Posts Tagged ‘Customization’

Customizing the Icon Bar in QuickBooks to Work for You

Do you use the icon bar at the top of your QuickBooks screen?  Do the icons represent the tasks you perform most often in QuickBooks?  If you’re using the default icons, the answer is probably no.

I recently began changing the icons to my most frequently used functions.  It makes a big difference in efficiency when the shortcuts are just a click away rather than three or four clicks away navigating the menus.

Before

Let’s do a quick analysis of a few icons on the icon bar above (in my case, it was the default, though yours may be different).  Let’s say that I don’t use memorized transactions (MemTx) so that icon does me no good.  The register icon (Reg) is a little inconvenient because after I click it a box appears asking me to select which account I want to use the register for.  I don’t really have any use for the add services or payroll buttons (and if you’re worried that you won’t find those options after removing them, don’t worry – you can find them all in the menus).

Take a look at your icon bar.  If you see icons that you have never used or will rarely use, it’s time to give it an extreme makeover.

After

Now here is an icon bar that I can really use!  Let’s say that my business has two cash accounts that are used frequently, so I put two icons on the icon bar that link directly to the register for each cash account.  As an accountant, I look at balance sheets and profit & loss statements daily, so I have those icons there, as well as the general journal to make adjustments.  I think having a backup icon is good just as a reminder because most people don’t backup their QuickBooks files enough. There are a lot of different ways to customize the icon bar:
  1. Right click anywhere on the icon bar and then click on “customize icon bar.”
  2. In the view menu you’ll also see “customize icon bar.”
  3. Make a window appear that you want to have on the icon bar, then go to the view menu and click on “add [window] to icon bar.”
In the “customize icon bar” screen, you can change the icon’s picture to whatever you like.  There’s even a funny picture of a pig (see below) among the icons that I’m trying to figure out a use for … maybe transfers to a savings account?

Do you have any ideas for using the icon bar?  Please leave a comment below.

Five QuickBooks Preferences That Could Make Your Life Easier

With one click of a mouse button, I’ve been able to help some clients be more efficient in their use of QuickBooks.  It’s worth taking the time to look through the preferences in QuickBooks and adjust them to your liking.  Below are my top five QuickBooks preferences that you should know about! QuickBooks Preferences
  1. Turn off pop-up messages for products and services (under General – My Preferences) – This is new in QuickBooks 2010 R5.  If you’re new to QuickBooks and want to know about other products and services you can use with it, you can leave this on.  If you’re like me and you know all about the other services QuickBooks offers, check the box to avoid the pop-up windows.
  2. Automatically recall information (under General – My Preferences) – This can be a big time saver for the information you enter regularly to one vendor for the same purpose like utilities.  Type in “power company” and the account Utilities:Electricity comes up automatically.  Be careful, though!  If you enter bills or write checks to the same vendor for different types of expenses and you’re not paying attention when you enter them in, you could have many misclassified expenses.
  3. Default date to use for new transactions (under General – My Preferences) – If you’re using QuickBooks in real-time, especially if you’re writing checks from QuickBooks, use today’s date as the default.  If you’re entering many transactions after-the-fact, the last entered date as default is generally better.
  4. Date warnings (under Accounting – Company Preferences) – So, is anybody besides me having trouble writing the year 2010 since we started the new year?  Check this box, and QuickBooks will warn you that the transaction you just entered is more than X days in the past.  QuickBooks will save you from writing a check dated 1/14/2009 when it should be 1/14/2010.  However, if you’re entering several old transactions, such as doing a year’s worth of bookkeeping, you definitely want this turned off.
  5. Desktop (under Desktop View – My Preferences) – Sometimes, when I open QuickBooks files from clients, dozens of windows open up automatically.  This happens because you either have the “save when closing company” preference selected, and all of the reports and input windows you had open the last time you used QuickBooks open up again, or you’re using the “save current desktop” preference, and the same windows open up every time from the last time you selected this preference.  If you select the “don’t save the desktop” feature, QuickBooks will open faster because it won’t generate any reports or windows when it starts up.  (note to accountants – if you get a QuickBooks file with lots of windows open, go to Window on the top menu, and then click on Close All…yeah, I spent a couple of years clicking on dozens of X’s before I figured out that one)