Set up QuickBooks Online using templates

When you are in the process of setting up QuickBooks Online you can save a lot of time by using the templates for importing information. Once you have input your charities details here are the three tasks you should do before you can get going with bookkeeping.

Firstly, you will need to set up your chart of accounts. You can use this template to import if you already have a chart of accounts you would like to use. If you are our client use this simplified income and expenditure template instead.

You will then need to set up your class and project lists if you want to track your grant under and overspends. We strongly recommend that you use this QBO feature. If set up and used correctly, it will help generate fund tracking reports showing how much you have received and spent on any particular grant. You can see an example of the class lists here.

The final step is to import all the supplier and customer/donor information. If you already have the data saved on your current software you can export it to a csv file and use QBO templates to import this information. It not you can manually input data in the template and then import. Either way, you will spend less time this way than manually entering data on QBO. Here is a template you can use to import the suppliers and customers lists.

That’s it! Now you are ready to go.

Start inputting your bills and invoices directly onto QBO if you are starting at the beginning of your financial year. If it’s part way through the year and you don’t want to be doing the data entry again QBO allows you to import your invoice and bills too! Here is a template that you can use to import all your sales invoices and purchase bills.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that you can import all bank transactions using a csv file which you can download from your bank. I don’t remember the last time I manually posted a supplier payment or customer receipt on QBO. Why not use this function to get rid of the mundane task of data entry? To be a step ahead, why not connect QBO to your bank to automate bank feeds coming in so you don’t even need to manually import transactions?!

We can help with the whole end to end process of setting up your charity on QBO so you have peace of mind that the information generated from QBO will be readily available and reliable. We also offer basic 2 hour QBO training.