Between questions about how to do something in QuickBooks and how to handle something in accounting, you might need help occasionally. Happily, the QuickBooks Help system can actually help. When you open QuickBooks Help, it automatically shows links to topics relevant to what you’re doing in the program. For example, if the Create Invoices window is open, QuickBooks Help tells you how to fill out or edit invoices, record payments toward invoices, customize your invoice form, and so on. You’ll find topics with background info, troubleshooting tips, and even advice on why you should or shouldn’t perform certain steps.
Another option is the Intuit Community. As its name suggests, this help comes from fellow QuickBooks wranglers. They use the program every day just like you and can help uncover solutions, not to mention lots of helpful tricks and tips. If you don’t see a question and answer similar to the question you have, you can post your question. And if you’re a QuickBooks veteran, you can answer someone else’s plea for help.
In this appendix, you’ll learn your way around QuickBooks Help. And, in case you want more help than you find there, you’ll also learn about other resources that might do the trick.
Wherever you are in the program, you can get help by pressing F1 or choosing Help→QuickBooks Help. The “Have a Question?” window opens and displays a list of how-to and troubleshooting topics related to the feature you’re using, as shown in Figure B-1. (If the “Have a Question?” window is already open, the topics don’t change as you click menu entries, display windows, and open dialog boxes.) When you click a topic link in the “Have a Question?” window, it displays that help topic (Figure B-2).
Figure B-1. No matter how many words you type in the text box at the top of this window, QuickBooks Help lists a handful of topics that relate to them. If none of the results sound promising, click Show More Results to view additional topics. You can minimize and maximize the QuickBooks Help window, drag it outside the QuickBooks main window, and resize it.
The other way to find a help topic is to type search terms into the text box at the top of the “Have a Question?” window, and then press Enter or click the Search button (it has a magnifying glass on it), as shown in Figure B-1. The “Answers in Help” section lists QuickBooks help articles. The “Answers from Community” section is described on Accessing the Community Within QuickBooks.
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If you use either icon bar, you can look for answers using the Search box, which is at the top of the left icon bar and at the right end of the top icon bar. (If you use the top icon bar and don’t see the Search box, choose Edit→Preferences→Search and, on the My Preferences tab, turn on the “Show Search field in the Icon Bar” checkbox.) To search for help, type keywords or a question in the Search box, choose Help in the box’s drop-down menu that appears, and then press Enter or click the Search button, which looks like a magnifying glass.
Figure B-2. When you click a topic in the “Have a Question?” window, it displays a Help article like the one shown here, with information, instructions, and additional links to related topics. If you click several links, you may quickly find yourself several topics from where you started. To navigate back to previous topics, click the left arrow (Back) at the top of the window.
Intuit Community is the name of Intuit’s QuickBooks community message boards. The system is simple to use: You ask a question, and the program checks whether it’s already been answered by someone else who uses QuickBooks. (You can’t control the answers that Intuit Community displays. You’ll see different responses depending on how you phrase your question, so go ahead and try different wordings.) If none of the answers it finds are what you want, you can pose your question to the community. By the same token, you can post your solutions to questions that others have asked.
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If you want to scan existing questions and answers, see the Tip on Tip to learn how to review the Intuit Community message boards without QuickBooks’ help.
You can browse questions and answers in the community to your heart’s content, but you need an Intuit User ID to submit your own questions or post answers. The first time you submit a post, Intuit Community asks you to sign in. If you didn’t set up an Intuit account when you installed QuickBooks, you can do that now.
Here’s how to use Intuit Community from within QuickBooks:
Choose Help→QuickBooks Help or press F1.
The “Have a Question?” window opens and displays a list of topics related to the feature you’re using.
If the feature you’re using is what you need help with, in the “Have a Question?” window, look for results in the “Answers from Community” section. If you have a question about something else, type keywords in the Search field, and then click the search icon (it looks like a magnifying glass).
The “Have a Question?” window displays links to answers from QuickBooks Help and the Intuit Community. When you point your cursor at some blue result text, the cursor changes to a pointing finger to indicate that the text is a link (the fact that the text is blue is another clue). To see additional answers, click “Show more answers” in the middle of the window or “Show more community answers” at the bottom.
If you see a question in the “Answers from Community” section that sounds like yours, click it.
QuickBooks opens a browser window behind the “Have a Question? window. To get a clear view of the browser window (shown in Figure B-3), minimize the “Have a Question?” window.
If you find your answer, click the X at the browser window’s top right to close it and skip the remaining steps.
If this answer isn’t what you’re looking for, click links in the Similar Questions section at the bottom of the browser window.
The browser window displays that question and all its answers. Alternatively, you can type search terms in the Search box at the top of the browser window; enter a detailed question or description of your problem, and then press Enter or click the magnifying glass icon to the box’s right. After you do that, the window lists results that match what you typed.
Figure B-3. If the first question you review isn’t what you’re looking for, you can review other similar questions by clicking links in the Similar Questions section (not visible here—you might have to scroll down the browser window to see it). And if none of the questions you see does the trick, type your question in the “Have a new question?” box shown here.
To ask a question of your own, type it in the “Have a new question?” box on the window’s right, and then click Ask.
Based on the words you used in your question, the window lists results that might answer your question. Click a blue question link to view the question and its answer.
If none of the results is what you want, scroll to the bottom of the window and click the “Submit your question” link.
If you aren’t signed into your Intuit account, the “Sign in or create an account” box appears. Click the “Sign in” button. On the “Sign in” page, fill in the Intuit user ID and password, and then click the Sign In button.
On the screen that appears, in the “Your question” box, type a brief but meaningful title for your question to help people find it. Click the “Select your product” down arrow and choose the product your question applies to. In the “Select a topic” drop-down list, choose a topic category. In the “Add more details” box, provide a clear and complete question or description of your issue so you’re likely to get a relevant answer. You can even attach an image file to your post by clicking the Attach button at the bottom of the page. When everything looks good, click Submit.
After that, you simply wait for someone to answer your question. But you don’t have to constantly check the Intuit Community site to see if someone responds; when you’re logged into your Intuit account, you can set things up so that you get emails when someone answers your Intuit Community questions. To do so, at the top right of the Intuit Community web page, click the icon that looks like a silhouette (or your photo, if you attached one to your account) and choose Notification Settings. On the screen that appears, make sure the “someone replies to a post you’re following” checkbox is turned on.
When someone posts a response to your question, you’ll get a notification email. Click the link in the email to see the response on the Intuit Community site. If the person solved your problem, you can click the Yes button to the right of the “Was this answer helpful?” label.
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If you’d rather scan the QuickBooks community message boards in your browser, go to https://community.intuit.com/quickbooks, where you’ll see high-level topics like “Accounting, Banking & Taxes,” Inventory, Canada, and “Vendors & Paying Others.” Click one of the categories to see all the posts related to it. You can search existing questions and answers or post your own question using a process similar to the one described above.
Unsurprisingly, the first item on the Help menu is QuickBooks Help. However, items further down the menu may provide the assistance you want, depending on your level of experience and how you like to learn:
Learning Center Tutorials. Choose this option to open the QuickBooks Learning Center window and watch video tutorials about popular tasks. For example, in the window’s navigation bar, click the Tracking Money In icon to access tutorials for creating invoices, sales receipts, and payments. The tutorials are generally a few minutes long, so don’t expect in-depth training. An audio track explains what’s going on as you see the cursor move around the screen, buttons highlight, and windows or dialog boxes open and close.
Support. This option opens a browser window to the Intuit QuickBooks Support web page. Below the “How can we help?” heading, you can click a link to view popular support topics, read answers from the Intuit Community, or find a local QuickBooks expert to help you. Or you can type something in the “Type your question, or error code” box, and then press Enter or click the Search button. (For example, if you receive an error message, type in the error number to find out what it means and what you can do about it.) The page that appears displays articles from a variety of sources, including the program’s Troubleshooting and How To articles, the Intuit Community, YouTube, and so on. The box on Getting Answers from Intuit tells you more about QuickBooks Support options.
Find A Local QuickBooks Expert. If you’re tired of figuring things out on your own, you can find plenty of accountants and bookkeepers who are QuickBooks experts—and you’ll be glad you did. Clicking this option opens a web browser to the QuickBooks Find-a-ProAdvisor website so you can find someone in your area. (Alternatively, you can point your web browser to http://accountants.intuit.com/accounting/proadvisor.) ProAdvisors have passed Intuit’s certification exams to prove their QuickBooks expertise. Finding one of these folks is free, but a ProAdvisor’s services aren’t, so when you find ProAdvisors near you, ask about their fees before hiring them.
Send Feedback Online. This option won’t provide instant gratification for your QuickBooks problems, although telling Intuit what you think may make you feel better. You can use this option to send suggestions for improvements to QuickBooks or QuickBooks Help and report any bugs you find.
If you don’t find an answer to your questions in QuickBooks Help or the Intuit Community forums, you can use Google or another search engine to search online, or try an independent QuickBooks message board. QuickBooksUsers.com (http://forums.quickbooksusers.com) has forums for different editions of the program, including one each for QuickBooks overall, QuickBooks Pro, Premier Nonprofit, Premier Manufacturing and Wholesale, Enterprise, and QuickBooks for Mac. You can also find forums for the Australian, Canadian, and UK editions of the program. People post some gnarly problems on these message boards, but each question gets at least one reply. In some cases, you might receive several different solutions to the same problem.
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When you have a question or receive an error message in QuickBooks, typing the question, error message, or error number into a web search engine is a great way to find answers.
The QuickBooksUsers.com message boards are free. This site supports itself by selling data-recovery services and tech support. (Then again, a data-recovery service might be just what you need.) If you’re looking for an add-on program or having problems with one, check out the site’s QuickBooks 3rd Party Software Forum.
You might also consider joining a LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) group related to QuickBooks. These groups have thousands of members, any of whom may chime in to help resolve your burning QuickBooks issues. The Expert QuickBooks Help group is run by Laura Madeira, a consultant, trainer and author on all things QuickBooks. Ruth Perryman, president of The QB Specialists—an Intuit Solutions Provider—runs the QuickBooks Tips & Tricks group. Laura and Ruth are both Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors and members of Intuit’s Trainer/Writer Network.
Searching for QuickBooks training online yields more results than you could possibly want. You can narrow the list by including your city: “QuickBooks training Denver,” for example. If you prefer to study on the Web, search for “QuickBooks training web-based” or “QuickBooks training online.”
For example, you can take online courses by your humble author at www.lynda.com. Intuit’s Endorsed Training Partner, Real World Training (www.QuickBooksTraining.com), offers regularly scheduled instructor-led classes in many cities around the country (or in your office), training on CD, and on-demand online classes. And QBalance.com (www.qbalance.com) offers QuickBooks training for folks at any level of experience; you can get one-on-one training with a QuickBooks expert, classroom-based training, or training on a CD. Also, the Accounting and Business School of the Rockies offers QuickBooks training in the classroom as well as self-paced online training and live online training. To contact the school, visit www.absrschool.com or call 1-800-772-6885.