Posted by Corbay on January 07, 2003 at 10:40:26:
Our accountant is a big believer in Quickbooks. Since we have started using it we have cut our book keeping by 75%. He set us up on it and trained us in. I would say if your accountant doesn’t understand it you need a new one.
Best of luck
Using classes in Quickbooks - Posted by Marta Brown
Posted by Marta Brown on January 07, 2003 at 10:23:31:
My current bookkeeper doesn’t understand using classes to categorize expenses in Quickkbooks. My mentors tell me that I should use them to best organize and manage expenses. Are there courses available to help me? A new bookkeeper is probably a good idea too. Thanks in advance for your advice.
Re: Using classes in Quickbooks - Posted by Frank Chin
Posted by Frank Chin on January 07, 2003 at 18:22:19:
Hi Marta:
John Hyre wrote “The Real Estate Investor’s KISS Guide to Bookkeeping” available on this site.
Its an excellent book for investors who are non-accountants, and introduce them to the concepts of bookkeeping using Quickbooks.
Additional information on Quickbbook seminars and CD’s are available on the Quickbooks WEBsite:
and click on the training tab.
If you already have Quickbooks, but the “class” feature is not turned on or used, then:
1- On the top menu click “Edit”
2- then click “Preferences”
3- then click “Company preferences” tab
4- then click on the “use class tracking” box.(if not checked off)
After you do this, go to the top menu:
1- click on “Lists”
2- click on “class list”
Right click with the right Mouse button in the class list screen, and select “New” in the drop box. Then start creating a list of your properties.
After you turn on the “class” feature, every input screen will have a column to select an item from your “class list”
After you create the “class list”, all your bookkeeper has to do is select an item from the list each time an entry is made.
To ease him/her into it, have the person writng checks write a code (class) for each property on the check register if you’re doing checks manually. My wife had me write the property code in our checkbook register. This should be an easy concept to understand.
Then tell this person you want the same code for the class.
So my check register looks like this:
Pay HSBC Bank for “(FL) Monthly mortgage”
Pay Chase Bank for “(EM) Monthly mortgage” etc.
Pay Con Edison for “(Bay) Electric Bill”
The corresponding class in Quickbooks is you guessed it, FL, EM, Bay. So the HSBC mortgage check will be assigned a class “FL”, and the Chase check “EM” etc.
To make things even simpler, I used memorized transactions for the check payments, so the “memorized transaction list” will have entries:
Pay Flushing Mortgage
Pay East Meadow Mortgae etc
etc.
With this, all you do is click on the memorized transaction, and the Payee, amount, comments, class is already there. All you do is click and post the transaction, and print th check if Quickbooks is programmed to do it.
I use the concept of class heirachy discussed in John’s book. Mortgage expenses fall under a class group called Rental properties. While John calls the group “Rental Property”, I give it a one letter designation “R”. In the class heirachy list, it looks like:
R (class group for rental)
… EM
… FL
O (class group for owner)
The advantage of this is when the class list comes up, in the narrow column of the entry screen, you’ll see R:FL, which is a lot easier to read.
Hope this helps.
Frank Chin
Re: Using classes in Quickbooks - Posted by Eddy (CT)
Posted by Eddy (CT) on January 07, 2003 at 12:56:33:
Marta Brown,
For what its worth; I keep my business accounting on Quicken Deluxe 98 by “category” not “classes” (the other option). I send a backup floppy to my accountant, as needed. He has no trouble converting this floppy to Quickbooks.
Re: Using classes in Quickbooks - Posted by Anne_ND
Posted by Anne_ND on January 07, 2003 at 10:57:30:
Hi Marta,
John Hyre’s new course can help you with this.
Available here.
take care,
Anne