Quickbooks, Bookkeeping and Accounting Blog

The third part of the QuickBooks EasyStep Interview, to be completed after Getting Started With QuickBooks and Customizing QuickBooks For Your Business, guides you through the process of setting up your chart of accounts. 

QuickBooks will use your answers to the next few questions in the QuickBooks EasyStep Interview to create a Chart of Accounts that will help you track and report on your business. While QuickBooks makes it easy to change and develop your Chart of Accounts on an ongoing basis, taking the time to get it as right as possible the first time will save lots of time later. Click “Next” to start.

Selecting January 1 as your QuickBooks start date means entering all transactions since January 1st. While this can be a hassle, entering a different date both makes things difficult at tax time and means you will not have accurate data for the whole current year in QuickBooks.

It is easy to set up bank accounts in QuickBooks, so you could just add them later. However, I strongly recommend setting them all up now so that when you are done with the QuickBooks EasyStep Interview, your QuickBooks file is as complete as possible.

Enter a bank account name that makes sense to you, such as the name of your bank and “checking” or “savings”. Then enter your bank account number and when you opened the account and click “Next”.

Assuming you entered 1/1/XX as your QuickBooks Start Date, the statement ending date you enter will probably be 12/31 of the prior year. Fill in the ending balance and click “Next”.

Verify that the bank name and account number are correct and then either select Yes to enter another bank account or No and “Next”.

Based on your answers throughout the QuickBooks EasyStep Interview, QuickBooks will now recommend accounts for your business. You can modify your QuickBooks Chart of Accounts at any time, so you don’t need to spend too much time reviewing the accounts QuickBooks selected for you. However, it is worth scrolling through them quickly to see if QuickBooks checked any accounts you know you won’t use or missed any you know you will use. After doing so, click “Next”.

Click “Finish” to complete the QuickBooks EasyStep Interview.