QuickBooks ProAdvisor cheat sheet

The gear icon opens Account and Settings, which contains tabs for Company, Sales, Expenses, Payments, and Advanced.

A closing date plus password is set in Advanced > Accounting; transactions dated on or before that date cannot be edited or deleted without the password.

Locations (classes) are switched on in Advanced > Categories and can be turned off only while no transaction carries a location value.

Multi-currency is enabled in Advanced > Currency; after the first foreign-currency transaction is saved the feature cannot be disabled.

The fiscal year start month is set in Advanced > Accounting and drives the year columns and comparative periods on Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet.

Only a company admin can manage users, subscriptions, and billing; standard users receive limited or custom permissions per area.

Account numbers are turned on in Advanced > Chart of Accounts, then entered on each account so lists and reports sort numerically.

Custom form styles control the logo, fonts, column layout, and email text of invoices, estimates, and sales receipts.

Sales tab defaults include default payment terms, default discount, custom transaction numbers, and the progress invoicing switch.

An invoice posts to Accounts Receivable and income on the invoice date; a sales receipt posts income and the deposit account at the point of sale.

Customer payments not yet taken to the bank sit in Undeposited Funds until a Bank Deposit is recorded for the bundled amount.

Estimate statuses are Pending, Accepted, Closed, and Expired; converting an estimate to an invoice copies selected lines and links both documents.

Progress invoicing must be enabled in Account and Settings > Sales before the Create invoice action appears on an estimate.

A credit memo reduces Accounts Receivable; apply it to an open invoice, or pair it with a refund receipt when cash goes back to the customer.

Inventory items require a sales price, purchase price, and opening quantity with an as-of date; service and non-inventory items do not track quantity.

The A/R Aging Summary groups unpaid invoice balances into Current, 1-30, 31-60, 61-90, and 91+ day buckets by default, adjustable in customization.

Sales tax can run as Automated Sales Tax with a tax agency payee, or as manually configured rates and agencies.

Discounts can be entered per line or at the subtotal level, as either a percentage or a fixed amount.

A bill posts to Accounts Payable and stays open until a bill payment is recorded; an expense or check posts immediately to the chosen account.

Pay Bills creates one payment for multiple selected bills, crediting Accounts Payable and debiting the paying bank or credit card account.

A vendor credit lowers the balance owed to that supplier and can be applied against an open bill or refunded.

For 1099 reporting, turn on Track payments for 1099 in Expenses settings, flag the vendor, and assign a 1099 box category to the accounts paid.

Purchase orders are non-posting commitments; they affect no financial statement until copied to a bill.

Marking a bill or expense line as billable lets it be added to a customer invoice, where a markup percentage can be applied to the cost.

The vendor balance shown in the vendor list equals open bills minus open vendor credits, matching the A/P Aging Summary total.

Recurring transaction templates live under Settings > Recurring transactions and can be scheduled, unscheduled, or reminder-based.

Expense categories map each purchase to a chart-of-accounts account; the account type determines where it lands on the Profit and Loss.

Downloaded bank transactions stay in the For Review tab until each is Added as a new entry, Matched to an existing entry, or Excluded.

Matching links a bank feed item to a QuickBooks entry already recorded, preventing duplicate income or expense.

Bank rules can set payee, category, and location automatically for transactions matching description and amount conditions.

Reconciliation requires the statement ending date and ending balance; the calculated difference must be zero before the reconciliation can be finished.

Transfers move money between two balance-sheet accounts and must not be entered as income or expense, which would double-count the movement.

Excluded transactions remain visible in the bank feed but are never posted to the chart of accounts, so they never appear on reports.

Opening balances entered for accounts, customers, or vendors post to the Opening Balance Equity system account.

Payments held in Undeposited Funds are cleared by recording a Bank Deposit for the exact amount of the included payments.

A journal entry is needed when a bank transaction must hit more than one account or offset a non-bank account; total debits must equal total credits.

The Accounting method setting in report customization switches standard reports between Accrual and Cash basis.

Cash basis reports include only transactions with recorded payments; accrual reports also include open invoices and open bills.

Customize > Rows/Columns controls columns, comparison periods, percent-of-column displays, and total rows.

The Trial Balance must show equal total debits and credits; a nonzero difference signals an unbalanced journal entry or data problem.

A/R Aging and A/P Aging summarize open customer and vendor balances by days past due.

Memorized reports retain their filters and date settings and can be scheduled to email on a recurring basis.

The Journal report lists every transaction with its debits and credits by account, useful for tracing a specific entry.

Management reports bundle Company Overview, Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet, and Statement of Cash Flows for owners or lenders.

Any report can be exported to Excel or PDF and emailed directly from the report view.