Getting started

This article describes the Getting Started tab and lists the activities related to setting up. Go to the Summary page to get started with Accounting. Use the links to enter customer and vendor information, set up your chart of accounts, and connect your bank accounts.

When you sign up, you must enter some basic information about your company using the Quick Start Wizard. The business address you enter appears on the invoices, credit notes, quotes, and statements that you send to customers. You can update your business information as needed.

Get help

If you need help, click Help on the menu bar to view the help. Here you can find articles about everything from getting started to the day-to-day processing of your accounts. When you see the Help button on one of the application pages, click it for information about that page.

Enter your customer information

Create or import customers

If you regularly deal with the same customers, you can add them as contacts, or you can import them using comma separated values (CSV) files.

Enter money customers owe you

After you've set up your customers, you can record any outstanding transactions as opening balances. This ensures the reports you produce give you a true picture of your financial position.

Review the Accounts Receivable Aging report

After you've entered your opening balances, you can review the Accounts Receivable Aging report to see how much each customer owes you.

Enter your vendor information

Create or import vendors

If you regularly deal with the same vendors, you can add them as contacts or import them using comma separated values (CSV) files.

Enter money you owe vendors

After you've set up your vendors, you can record any outstanding transactions as opening balances. This ensures the reports you produce give you a true picture of your financial position.

Review the Accounts Payable Aging report

After you've entered your opening balances, you can review the Accounts Payable Aging report to see how much you owe each vendor.

Create and link your bank accounts

You can set up separate bank records for all of your bank accounts, including credit cards and loans, to manage your business cash flow.

After your bank records are set up, you can link to your online banking service using bank feeds. You can then save time by downloading transactions directly from your online bank account instead of manually entering them.

After you've set up your vendors, you can record any outstanding transactions as opening balances. This ensures the reports you produce give you a true picture of your financial position.

Check your chart of accounts

The chart of accounts is a list of all of the accounts used by your business. Use accounts to analyze your income, expenses, assets, liabilities and equity when running your management reports.

There is a default chart of accounts based on the type of business you selected when you created your account. You can edit or create new general ledger accounts based on your needs.

Enter opening account balances

Whether you're just starting your business or changing from another accounting system, you're likely to have opening balances. Use your old system to produce a final trial balance to use when entering opening balances. If your accountant previously processed your accounts for you, request a full trial balance.

Note:

You must enter your accounts start date before you can enter your opening balances. This is the day that you intend to start using Accounting. For example, if you stopped using your previous system on September 30, enter October 1 for that date.

Review the Trial Balance report

After you've entered all the values from your trial balance, review the Trial Balance report to verify that the values are correct. This report shows the balance for each of your general ledger accounts.

Other preferences and settings

You can further customize Accounting for your business using the following options.

Do you want to customize your invoice?

You can personalize the invoices and quotes that you send to customers by selecting from a variety of templates and adding logos. You can also enter any terms and conditions that you want to appear and enter your default invoice numbering and quote options.

Do you sell products, or services?

If you regularly sell the same products or services, create records to save time when entering invoices and credit notes.

Do you have departments, cost codes or projects?

Create analysis types to help you analyze your accounts in more detail.

Do you buy or sell in foreign currency?

If you deal with customers and vendors in other countries, enable foreign currency transactions to record invoices, credit notes, payments, and receipts in multiple currencies.

Do you work with colleagues?

If you have more than one person processing your accounts, you can invite multiple users to access your application. You can also assign different roles for your users, from read-only to full access.

Review default settings and preferences

To save time when creating records and processing transactions, you can enter default settings and preferences.