{"id":918,"date":"2025-02-11T15:40:01","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T15:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westevens.com\/blog\/?p=918"},"modified":"2025-03-11T15:42:01","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T15:42:01","slug":"give-your-finances-a-quick-once-over-with-quickbooks-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westevens.com\/blog\/give-your-finances-a-quick-once-over-with-quickbooks-online\/","title":{"rendered":"Give Your Finances a Quick Once &#8211; Over with QuickBooks Online"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-919\" src=\"https:\/\/www.westevens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/GettyImages-1954820499-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"Businessman hand holding magnifying glass focusing standard quality control certification assurance guarantee symbol. Quality management with Quality Assurance and Quality Control. Standardization,\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.westevens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/GettyImages-1954820499-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.westevens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/GettyImages-1954820499-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.westevens.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/GettyImages-1954820499.jpg 788w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>Got 15 minutes? That\u2019s all it should take to log into QuickBooks Online and get a quick read on the state of your finances.<\/p>\n<p>How does QuickBooks Online fit into your normal workday? Do you only log in when you have to send an invoice or record a payment, for example? Do you save up work and only visit the site when you have a pile of paperwork to enter? Or are you busy enough that you need to check in daily to see what\u2019s come in and what you need to do?<\/p>\n<p>We don\u2019t know how much volume your business does, so we can\u2019t make a blanket recommendation about how often you should access your financial information. But we can suggest what you might do when you\u2019re there, either because you have other work to process or you\u2019re just doing a daily check-in. You can learn a lot by targeting the areas of QuickBooks Online that will tell you quickly if there\u2019s trouble brewing.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what you might want to do in these sessions.\u00a0Following these steps can be very helpful if you\u2019re new to QuickBooks Online and don\u2019t have a good grasp of its features yet.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Check your bank connections<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Click\u00a0<strong>Transactions<\/strong>\u00a0in the toolbar, then\u00a0<strong>Bank transactions<\/strong>. Look in the boxes at the top of the page. If there\u2019s a small red circled \u201ci\u201d in any of them, click it, then click\u00a0<strong>Reconnect account<\/strong>\u00a0in the window that opens. Click the pencil icon if you need to edit your account information. If the transactions look old, click\u00a0<strong>Update<\/strong>\u00a0in the upper right to refresh the account.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Categorize your transactions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This will be less of an onerous task if you do it regularly. Open an account by clicking in the box and make sure\u00a0<strong>For review<\/strong>\u00a0is highlighted. Open each transaction by clicking it and change the\u00a0<strong>Category<\/strong>\u00a0if it\u2019s missing or not correct. Once you\u2019ve verified everything in the box, click\u00a0<strong>Confirm<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>You should be categorizing all of your transactions regularly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Check some of the content on your Dashboard<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Click\u00a0<strong>Dashboard<\/strong>\u00a0in the toolbar, then Home to see what might be on your list of outstanding tasks, like\u00a0<strong>Pay 1 overdue bill<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Go to the\u00a0<strong>Bank Accounts<\/strong>\u00a0pane on the left and look at your balances to see if anything looks amiss. Click on any to see their underlying registers.<\/li>\n<li>Look at the\u00a0<strong>Expenses<\/strong>\u00a0chart. QuickBooks Online will tell you how your current expenses compare to those incurred in previous periods. Click the down arrow in the upper right corner to change the date range.<\/li>\n<li>Click the\u00a0<strong>Planner<\/strong>\u00a0tab at the top of the page and make sure\u00a0<strong>Money in\/out<\/strong>\u00a0is highlighted. Change the date range to<strong>\u00a03 months<\/strong>\u00a0by clicking the down arrow below\u00a0<strong>Today\u2019s cash balance<\/strong>\u00a0so you can see where you fall for the current period.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Look at the status of your sales<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Click\u00a0<strong>Sales<\/strong>\u00a0in the toolbar, then\u00a0<strong>All sales<\/strong>. Pay special attention to the\u00a0<strong>Estimates<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>Unbilled income<\/strong>, and\u00a0<strong>Overdue invoices<\/strong>\u00a0numbers. If you see one that needs work, click on the corresponding colored bars to see a list of related transactions below. Look at the end of each row to see what your options are in the\u00a0<strong>Action<\/strong>\u00a0column.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Process bills<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Do you have bills that have come in the mail sitting there, waiting to be entered and paid? Click\u00a0<strong>Expenses<\/strong>\u00a0in the toolbar, then\u00a0<strong>Bills<\/strong>. Click\u00a0<strong>Add bill<\/strong>\u00a0in the upper right and complete the form that opens. If the bill occurs on a regular basis, you can create a\u00a0<strong>recurring bill<\/strong>. You can also upload scanned images of bills and attach them to the QuickBooks Online forms you create.<\/p>\n<p>Click the\u00a0<strong>Unpaid<\/strong>\u00a0tab on the\u00a0<strong>Bills<\/strong>\u00a0page and look at the\u00a0<strong>Status<\/strong>\u00a0column to see if any are due soon (or overdue). You can mark them as paid here if you\u2019re settling your debts manually, or you can pay them electronically through QuickBooks Bill Pay (extra fees). We can help you set this up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>See how your budget is doing<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you have a budget set up in QuickBooks Online, click\u00a0<strong>Budgets<\/strong>\u00a0in the toolbar. Find your current one and click\u00a0<strong>Run Budgets vs. Actuals report<\/strong>\u00a0in the\u00a0<strong>Action<\/strong>\u00a0column.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Check your inventory levels<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you carry inventory, you need to keep an eye on your stock status. Hover your mouse over\u00a0<strong>Sales<\/strong>\u00a0in the toolbar and click\u00a0<strong>Products &amp; services<\/strong>. If you are low on stock or completely out, you\u2019ll see that information at the top of the page. You\u2019ll also see a list of your inventory items and their\u00a0<strong>Qty (Quantity) on Hand<\/strong>\u00a0and<strong>\u00a0Reorder Point<\/strong>, so you can look ahead and catch impending shortages.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Stay Aware of Your Financials<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Of course, if you find work that needs to be done as you go through these steps, that will add time to your QuickBooks Online session. But we think following this path through the site a few times a week\u2014or daily, if your company is very active\u2014will give you more confidence in the financial health of your company and help you head off problems early. There are, of course, many other things you could do. This is the bare minimum. As always, let us know if we can help \u2013 especially if you\u2019re new to QuickBooks Online.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Got 15 minutes? That\u2019s all it should take to log into QuickBooks Online and get a quick read on the state of your finances. How does QuickBooks Online fit into your normal workday? Do you only log in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":919,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westevens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westevens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westevens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westevens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westevens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=918"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.westevens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":920,"href":"https:\/\/www.westevens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918\/revisions\/920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westevens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westevens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westevens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westevens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}