Tips for tracking details in QuickBooks

As part of the Simplified Accounting and Bookkeeping series, I present an ancient handout from my days of teaching QuickBooks courses.

QuickBooks is capable of tracking an enormous level of detail and then generating reports from it. This does make the program extremely flexible, offering several different options for each type of detail. No one way is the “right” way in any given situation. Examine your options, looking for the level of detail that makes sense for your business.

Tactics for Tracking Details in QuickBooks

Tactic	Situation	Examples
Classes	a subset of both income and expenses	locations, fund, department, business segment, employee, partners, product lines
Items	products and services	specific items and services
Jobs	multiple jobs for customers	customer locations
Expense tracking	expenses incurred for a specific customer	filing fees, special orders
Built-in fields	special customer and vendor info, already set up	email address, payment terms, sales tax status, sales rep, “ship to” addresses, tax ID numbers, account numbers, credit limits
Custom fields	special customer, item, employee and vendor info, not previously covered	item color, pager numbers, employee certifications, birthdays, program participation
Customer/Vendor types	grouping customers or vendors	residential vs. commercial, remodeling vs. new work, subcontractors vs. materials suppliers vs. overhead vendors
Subaccounts	grouping of accounts with subtotals	insurance, utilities, supplies, taxes
Subitems	grouping of items with subtotals	related items, product lines
Item Group	fast entry of a set of items	items frequently entered together, sets sold together and separately
Payroll Items	workers compensation classifications	carpentry, roofing, driving, etc.
Memo	consistent coding of detail it doesn’t make sense to track other ways, or when you’ve used up other ways	repair bills by piece of equipment, RMA numbers on bill payments
Name coding	distinguishing similar names, usually with a prefix or suffix	customer who is also a vendor, similar account names, internal designations

Say it out loud with me, track only the level of detail that makes sense for your business.

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Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.