Questiva Consultants

How QuickBooks Online Step-by-Step Works: A Screen-by-Screen Guide

Questiva Consultants ·

The 2026 edition of QuickBooks Online Step-by-Step is a book you read in your browser, with the course built into it: the hands-on steps, the quizzes, the chapter exams and the grading of your QuickBooks work all happen on the page you are reading. This guide walks through every screen a new learner meets, in the order you meet them.

Two terms first. QuickBooks Online (QBO) is Intuit's accounting software; you will have it open in another browser tab while you read. The reader is our side: the book, the steps and your progress.

Teaching? The teacher section is near the end. Already in a class? Step 11 shows how to join it.

Step 1: Read the free chapter, no account needed

Chapter 4 is open to anyone. Open it here and you land on its first page. As a guest nothing is saved. The green bar at the top offers a free account that remembers your place, bookmarks and notes.

Look for the note at the top of a chapter before you start. A continuity chapter, like the one in the screenshot, has to be done in one sitting: Intuit's free Test Drive company (the practice QuickBooks company, with nothing to sign up for) resets when you close it, so closing it halfway means starting the chapter's QuickBooks work again.

Step 2: Create a free account

There is no password to invent. Enter your email, we send a six-digit code, and the account is made when you type it in. A free account saves your reading position and your practice work. Buying the book opens the rest of it; in a class, your school or teacher may already have bought it for you.

Step 3: Your dashboard

After you sign in you land on your dashboard. The top card is the shortcut back into the book: how far you are, and the next thing to do with a Continue button. Below it, each chapter has a card with four marks: Read, Quiz, QBO (your smart-graded QuickBooks work) and Exam. Each mark fills in as you finish that part.

Step 4: Find your way around the reader

Open the book and you get the reader.

  1. The chapter list. Every chapter and section with its page numbers. Click any section to jump there. A tick means you have finished that section.
  2. Hands-on steps. Every task in the book is a numbered step with a tick box. More on these in the next step.
  3. Search. Finds a word or phrase anywhere in the book.
  4. Text size. Makes the page bigger or smaller. The other buttons in that bar cover reading settings, dark mode, keyboard shortcuts and full screen.
  5. Modern and Classic. Modern is the interactive version you are reading now. Classic shows the pages as they look in the printed book.

At the bottom of the chapter list are two links you will use: Report an error on this page, and, if you are in a class, Ask your instructor about this page.

Step 5: Do the hands-on steps in QuickBooks

Read a step, do it in QuickBooks Online in your other tab (the next paragraph says which company to open), then tick the box. Ticked steps are crossed out so you can see where you stopped, and the book remembers your ticks between visits. If you did a whole section from memory, Mark section done ticks it in one go.

Which QuickBooks company you work in depends on the chapter. The Lite chapters (chapters 1 to 8 plus two bonus chapters) use Craig's Landscaping, the sample company in Intuit's free Test Drive: nothing to sign up for, and it resets when you close it. Standard adds the end-of-chapter DIY exercises and the later chapters, where you build Imagine Photography and YinYang Graphic Design in a QuickBooks Online account of your own. You don't have to buy that account: a teacher's Intuit Education invitation, a free Intuit Accountant Suite profile or a 30-day trial all work.

Step 6: Tell us when something doesn't match

Intuit changes QuickBooks Online often, so now and then a step will name a button that has moved. Every step has a small flag. Click it, say in a sentence what you saw, and add a screenshot if it helps. The author and our team see every report.

Step 7: Take the practice quiz

Most chapters end with a practice quiz on what you just did: multiple choice, a few short written answers and some fill-in-the-blanks. You can retake it as often as you like, and your best score is the one kept on record.

Step 8: Finish the chapter

The last page of every chapter is a checklist of what is left: the hands-on sections you have not ticked, the practice quiz, any smart-graded activities, and the chapter exam. The exam is a separate set of questions that scores itself when you submit. If you are in a class, your teacher decides when each exam opens.

Step 9: Get your QuickBooks work checked

Some chapters have smart-graded activities. When you finish the work in QuickBooks, export the report the activity asks for (QuickBooks saves it as an Excel file), then upload it here. Moments later you get a score and a list of every check: what matched, and what the grader could not find in your file.

The smart grader is not AI. It compares your file with the author's answer key using rules a person wrote, and a teacher can read and overrule any check. Lite includes the activities in Craig's Landscaping; Standard adds the ones in the companies you build, like the Imagine Photography activities in the chapter 5 figure above.

Step 10: See where you stand

The progress page shows your overall percentage, the page you're on and, for each chapter, whether you've done the reading, quiz and exam. Open it from Full progress on your dashboard or My Textbooks in the menu.

Step 11: In a class? Join it with your code

If your teacher uses the book, they will give you a classroom code (eight letters and numbers) or an invitation link. Choose Join a classroom in the menu and type the code. Your teacher then sees your progress, and the chapters, quizzes and exams follow their schedule.

For teachers: the whole class on one screen

Teachers get the Teacher Dashboard. It lists each student's reading, quiz, exam and smart grader scores, completion and last sign-in. Needs you collects written answers and uploads waiting for your review, and you can also view the class by chapter. You choose which chapters the class sees and whether scores go to students straight away or wait for you.

Open the teacher demo to click around a sample class with a few weeks of activity. Evaluation access for instructors is free.

Which plan do you need?

The book comes in two plans. Lite covers chapters 1 to 8 plus two bonus chapters, all done in the free Test Drive company, so you need no QuickBooks account at all. Standard covers chapters 1 to 16 and adds the chapters where you build your own companies: projects and job costing, inventory, year-end, payroll, the end-of-chapter DIY exercises, the case study and the capstone. Both come monthly or yearly, and the printed E-Learning Companion can be added to either. Prices are on the pricing page.

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