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Teacher guideCustomizing the course
Customizing the course

What Lite and Standard open for your students

The two plans split on whose QuickBooks company the work is in. Here is which chapters each one opens, what disappears with a locked chapter, and how to run a class where students hold different plans.

Kind
Overview
Reading time
4 minutes
Last updated
September 22, 2026

The two plans split on whose QuickBooks company the work is in. Lite is worked entirely in Craig's Landscaping, Intuit's free Test Drive sample company, so a Lite student needs no QuickBooks account at all. Standard adds chapter 9 and the book's second half, chapters 11 to 16, where job costing, inventory, year-end and payroll live and a student builds and keeps their own company file, so it is the only plan that needs a QuickBooks Online account. Never a paid one: a teacher's Intuit Education invite, a free Intuit Accountant Suite profile, or a 30-day trial all work.

Lite opens
chapters 1–8 and 10
Standard opens
chapters 1–16, plus the bonus chapter
Only Standard
chapters 9 and 11–16, the bonus chapter, and every Do It Yourself
QuickBooks account
Standard only, and never a paid licence

What a locked chapter actually takes with it

This is the part that surprises people. A chapter outside a student's plan does not arrive greyed out, and it is not just the reading that goes. Everything attached to that chapter goes with it, because all of it hangs off the chapter the student cannot open.

  • The chapter text itself.
  • Its practice quiz, so no self-check and no score in your gradebook for it.
  • Its chapter exam, which will not appear in their Chapter exams list.
  • Its smart-graded uploads, so nothing for you to review and nothing for them to earn points on.

Running a class where students hold different plans

A roster can hold both plans at once, and a seat you assign from your own pool gives a student the full book. The dashboard does not print a plan beside each student, so if you are unsure who has what, the practical check is the work itself: a student with no attempt at all on a Standard-only chapter, when the rest of the class has one, is usually the answer.

  1. Look for the plan marks before you require a chapter

    On Customize this class, chapters outside Lite carry a Standard only mark. Showing or requiring a chapter never widens a student's plan, so a required chapter with that mark is work part of your class cannot hand in.

  2. Decide what the class is graded on

    If your roster is mixed and you want one syllabus for everyone, keep the required set inside chapters 1–8 and 10 and treat the case study and capstone as extension work.

  3. Or put the whole class on one plan

    Assign seats from your pool so everyone holds the same thing. That is the only way to set the case study or the capstone for the whole room and expect everyone to complete it.

Still stuck

Ask us directly.

A real person on our team reads every message and replies within one to two business days. If something in your classroom is not behaving the way this guide describes, tell us. That is a bug, and we want it.