QuickBooks 2017 For Dummies. Nelson Stephen L.

QuickBooks® 2017 For Dummies®

      QuickBooks® 2017 For Dummies®

      Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

      Copyright © 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

      Published simultaneously in Canada

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      Library of Congress Control Number: 2016952683

      ISBN: 978-1-119-28146-7 (pbk); 978-1-119-28147-4 (ebk); 978-1-119-28148-1 (ebk)

      Introduction

      Running or working in a small business is one of the coolest things a person can do. Really. I mean it. Sure, sometimes the environment is dangerous – kind of like the Old West – but it’s an environment in which you have the opportunity to make tons of money. And it’s also an environment in which you can build a company or a job that perfectly fits you.

      By comparison, many brothers and sisters working in big-company corporate America are furiously trying to fit their round pegs into painfully square holes. Yuck.

      You’re wondering, of course, what any of this has to do with this book or with QuickBooks. Quite a lot, actually. The whole purpose of this book is to make it easier for you to run or work in a small business by using QuickBooks.

      About This Book

      As you start your reading, though, I want to tell you a couple of things about this book.

      First off, know that I fiddled a bit with the Windows and QuickBooks display settings. For example, I noodled around with the font settings and some of the colors. The benefit is that the pictures of the QuickBooks windows and dialog boxes in this book are easier to read. And that’s good. But the cost of all of this is that my pictures look a little bit different from what you see on your screen. And that’s not good. In the end, however, what the publisher found is that people are happier with increased readability.

      Next point: To make the best use of your time and energy, you should know about the conventions that I use in this book, which are as follows:

      ❯❯ When I want you to type something, such as With a stupid grin, Martin watched the tall blonde strut into the bar and order grappa, it’s in bold type. When I want you to type something that’s short and uncomplicated, such as Jennifer, it still appears in boldface type.

      ❯❯ Except for passwords, you don’t have to worry about the case of the letters you type in QuickBooks. If I tell you to type Jennifer, you can type JENNIFER or follow poet e. e. cummings’s lead and type jennifer.

      ❯❯ Whenever I tell you to choose a command from a menu, I say something like “Choose Lists ⇒ Items,” which simply means to first choose the Lists menu and then choose Items. The ⇒ separates one part of the command from the next part.

      ❯❯ You can choose menus, commands, and dialog box elements with the mouse. Just click the thing you want.

      ❯❯ When I provide step-by-step descriptions of tasks, something I do regularly within the pages of this tome, I describe the tasks by using bold text and then, below the boldfacing, give a more detailed explanation. You can skip the text that accompanies the step-by-step boldface directions if you already understand the process.

      Foolish Assumptions

      I make three assumptions about you:

      ❯❯ You have a PC running Microsoft Windows. (I took pictures of the QuickBooks windows and dialog boxes while using Windows 10, in case you’re interested.)

      ❯❯ You know a little bit about how to work with your computer.

      ❯❯ You have or will buy a copy of QuickBooks for each computer on which you want to run the program.

      

This book works for QuickBooks 2017 (and with the equivalent version of QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions, which is named Enterprise Solutions 17), although in a pinch, you can probably use it for QuickBooks 2016 or 2018 too. (I have to say, however, that if you have QuickBooks 2016, you may want to return this book and trade it in for QuickBooks 2016 For Dummies by yours truly. Furthermore, even though I’m no fortune-teller, I’m willing to predict that you’ll be able to buy a QuickBooks 2018 For Dummies book when QuickBooks 2018 comes out.)

      Icons Used in This Book

      

The Tip icon marks tips (duh!) and shortcuts that you can use to make QuickBooks easier.

      

Remember icons mark the information that’s especially important to know. To siphon off the most important information in each chapter, just skim these icons.

      

The Technical Stuff icon marks information of a highly technical nature that you can normally skip.