1

Everything is Custom Date: January 31 (1:00 EST, 12:00 CDT, 11:00 MDT 10:00 PDT) Presented by: Vickie Ayres

The Countess of QuickBooks & Tech Support Specialist for QuickBooks & Quoting Note: This webinar is being demonstrated with QuickBooks Premier 2011. The basic concepts are the same in all versions of QuickBooks even if some screens or features appear differently in your version of QuickBooks. Now that you have learned the basic foundation of QuickBooks, it's time to take it to the next level. Put your best foot forward and add your artistic flare to QuickBooks.

Customizing Your Icon Bar in QuickBooks

Adding – Open a screen that you would like to have an icon for on your icon bar. For example your checking account register. Open your checking account register screen, on your menu bar choose View > Add Checking to Icon Bar. A dialog box will open allowing you to edit the label to something short. Choose OK and it’s on your icon bar. Almost anything that you have open on your screen can be added to your icon bar in this way.

Deleting – QuickBooks comes set up with several icons you may never need or at least you don’t need them as an icon. Choose View > Customize Icon Bar, This screen will open:

Using this screen you can rename Icons, (Edit) so they don’t take up as much room on your icon bar. You can grab their diamonds, dragging them up or down, and re-order them or you can delete them all entirely.

The icon bar below shows how I have edited the labels down and what I order I prefer them. You can re-order and label them to suit how you use QuickBooks.

2

Estimates & Invoices that reflect your Design Point of View

Customize Your Templates

Let’s use an estimate to demonstrate how to customize a form. When customizing other forms, Invoices, Purchase Orders and Sales Receipts, the screens and instructions are the same. You just have to decide how you want each one to look. There are several ways to get to the Customizing screens, the quickest way to work with several templates at once is to go to Lists>Templates and a list of all of your templates for all kinds of forms comes up.

Double-click one of the Estimate templates and the first of three customizing screens will open. There are 3 screens for customizing, Basic, Additional Customization, and the Layout Designer.

This is the screen where you will click on “Use Logo” to add your logo. If it is the first time you are adding your logo, you will need to browse out onto your computer and locate the logo. QuickBooks will make a copy and store it in the Image folder so that it is ready to use on the next template without browsing. You can select a color scheme and “Apply” it, try this out you might be surprised to find a color that complements your logo. The other fast way to customize on this screen is to make a font change for all labels at once. Notice the 6 boxes I do not checked off? This is a deliberate choice. If you put check marks here, you will get 2 fields on your form for every checkmark. That’s 10 or 12 fields that have to be resized, moved, kept together, etc… on the Layout Designer screen. We have an easier way to deal with this information. I will show that tip on the Layout Designer Screen.

It is very important that you click “Manage Templates” and copy your template before you edit. You always want to be able to go back and get the original if your edits don’t turn out quite like you want. Click on copy and give the template your initials instead of the words “Copy of”

3

Additional Customization

You can change the Label for any of these items. For example you can call it a Quote or an Estimate instead of Proposal. Maybe you want to delete the word “date” and just have the date print without a label. Most people don’t need to be told it is a “date”. The check marks indicate if it will show on the screen when you are using the form and if it will print on the copy when you print the form. The next tab is the Column tab, the options are very similar.

Do you want to see it on your screen as you work? Do you want it to print on the copy when you print it? But here is where you decide what your columns will be called, and in what order you want them to appear. You are in charge, play around, and see what pleases you.

4

The third tab is for the footer information.

Layout Designer

We have lots going on here; you can select a field and resize it by dragging on the corners or move it by dragging it across the form. You can insert jpeg files, possibly Studio renderings you saved for your client. We need to resize that logo so it looks right for this form. Let’s do that next.

You can create many different Customer Messages and if you choose that box you will get a drop down menu to choose them when you are working on your quote. Do you want a Subtotal field? Sales Tax? Total? Notice we did not check off the Plain Text or the Signature? But you can see that we do have all of that information at the bottom of our quote? That is the handy little tip we still haven’t told you about….…later….

It’s time to say “OK” and save our changes…You must say OK, DO NOT JUST CLOSE THE SCREEN WITH THE X. Your changes will not be saved unless you say OK. That should take you back to the Basic Customization Screen. Now we are ready to choose the Layout Designer.

5

If you use window envelopes, click this box and QB will create a shadow simulating the windows so you can line up your fields easily.

I stretched the logo across the top by dragging one of the corners. Using the bottom right hand corner keeps the aspect ratio correct. Make a note of the size of your logo so that when you resize it on another template you can keep a consistent look from form to form.

Let’s talk about that nifty tip I have been saving up…Instead of letting QB create a separate field for every part of your Address block, lets create one text box and type our information into it. Instead of having to move and resize all of those field and label boxes and trying to line them up…tedious…we have one box, and we can format the text and put it right where we want it. Right click, add text box now format it. That is also how we created the message at the bottom of the form. It’s a text box, with a white font color and a dark background fill. Try it out, I bet you can create a very unique look for your business.

See all of the buttons at the top of the screen? Try them out, you can zoom in and out, undo changes…you might be surprised with what you find.

6

Making Life Easy (Word Templates)

Printing Estimate Invoice Detail for file copies

Open up an estimate Choose the “Letter” button > Create Estimate Letter when your screen opens, check off the button to “Create or edit a letter template.” We are going to make a copy by using Save As and edit that template. On the next screen choose view or edit the templates,

You can choose any of these letter templates to edit now. I have chosen the Estimate Set and the letter with details in particular. When you hit next Word will open up this letter for you to edit. The next screen shows that I made 2 changes and it makes all the difference.

You want to set all margins to .5 and your orientation to landscape.

Then delete any extra “stuff” you don’t need, keep the bracketed info that you want to have “pulled” from the Estimate in QuickBooks.

Under the File menu choose “SAVE AS”, give it a unique name. If you choose “Save” you will have saved your changes to the original template. It’s not the end of the world. The templates are still on your Word program disks but what a bother to have to go back and retrieve them if you ever wanted to start over….

Now let’s go get the template in QB and see how it looks. You only have to do this once and your new edited template will always be available.

7

Back in QB, you want to have your estimate open and choose Letters. This time choose the letter template with your unique name and hit Next. On the next screen you can enter your name, Title or Company name if you want. If you are using these for file copies only it isn’t necessary. If you are using these as backup detail sheets for designers, you might want to include this info. It doesn’t really matter because once Word opens it you can edit any way you like.

Now, isn’t that cool!? Save this document to your client file in My Docs so you can access it later without having to recreate it.

8

Labels

Let’s make some mailing labels for a mass mailing. Go to File, Print Forms and then Labels. This screen will open to make your choices. This is pretty self explanatory. Just choose how you want QB to filter your labels to print.

The next screen is where you will want to indicate the printer and the Label you are using. If you purchase Avery labels you will be able to choose the actual product number from the drop down menu.

One of the Avery labels you can choose is File labels. I always use this at the beginning of every year to create a set of file labels for my Vendor files. Neat and clean to start the beginning of every year.

My Item List

Let’s go look at our Item List, Choose Lists>Item List. This is the heart and soul of your QuickBooks Program. Everything you want to sell will be on this list. When you create these items you want to make sure that you create your items so that they are linked properly to the Chart of Accounts with an Income account and an Expense account that “match.” This is an example of a service/labor item setup screen:

The arrow is pointing at the expanded version of what is typed into the Description field on both descriptions. You can add any information here that would be helpful when you are creating an estimate for your client. This information includes yardage and cut length information. You have to place the checkmark that is circled in order to be able to create both the expense and income side to this item. This is just an example of the service/labor type item; you can create inventory and non-inventory items in the same way.

9

You can also add an item by duplicating a similar item and save yourself some time. Highlight the item that is similar and right-click, choose “Duplicate Item”. Notice how the name is “DUP Pinch Pleat”? Now you want to edit the name and any other information that is different and then say OK.

Changing Prices in your Item List The best way to change prices in your Item List is Individual Method. Even though this is the most time consuming, it allows you to edit both the Cost and Selling Price and maintain a 100% markup on each change. Individual Method of Changing Prices: Go to Lists>Item List, choose an item and right click, Edit Item, this screen will open.

In this screen you are able to do lots of things; you can change the Cost amount and the Sales Price amount. The really cool thing you can do here that you can’t do in the table is “mark” the item in a way that tells you what items you have edited the pricing on which ones you have not. I put an asterisk in both description fields, see it? Whenever this item is used on a form the description pops on and if I see the asterisk, I know that the pricing is mine not the default pricing that came with my QuickBooks and Quoting. You can also add a Preferred Vendor if you like to the item. If you always use the same vendor for bedding, filling that in will make it easier to generate a PO. It does not limit you to only using that vendor it just starts things for you later. The other way to make global changes is shown below, The Table Method.

10

The Table Method: Go to the Customer menu and all the way at the bottom, choose Change Item Prices. This screen will open:

Editing Groups If the Item List is the heart and soul of QuickBooks, then Group Items are the “magic” behind creating estimates effortlessly. Once you become comfortable with using Groups is when this estimating thing will cease to be that “monkey on your back. You can create Group Items for any kind of sale. Let’s create a Group Item for Draperies.

We have chosen the type as Group, named it G-Draperies, given it a default description, and then added individual items to the “basket” at the bottom. Notice the arrow pointing at the check mark to “Print Items in the Group”? This is where you make the choice about whether you want the individual items to print or not from the Group.

You can change the individual items in the group by deleting them or adding new ones. To delete an item just hit “Ctrl" and “Delete” at the same time and the item you had highlighted will be deleted. If you want to add an item, choose an item directly below where you want an item to be added and use the “Ctrl” and “Insert” key together, a blank line will be inserted and the drop down menu arrow will be available to choose an item to add. Choose OK to save your changes and every time you choose this Group Item on a form your personalized basket of items will appear.

You can see the selling price assigned to each item and you get to pop any price you want into each item. It doesn’t get any easier than that…. You can also use this screen to adjust all of your prices up by a % factor, just choose all items or certain items and apply a percentage using the fields in the lower left hand corner. The drawback to this method is that you have not done any adjustments to the cost side of the item.

11

There is another method for editing Lists, but it is only available in 2010-12 versions in QuickBooks. Under Lists>Add or Edit Multiple List Entries.

I have edited the columns for the ones I need to use and the order I want them in. You can change prices, add the * to the descriptions, check your expense accounts & income accounts and check the tax code assigned. All in one screen, when you are done, choose Save Changes and your list has been edited, all without opening and closing all of the different setup screens. You can work with several kinds of lists in this new table feature.

12

Custom Fields for your Forms The example I am going to show is how to add custom fields to your Purchase Orders for the vendor phone and fax numbers and a reference # field. The first step is to create the custom fields in the vendor setup screen. Open your Vendor Center and choose “New Vendor”. The second tab in the setup screen will show you this screen. You have to choose “Define Fields” to get the second screen to open. Create the labels you want and choose where you want the fields to be available. In my example I could use them for Customers and Jobs or Vendors but not Employees.

You must add the fax and phone numbers to the custom fields on the second tab for each vendor. Make sure and include your account number if you have one.

13

Now that we have created the custom fields, edited them for each vendor and added them to our template, you can see how the Purchase Order looks on the screen and when printed:

Now we need to customize our PO template to have these fields on it. Go to Lists>Templates and double-click on the template you want to customize, I chose the PO for Fabrics & Trims. Next click on the “Additional Customization” button to get to the screen where you handle fields and columns. Check off the fields you want to have in the header area.

14

Customer Messages Let’s create some “Customer Messages” to display at the bottom of our Invoices now. Open an Invoice and you will see a field with a drop down menu at the bottom of the invoice.

Choose “Add New” to create a new message. You can manage the messages in the Lists menu.

15

Lesson 4 Project

Create an Estimate in your company file and edit your template, use a logo and a color scheme.

Create a Custom field in a Vendor setup screen and add it to the Estimate template.

Email the Estimate to me at vickie@minutesmatter.com

16

Dates Moving in a Window

Next Day + (plus key) Next Field Tab

Previous Day - (minus key) Previous Field Shift + Tab

Today T Beginning of Field/Row Home

First Day of the Week W End of Field/Row End

Last Day of the Week K Line Below Down Arrow

First Day of the Month M Line Above Up Arrow

Last Day of the Month H Down one screen Page Down

First Day of the Year Y Up One Screen Page Up

Last Day of the Year R Next Word in Field Ctrl + right arrow

Previous Word in Field Ctrl + left arrow

General End of Field/Row Esc or Alt+F4

Delete Ctrl + D

Edit Lists or Registers Ctrl + E

Find Ctrl + F

Quick Reports on Transactions Ctrl + Q

Invoice Ctrl + I

Display Memorized Trans Ctrl + T

Print Ctrl + P

Use List Item Ctrl + U

Record Always Ctrl + Enter

Add line to Invoice Ctrl + Ins

Decrease number by 1 - (minus key)

Chart of Accounts Ctrl + A

Write Checks Ctrl + W

Copy Transaction in Register Ctrl + O

Customer:Job List Ctrl + J

History of A/R or A/P Ctrl + H

Memorize Report or Transaction Ctrl + M

New Invoice/bill/check Ctrl + N

Register Display Ctrl + R

Undo Changes Ctrl + Z

Delete line from invoice Ctrl + Del

Insert Line from Invoice Ctrl + Ins

Increase number by 1 + (plus key)