QuickBooks Online Tutorial Series: How to Use QuickBooks Online
As a small business owner who’s just getting started with QuickBooks, it’s easy to feel like you’re always short on time. Keeping track of expenses, reconciling your accounts, putting together invoices for your customers, and various other accounting tasks are already time consuming enough as it is. When you add in the stress and time involved in trying to learn a new software like QuickBooks, and you may quickly find yourself overwhelmed.
We at Biller Genie understand, and we’re here to help! As part of our QuickBooks Online tutorial series, we’ve put together a quick and easy guide to the software’s most essential features. Plus, we’ll show you how Biller Genie can expand upon QuickBooks’ existing functionality to help you get invoices paid faster — and with less work on your end.
Ready to get started? Keep reading to learn more.
The QuickBooks Online Dashboard
When you first set up your QuickBooks Online account and log in, you’ll be presented with what’s what’s called the Dashboard screen. This is your main navigation screen in QuickBooks. From here, you’ll be able to access all of the essential features including invoices, expenses, tax records, and more.
On the left side of your screen, you’ll see a menu with various clickable items such as Banking, Sales, and Expenses. This menu can be collapsed by clicking on the three lines at the top left of your screen. These menu items will take you to various screens within your QuickBooks account.
For quick navigation, there’s also a search feature which can be accessed by clicking on the magnifying glass up in the top right corner of your screen. The search feature allows you to search through your transaction history, and will also provide you with a list of recent transactions.
Another notable shortcut is the Create button, which appears as a plus sign next to the search icon. If you want to create an invoice, expense, timesheet entry, bank deposit, journal entry, or just about anything else in QuickBooks, the Create menu will allow you to do it without having to navigate through multiple pages first.
By default, the QuickBooks Online dashboard will present you with an overview of your invoices, expenses, linked bank accounts, profit and loss statement, and total sales. This allows you to get a sense of how your business is doing at a glance. More detailed reports can be accessed via the Reports menu item on the left side of your screen.
How to Create Your First Invoice in QuickBooks Online
If you’re just getting started with QuickBooks, one of the first things you’ll likely want to do is create an invoice for one of your customers. For an in-depth explanation of how to do this, check out our blog post on how to create invoices in QuickBooks Online. Here, we’ll just provide you with a brief overview.
There are multiple ways to create a new invoice, but one of the quickest ways involves using the Create feature mentioned above. Click the plus sign in the top right corner of your screen, and then select Invoice under the Customers heading.
If this is your first invoice, you’ll be prompted to click the “Send Your First Invoice” button. Otherwise, the first thing you’ll do is choose a customer to send the invoice to. If you’re sending an invoice to a new customer, you’ll enter their details and create a new customer in QuickBooks. Be sure to enter the customer’s email address as well in order to send your invoice electronically.
Below the customer and email fields, you’ll enter the terms, invoice date, and due date of your invoice. And, of course, you’ll be able to enter the line items that you’re billing for. If you’ve already created various products or services in QuickBooks Online, you can simply select them here.
At this point, you’re ready to save and send your invoice. Your customer will receive a copy in their email inbox. But what happens if they don’t pay your invoice on time?
Do More with QuickBooks Online: Simply Your Invoicing with Biller Genie
Ideally, your customers would pay their invoices immediately upon receipt. But as any small business owner will tell you, that almost never happens. Instead, you end up having to send multiple follow up invoices before you finally get paid.
With QuickBooks Online, this process is incredibly time consuming. If you want to send an invoice reminder, you’ll need to manually log in to your QuickBooks account, find the invoice in question, and send a follow up. This can take up quite a bit of time in and of itself. But when you factor in keeping track of dozens (if not hundreds) of different outstanding invoices, scheduling reminders into your calendar, and then sending them out manually, you could find yourself chasing down unpaid invoices for hours at a time.
Fortunately, there’s a better option: Biller Genie!
Biller Genie integrates seamlessly with your QuickBooks Online account and takes your invoicing to the next level. Using Biller Genie, you can set up automatic email invoice reminders and late fees for unpaid invoices. Plus, Biller Genie provides you with a custom branded payment portal where your customers can access and pay their invoices anytime, day or night.
Plus, Biller Genie is free to use!
Ready to turbocharge your QuickBooks experience? Click here to get started with Biller Genie today.