When you hover the cursor on the company Snapshots icon bar, you notice “See how business is doing” which means to see a snapshot of how your business is doing. You can also open Company Snapshots from Main Menu > Company > Company Snapshot:
QuickBooks reminds you of many tasks you need to perform in the program. This Reminders preferences in Edit > Preferences > Reminders has both My Preferences and Company tabs:
• My Preferences tab gives you an option to open the reminder window when you open your company file. Skipping this option makes the reminder useless.
• Company Preferences provides many options of the reminder list you want to appear in the Reminder window, such as, Cheques to Print, Bills to Pay, To Do Notes, etc. You can then select whether you like individual reminder to Show Summary, Show List, or Don’t Remind Me at all.
As you customize your forms, whether in Basic Customization or Additional Customization, you can see the changes right away in the Preview pane. As changes happen, some of text, fields, or picture, may overlap in the layout. To adjust the position of your changes, QuickBooks has a tool called Layout Designer. To access Layout Designer, click Layout Designer bar in the Basic Customization or Additional Customization dialog box.
Use your pointer and click any text, field, column table, or images, a surrounding frame will appear. You can then resize, move, or remove this frame.
Green areas.
If you plan to use window envelopes to mail your invoice, this green areas are where your company name (sender) and your customer (addressee) are located. If you use regular envelope, uncheck the “Show envelope window” box to remove it.
Properties.
This option has three tabs: Text, Border, and Background. Text tab allows you to modify horizontal and vertical justification, and alter text font and colour.
Border tab gives flexibility in customizing border position, pattern, corner, thickness, and colour.
Use Background tab to fill form background with a choice of your colour.
Add.
Move your pointer to an unused location in your form and press Add button to add Text Box, Data Field, or Image.
Copy, Remove, and Copy Format.
Select any object and then press Copy, Remove, and Copy Format to copy, remove, or copy its format.
Margins.
Use Margin button to change margin measurements.
Grid.
Use this to open Grid and Snap Setting dialog box to remove the dotted line grid, turn off the Snap to Grid option, and change spacing between the grid lines.
Undo/Redo.
Very useful feature to undo/redo your work.
You can also Centre object horizontally, Zoom in and out, and make object width, height, and size the same using toolbar at the top of the page.
Once you are done using Layout Designer, click OK to bring you back to Additional Customization dialog box. Click OK again to save your template. The next time you bring up your form (invoice), the new template will appear in the Template drop-down menu.
QuickBooks Lists organize a wide variety of information in Main Menu > Lists:
• Chart of Accounts
• Item List – products and services you provide
• Fixed Asset Item List
• Billing Rate Level List
• Sales Tax Code List
• Payroll Item List
• Currency List
• Customer & Vendor Profile List
• Templates
• Memorized Transaction List
• Add/Edit Multiple List Entries
If you need to make more major changes to your transaction forms, click Additional Customization from Basic Customization dialog box discussed in Forms Basic Customization.
There are five tabs on the left pane and Preview pane on the right pane. Each tab relates to a different area of the form, invoice in this example.
Header.
This tab, as shown above, includes all fields that appear above the table/line items are. Some of the fields are turn on by default, such as, Default Title, Invoice Number, Invoice To, Terms, etc. as check marked above. You can always uncheck them if you don’t want to appear in the form.
If you have custom fields, you will also be able to turn on and off their respective boxes.
Columns.
This tab refers to the column fields in the table/line items area of the form, like Item, Description, Quantity, Rate, Amount, Tax Code, etc.
You can specify whether they should appear on the screen or when printed, the order of the columns by entering Order boxes with numbers (starting with number 1), and alter the Title. Zero (0) in the Order boxes means they are not included in the form.
Prog Columns.
This tab refers to the fields use if you are using progress billings. Options for Estimate and Sales Order columns are available to appear on screen, when printer, order of the columns, and title modification.
Footer.
This tab refers to fields that appear in the footer area of the form, i.e. under the table/line item area, like Message, Subtotal, Total, Balance Due, etc. Similar to other tabs, you can select what to appear on screen, when printed, and title modification.
Print.
This tab has two option:
1. Use Invoice printer setting from Printer Setup, and
2. Use specified printer setting below for this Invoice.
QuickBooks automatically select the first option. If you have a unique form, you can use the second option to print it.
If you have any questions, click “When should I check Screen or Print” link or Help button to open Have a Question window.