5 Ways to Expand Your Use of QuickBooks Online

You may have felt a little overwhelmed when you first started using QuickBooks Online. You needed to learn how the navigation system worked, identify the right forms for each task and review the site’s settings to ensure the software met your specific needs.

But have you continued to explore all that QuickBooks Online can do for you? Intuit continues to add features and update the user interface, and there may be more ways to save time and improve productivity. Here are five places to start.

1. Review Your Settings

Now is a good time to revisit QuickBooks Online’s Settings if you haven’t done so in the last several months. Click the gear icon in the upper right and select Account and settings under Your Company. Scroll down to explore the following sections:

Sales. Sales form content is especially important because it lets you modify fields in your sales forms, such as invoices. Also, check Products and services to make sure you’ve turned on everything you need, and Reminders to set up automated invoice reminders.

Expenses. Look at the Bills and Expenses section to customize your payables:

Advanced. This section of your Settings is critical. You should have covered the content here thoroughly when you first started using QuickBooks Online, but give it another careful review.

2. Attach Documentation to Your Transactions

It’s unlikely you’ll be audited by the IRS, but if you are, you’ll need thorough, tangible proof of your income and expenses. QuickBooks Online provides a way to keep this information handy by allowing you to attach files to transactions such as bills and expenses.

Scroll down to the bottom of any page that supports this tool and click Add attachment. Your PC file directory will open. Browse to the file you want to attach and double-click it. To see a list of all your attachments, click the gear icon and then click Lists | All Lists | Attachments.

Remember that if you use the QuickBooks Online mobile app, you can snap photos of receipts and have them stored in the app.

3. Use Split View

If you want to have two QuickBooks Online pages open at the same time, right-click on a navigation link, such as the Home button in the toolbar, and select Open link in new tab. This opens a new tab displaying QuickBooks Online. There’s a new option here. You can click Open link in split view. This divides your screen into two vertical panes. You can work in either pane. To close one view and return to a single page, look for the X in the lower-right corner.

4. Increase Efficiency with Links

Depending on the type of transaction you’ve created, you can find additional options for managing it in a link at the bottom of the screen. In invoices, it’s called More actions. As you can see in the image below, there are several related actions you can take here, including Receive payment and Send reminder:

Bills have a More link that lets you, for example, copy the bill to a Vendor Credit form or view its Audit history. You can do these things elsewhere on the site, but QuickBooks Online often offers multiple ways to access the same screens.

5. Save Time with Keyboard Shortcuts

You can save time by learning just a few keyboard shortcuts. Try starting with the actions you perform regularly.

For example, Ctrl+Alt+I opens a blank invoice form, and Ctrl+Alt+x displays the Expenses & Pay Bills overview. Ctrl+Alt+? opens a comprehensive list of keyboard shortcuts. You can also view your Company ID here.

It’s important that you’re fully leveraging the tools you need to help your small business grow. Contact the office if you have questions or need guidance with QuickBooks Online.

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