quickbooks pro

Im trying to get quickbooks set up for my striping company.If any of you use it and are somewhat familiar with it,could you help me out with a few things.

ask away, i know some of it

I have used Quickbooks Pro for a while and I like it but it would be nice if someone could come up with a list of items etc that are more suitable for our type of business There are probably lots of folks here who use it for proposals etc. I have never been able to get the layout of the proposal or the invoice to show only the dollar amount that the proposal/ invoice is for. I do not need to show an itemized breakdown for the job to the customer but I do like it for my records. I have been looking at a program called quoteworks. It intergrates with I would prefer to stick with just one program (Quickbooks) but it just doesn't give me the flexability that I want. Anyone agree or have any suggestions?

When I started using Quickbooks Pro my wife was going to keep the books. I sent her to large nationwide computer learning center and she took two full days of coarses on how to use the program. Classes were hands on. Everyone in the class had a computer. Instructors computer was projected onto a big screen. I paid $200 each day she attended and it was the worse money I spent. She came out frazled. Information overload. She was taught things that werent' necessarilly pertinent to my business. Well, she never did my books. I met with my accountant one time. She set up all of my items and categories and gave me instruction on the program for about an hour. That was the best money I spent. I learned more in that hour than my wife did in the two days. The accountant showed me the things that were important to me. She got me going on using the program right away without all of the extra stuff. Quickbooks is a pretty powerful program that does a lot. You don't need to know everything right away. I suggest going to the person who is going to do your taxes. Hopefully they are Quickbooks certified and familiar with the program. I think that most small business accountants are. Let them teach you what is important. Later on when you become familiar with the program you can go in and experiment with it and do the extra things. The cost isn't going to be as high as you think and I believe it was so worth it. Another important thing is getting the program set up right before you do anything. I know that there is a question session before you start, but you really need to answer those questions carefully. Let the accountant do it for you. After all they are the one's you're going to take your disk to at the end of the year for taxes. Good luck.

Blacktop is right. Pay an accountant to set up up for you. It will make everything much easier later on. It's important to have everything right from the begining. Real hard to change things later. It doesn't take long and doesn't cost much to have an accountant set it up. Topcoat - you are right about the proposal thing. I use QuickBooks invoice form for my calculations and then plug the numbers into a Word document that I have setup. That's what the customer gets. Then when the job is done, I have an invoice to send him already set up.

Just curious. Do you guys not give your prospective customers itemized bids? Any reasons why? I usually do , unless it's a "minimum" job. In this case I just do a line item "minimum charge". I've found that a lot of times, itemization gives them a choice as to where to invest their money rather than saying "we can't afford to do this now."