New to QuickBooks

Welcome to QuickBooks for Mac! We’re glad you’re here. You probably have tons of questions. We can help.

Understand the basics

If you’re brand new to running your business, this Bookkeeping 101 video is a great place to start. It explains how money moves in and out of your business. (Hopefully more in than out!)

Now what do you do?

Well, it depends. Here are some suggestions:

  • Have you been in business for a while and are just new to QuickBooks? Then you probably have historical data for your company that you’d like to enter into QuickBooks. The good news is that you don’t have to go back to the day you first started your business. But I suggest you do go back as far as the start date you entered when you created your company file. Gather up everything from the start date to today and enter that historical information. That way, you’re records for your fiscal year will be complete. You’ll find out more in the following section. For more information on this, check out the Making the move series of articles.
  • Are you the kind of person who likes to have everything organized up front before you start? Then the best place to start is creating your lists. Lists are the building blocks for QuickBooks. They include the things like what you’re selling your customers and what you’re buying from your vendors. They also include the names and contact info for all your customers and vendors and much more. The best thing to do is start with customers, vendors, and items.
  • Are you the kind of person who just wants to get started and fill in the details later? You can do that, too. Go ahead and start entering transactions. QuickBooks will prompt you to enter information along the way. The Home Page is a good place to start.

And with Guide Me turned on, you’ll get additional help for your first tasks. Guide Me is automatically enabled when you first open your company file. You’ll see this when you click on the Help menu in the upper right of your screen.


Most recent articles



Video: Creating an invoice in QuickBooks 2013

In this video, watch how Wally uses QuickBooks for Mac to invoice a customer for work he's done for her. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uR8aFbrseUM Video Script Wally’s finished his work on the new web site he designed and built for Hannah’s … [Read more...]

Importing items into QuickBooks

Even though you're new to QuickBooks, you may not be new to running your business. If you have a list of products or services you sell in a spreadsheet, you can import that information into QuickBooks. I'll show you how in this … [Read more...]

Importing contacts into QuickBooks for Mac

If you've been in business for a while before buying QuickBooks for Mac, you probably have contacts saved in Address Book or a spreadsheet. In QuickBooks for Mac, you can import your contacts so you don't have to enter them manually. It'll save you a … [Read more...]

QuickBooks for Mac 2013 User’s Guide

The QuickBooks for Mac 2013 User's Guide, Version 2 is here! We've added info about how to use our new-and-improved Reconcile feature, plus instructions on backing up and restoring backed up company files. To download Version 2, click the link … [Read more...]

Online Banking: Updating your register

When you use online banking, you either import or download transactions from your financial institution. Some of those transactions may already be in QuickBooks, but some may not be. Updating your register means: You add any transaction from your … [Read more...]

So many choices, Part 2: Vendor transactions and more

This article is Part 2 of a two-parter on the transactions you can use in QuickBooks. Part 1 covers customers. This one covers vendors. With vendors, it's all about spending money. You need stuff to run your business, whether that's new inventory … [Read more...]

So many choices, Part 1: Customer transactions

This article is Part 1 of a two-parter on the transactions you can use in QuickBooks. Part 2 covers vendors and other transactions. This one covers customers. QuickBooks has lots of different transactions you can use to run your business. Which … [Read more...]

Video: Receiving payments in QuickBooks 2012

Your customer has sent you a payment. Sweet! Now it's time to record that payment in QuickBooks. In this video, I'll show you how to use Receive Payments to enter money a customer has paid … [Read more...]

Video: Creating a sales receipt in QuickBooks 2012

You're probably already familiar with sales receipts. Just about anytime you buy anything, you get a record of what you've bought and what you paid for those items. In QuickBooks, you can create sales receipts for your customers to track a sale when … [Read more...]

Video: How to Search Your Data in QuickBooks Desktop Mac

Searching is a great feature that you can use to find anything in your company file. In this video, you'll see more of how it works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ1NU7U-EGI&feature=youtu.be Video script: QuickBooks Desktop Mac provides a … [Read more...]

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