Getting the Most Out of QuickBooks

Maximize what QuickBooks can do for your business

By Chuck Vigeant

Every business, no matter what size, needs to track finances and QuickBooks is the number one accounting software for this purpose. The software comes in many different versions, and the company behind it also offers a wide range of other financial solutions for small business. Small companies, from one-person startups to those with millions of dollars in revenues use QuickBooks for everything from basic bookkeeping and check writing, to payroll, invoicing, balance statements and more complex financial tracking operations.

If you are new to QuickBooks, or want to tap more of its features and capabilities, you can:

Set up QuickBooks to manage all of your business finances
Go beyond the basics with pro-level features
Tap other solutions from QuickBooks and parent company Intuit, including Payroll, Merchant Services, Time Tracking and more.
Discover third-party software applications that can help you get even more out of this highly versatile software

Use the right QuickBooks for your business

QuickBooks has product flavors that are tailored for specific businesses, like construction, nonprofit, online — or even enterprise-size businesses.
Try: The QuickBooks Financial Software page helps you to choose and compare the flavor of QuickBooks that is right for your business.

Learn from other QuickBooks users

QuickBooks is extremely flexible but everybody's business needs are unique. If you need to adapt QuickBooks to your specific situation, you may find that one of the millions of QuickBooks users may have already solved your problem.
Try: Intuit provides an online community that is monitored by Intuit employees and where experienced users gather to exchange advice. Yahoo has a list of long-running online communities that are moderated by experienced QuickBooks users, and contains searchable databases of previously given answers. Or visit For the Love of Business which is run by QuickBooks experts.

Expand your QuickBooks' capability

Need to pay your employees without the hassle of forms? Want to take credit cards without paying for an expensive processing terminal? QuickBooks has a variety of services that integrate with their products.
Try: Intuit has over a dozen services, ranging from Customer Manager, Merchant Services and Online Banking, to name a few.

Go beyond QuickBooks

QuickBooks cannot provide a solution for every individual business need, so it has provided a method for third-party developers to plug their products directly into QuickBooks.
Try: Visit the Intuit Solutions Marketplace for advanced inventory management, CRM, Billing, custom integration and reporting, among many, many others.

What is right for me? Intuit knows that it cannot meet everyone's individual needs, but they have made it possible to use other products with theirs.
Additional services: Intuit provides complete payroll services that are the best in the industry and their Merchant Services are very easy to use.
Get help from others. Don't be afraid to reach out in the various QuickBooks communities on the Internet. Some of their members have already been in your shoes.