has multiple pages, you may want to add page numbers. Or, if you are sharing a confidential report, you may want to mark it as such in the footer.
1 Open your report >> click Modify Report (upper left hand corner)
2 The Modify Report window will open, where you can select which columns to display, set filters on the kind of information you wish to see, add important company information, and change your fonts.

It’s also easy to resize the width of your Report columns, so you can limit or expand the amount of text you see. Click on the diamond between column headers and drag to the appropriate column width.  You can easily change the width of any column by clicking on the diamond and dragging your mouse to the left or right.

Customizing QuickBooks: Part Four Data Centers

See the data you only want to see in the Customer, Vendor and Employee Centers. You can add or remove columns to display the information you are interested in, such as job status or email address. Save time up front by customizing your data columns so you can quickly access this information at any time.

1. Go to the View menu >> Customize Columns (Note: You must already be in the Customer, Vendor or Employee Center when you go to the View menu to add or remove your column(s).


2. Select which columns you would like to add by selecting an item under Available Columns and clicking Add. You can also remove columns by selecting an item under Chosen Columns and clicking Remove.

Customizing QuickBooks: Part Three The Home Page

Set up your Home Page to show only the tasks relevant to your business. You can choose to hide or display select icons on the Home Page. If you don’t have employees, for example, you may wish to remove the Payroll Center from your Home Page.

You can easily do so by setting this preference in Company Preferences.

Go to the Edit menu >> Preferences >> Desktop View >> Company Preferences Tab (Note: Home page icons, such as invoices, cannot be removed from the Home Page if related references are enabled. For example, Invoices cannot be removed from the Home Page if either Estimates or Progress Invoicing is enabled.)

QuickBooks Bargain Alert! We noticed at Office Max today that they are currently offering QuickBooks Premier for $299 after a $100 mail in rebate. If you've been thinking about jumping into the 2008 edition of Premier, this seems like a great deal.

Customizing QuickBooks: Part Two The Icon Bar

Save time by customizing the icon bar to add shortcuts for quick access to the
tasks you frequently perform—and remove shortcut icons you don’t use.

Go to the View Menu and Select "Customize Icon Bar"