Recall that when you create a new company file using Express Start, you were asked to enter the industry type and company type. When you create a company file using Advanced Setup, you were also asked the same plus many more additional questions about the way you do your business, from what & how you sell to what & how you bill.
Either way, there are some accounts that are created automatically by the system:
• Retained Earnings – Equity
• Capital Stock – Equity
• Opening balance Equity – Equity
• Shareholder Distribution – Equity
• Payroll Liabilities – Other Current Liability
• Payroll Expenses – Expense
The specific accounts that are created automatically is also varies depending on what company type (Sole Proprietorship, Partnership, Corporation, Non Profit, Charity, or Other/None) you choose. For example, if you choose Sole Proprietorship, QuickBooks will create Owners Draw and Owners Equity. If you choose Corporation, there will Capital Stock, Shareholder Distributions, Owners Draw & Dividends Paid. If you choose Partnership, there will be Partner 1 Draws, Partner 2 Draws, Partner 1 Equity, and Partner 2 Equity.
QuickBooks provides utilities to verify and rebuild your data file in case you find something is wrong or there is error messages. These two utilities are available in Main Menu > File > Utilities, then select Verify or Rebuild.
Verifying Data Utility
Verifying data means checking damages in your data file – transactions, lists, and reports. If there are damages, the utility summarizes them in a log file called QBWIN.LOG. You should run the Verify Data Utility in a single user mode only, if you find the following conditions:
• Error messages appear while working on your company file.
• Your Balance Sheet does not show all accounts.
• Your Trial balance is not in balance.
• Discrepancies on reports, lists, transactions, payments.
• Reports show negative amounts instead of positive.
When you finish the verify data utility, you will see one of three messages:
1. QuickBooks detected no problems with your data.
This is the result you are looking for which means your data file is healthy.
After discussing P&L Standard and Balance Sheet Standard in the previous two series, the Statement of Cash Flows will be anlyzed in this 3rd and last series of Generating Standard Financial Reports.
As the name implies, the Statement of Cash Flows refers to your cash position in a given period of time, excluding non-cash transactions such as depreciations, exchange of assets, and other non-cash transactions. This includes any changes in non-cash transactions in the Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss reports.
Essentially, the Statement of Cash flow details how much cash is flowing in and out of your business. Let’s take a look at the sample below:
Read more: Generating Standard Financial Reports III – Statement of Cash Flows
Each time you create transactions, for example when creating invoices, sales receipts, estimates, credit memos, statements, or purchase orders, you can either email the documents as PDF attachment while opening the form or you can email them in batches.
Before you can email forms, make sure:
• Your email software applications is defaulted correctly in Edit > Preferences > Send Forms > My Preferences:
In the first series, we discussed how you can generate Profit & Loss Standard report in QuickBooks. Here, you are going to learn how you can generate the second Standard Financial Reports, Balance Sheet.
Similar to generating Profit & Loss, there are two ways to do generate Balance Sheet:
• From the Report Centre, by clicking Reports > Report Centre or selecting Report Centre icon, selecting Balance Sheet (shown below using List view instead of Grid view):
Read more: Generating Standard Financial Reports II – Balance Sheet