Getting started in Quickbooks Online may seem daunting.  How do you choose the right program?  Maybe you have always had an accounting system but it was less automated and/or manual. Did you keep your records in Excel or some other spreadsheet program? Or maybe you just used your check register. You could be a young (or not so young) entrepreneur and you just ventured into a new business.

Now your business is thriving and it’s time to venture into the world of QuickBooks.  How do you begin? This next series of videos is going to help you navigate the world of books and learn the basics to get started. 

It is a great, detailed resource that will step you through all of the scenarios of making the correct choice for your business.

Picking the right QuickBooks product for you….

There is basically three choices of QuickBooks online for business and cloud accounting programs with QuickBooks Online.  

1. Simple Start
2. Essentials
3. Plus

 See this website for the plans and pricing as demonstrated in the video below.  See this page for seeing the features in each program down to the very last detail.  Also, click here to see my other posts on the Self-Employed product. 

Questions you need to ask yourself to determine the right fit….

Many businesses can start with Simple Start product. There are just a few questions you need to ask yourself:

• Are you a company that uses accounts payable? Pick QBO Essentials Essentials
• Do you pay all your expenses on the credit card? Simple Start should work
• Do you need a robust program with all the bells and whistles or just a basic one? Robust-see Plus Version.  Basic-pick Simple Start

Getting started in Quickbooks Online:  Simple Start Version

Simple start is a great place to begin.  The reporting is a little lacking in this product but it’s a great entry product but that’s online world. Even if you have payroll you can do that in Simple Start. You can invoice sent customers their bills that they can pay electronically. I really like this product for the new start up business that doesn’t need a lot of the features of the other programs provide.

Getting started in Quickbooks Online:  Essentials Version

This is the middle child. Many of my clients fit in this package. It has vendors and billing/bill payments. Essentials has more reporting. It allows for more users as you can have three users on QuickBooks Essentials. It’s a good product for that business owner that needs the extra users for sales team or even a part-time bookkeeper.

Getting started in Quickbooks Online:  Plus Version

This is the premier product. It has it all. You need to track a budget? Do you want to track project? Do you need inventory? Class or Location tracking?  This is the only product that has all of those features. It has the most reporting. It has up to five users +2 for the bookkeeper the accountant.

So, after reading this post, did you determine you “over-bought” your accounting system?  Intuit recently released a way for you to downgrade if you already selected plus and now you realize you don’t need the extra features. The link above will take you to a page that will step you through the things you will lose when you downgrade. 

If you have any questions or would like to see a future video on another topic, please reach out to me on Facebook.