Questiva Consultants

QuickBooks Online Fundamentals 2025

14 chapters · chapter-by-chapter contents and summaries

Hands-on step-by-step exercises teaching "accounting behind the scenes" best practices. Covers setting up QBO subscriptions, managing transactions, advanced customer & vendor workflows, Banking Center, and reporting. In line with the Intuit QuickBooks Online Certified User exam. Advanced topics (Projects, Inventory, Pa...

Chapters

  1. Table of Contents Free preview

    ~17 min read

    After reading this material, you'll be able to navigate QuickBooks Online's core interface and understand how to access the software through your web browser. The textbook covers essential features including the Dashboard and navigation menu for locating key functions, the Chart of Accounts and Registers for viewing financial data, and the Create button for entering transactions into the system. This foundational overview provides the groundwork for using QuickBooks Online to manage business finances and access the company files you'll need for subsequent chapters.

  2. Introducing QuickBooks Online Free preview

    ~43 min read

    # Summary After reading this chapter, you'll be able to navigate QuickBooks Online, understand its subscription versions, and grasp fundamental accounting principles that underpin the software. You'll learn how to access QBO through a web browser, explore the 2025 interface redesign (including the new silo buttons across the top, the **+ Create** button for entering transactions, and the **Accounting** section for managing ledgers), and understand why the accounting equation (Assets = Liabilities + Equity) matters for tracking your business's financial health. The chapter also explains how QBO integrates with third-party apps, why it uses a cloud-based subscription model rather than desktop software, and how double-entry accounting works behind the scenes so you can use the software effectively without manually managing debits and credits.

  3. Setting Up QBO Free preview

    ~46 min read

    After reading this section, you'll be able to set up a new QuickBooks Online company file from scratch and configure it to match your business needs. The setup process starts with Account and Settings, where you establish your company name, tax form, industry, and contact information, followed by configuring Advanced Settings to turn on features like Classes and Locations that track different aspects of your business. You'll also learn how to structure your Chart of Accounts—the master list of all accounts that feeds into your financial reports—which is fundamental to keeping your books organized and accurate.

  4. Customizing QuickBooks Online Free preview

    ~26 min read

    # Summary After reading about customizing QuickBooks Online, you'll be able to configure payment terms, create custom fields to track business-specific information, and manage sales tax agencies and filing frequencies for your company. The chapter covers how to modify the Terms List and Payment Methods List to match your business practices, set up Custom Fields like Sales Rep tracking, and establish the correct sales tax configuration by adding state agencies and assigning tax rates to products and customers. You'll also learn how to use Classes to segregate income and expenses by different business segments, such as separating residential and commercial revenue streams.

  5. Customer Sales Free preview

    ~63 min read

    After reading this chapter, you'll be able to record sales transactions in QuickBooks Online for both customers who pay immediately and those who pay later, configure the necessary sales settings, and analyze your revenue activity. You'll learn how to set up customer records in the Customer Hub, create Invoices and Sales Receipts, receive customer payments, and deposit funds into the bank account using features like the Undeposited Funds account. The chapter also covers generating Accounts Receivable reports to monitor your sales activity and customer payments.

  6. Vendor Expenses

    ~44 min read

    # Vendor Expenses Summary After reading this chapter, you'll be able to set up vendors, record expenses through multiple payment methods, and run reports to analyze your company's spending. QuickBooks Online enables you to configure expense settings to track costs by job and customer, use the Expenses & Pay Bills feature to manage vendor transactions in one centralized location, and choose between recording bills for later payment or entering expenses directly depending on whether you're working with credit vendors or cash vendors. The chapter covers the complete workflow from adding vendor records and entering bills to paying them through checks, credit cards, or electronic transfers.

  7. Accrual Accounting

    ~41 min read

    After reading about accrual accounting, you'll be able to record customer returns and refunds, manage unpaid invoices with credit memos and collection tools, and navigate less-frequent transactions that occur in a typical business month. The chapter covers how to use Credit Memos to handle product returns while preserving historical records, Refund Receipts to return money to customers by check or credit card, and Receive Payment forms to apply credits strategically to outstanding invoices. You'll also learn to work with features like delayed charges, customer statements, payment reminders, and the processing of bounced checks and sales tax payments.

  8. Banking and Reconciliation

    ~52 min read

    After reading this chapter, you'll be able to connect your bank and credit card accounts to QuickBooks Online, categorize downloaded transactions, and reconcile your accounts to ensure accuracy. The chapter covers the Bank Transactions feed for importing and reviewing transactions, creating rules to automate routine categorizations, and the reconciliation process to match your QuickBooks records with actual bank statements. You'll also learn how to identify and resolve discrepancies, use the Bank Register to view cleared transactions, and apply features like matched and recognized transactions to streamline your accounting workflow.

  9. Reports

    ~41 min read

    After reading this chapter, you'll be able to locate transactions using multiple search methods and generate customized reports to analyze your business performance. You'll learn how to find transactions through register filtering, the search magnifying glass, and the Advanced Transactions Search, and how to create and customize accounting reports like the Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Statement. The chapter also covers exporting reports to Excel and PDF, switching between cash and accrual reporting bases, and using the Reports Center to access built-in reports organized by business function.

  10. Advanced Workflows

    ~30 min read

    After reading this chapter, you'll be able to move money between accounts, organize receipt records using optical character recognition and email forwarding, track business mileage for tax deductions, and streamline repeat transactions using QuickBooks Online's automation features. You'll learn to use the Receipts Center to upload and automatically categorize expenses with artificial intelligence, manage vehicle mileage with automatic IRS rate updates, and coordinate 1099 contractor payments through the Contractors Center. The chapter also covers creating recurring transactions that can run automatically, send reminders, or serve as templates for complex entries, which saves time on repetitive bookkeeping tasks.

  11. Case Study—YinYang Graphic Design

    ~17 min read

    After completing this case study, you'll be able to set up a new QuickBooks Online Plus company file, record startup transactions and a full month of business activity, and analyze performance across different revenue streams. The chapter walks you through configuring account settings and the chart of accounts, enabling classes to track the Design, Products, and Overhead aspects of the graphic design business, and creating inventory products and services for both the e-commerce and consulting sides. You'll then record transactions including owner investment, rental payments, vendor bills, customer invoices, and bank reconciliation before generating financial statements and sales analysis reports broken down by class.

  12. Appendix A: Purging a Company Free preview

    ~2 min read

    After reading this appendix, you'll be able to completely reset a QuickBooks Online company file within its first 60 days by using the purgecompany URL function, wiping the data to remove experimental entries or setup mistakes. The process involves accessing the purge feature through the browser URL, confirming the action by typing YES, selecting an empty chart of accounts, and then importing the correct chart of accounts file to restore the company to a usable state. This approach is particularly useful when initial setup didn't generate the expected default accounts or when you need to start fresh with a clean data file.

  13. Appendix B: Answer Key

  14. Appendix C: Certiport Mapping Free preview

    ~7 min read

    After reading this appendix, you'll understand how course content aligns with the Certiport QuickBooks Online Certified User exam objectives. The appendix maps specific exam topics—including setup of customers and vendors, configuration of products and services, bank feed management, and financial reporting—to the corresponding chapter and page numbers in the textbook. This reference guide helps you locate detailed coverage of each exam objective as you prepare for certification.

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