QUICKBOOKS TIPS, TRICKS & FAVORITE FEATURES

F2 Key:

When you have QuickBooks open (you do not have to be in a company file) F2 gives you all the product information about the QuickBooks version you are using.  This would include the product version, release you are on, license number, product number and if this version of QuickBooks is registered.

Keyboard Tips:

Working with dates

When in a date field there are many ways to change the date, including pulling up the calendar or type the date in the field.  There may be a faster way to get to a specific date using keyboard shortcuts:

Changing by a few Days - Use the Plus (+) or Minus (-) key to move forward or backwards when in a date field

Changing by weeks - You can go to the first day of the week by using the letter W and to the last day of the week by using the letter K when in a date field

Changing by months - Go to the first day of the month by using the letter M and to the last day of the month by using the letter H in the date field

Changing by the year – You can go to the first day of the year by using the letter Y in the date field and to the end of the year by using the letter R

Today – Press the letter T in the date field to move to today’s date.

Saving

If you do not wish to take your hands off the keyboard to move the mouse to the Save & New button, try holding down the CTRL key while pressing the Enter key.  This combination will almost always execute the Save & New.

Find Feature

Sometimes too much time is spent trying to find where a transaction was posted or what happened to a transaction.  Try using the find feature in the drop down menu under Edit.

Export Reports to Excel

Look for the export button to move any report to excel for further editing.  Remember to review the advanced tab after selecting export.  By putting a check in the auto outline it will allow you to collapse and expand data.  A check in auto filtering allows custom date filtering.  

Pop-Up Calculator

When you are in an amount field hold down the Plus (+) or Minus (-) key and a calculator will pop-up.

View open windows

If you select open windows list from View on the tool bar, a side bar of all open windows will appear on the left of the screen.  This will allow you to move quickly between reports and various transactions.  Also you can close windows no longer needed to help QuickBooks run quicker.

Close all open windows at once

Do you have too many windows open in QuickBooks?  Close all of them quickly by selecting Window from tool bar then close all.  QuickBooks will close all open windows and ask you to save any transactions in the process.

Sorting lists

Have you noticed that your vendor, customer or item list has gotten a bit out of order and is not sorting correctly?  To get the lists sorting correctly, open the list that needs to be resorted, and then click View, and then Resort list.  Vendor and customer lists will sort by name (and job within customer name if using jobs).  The original sorting for the item list is by type of item, not by the name.  To sort the items list by name of the item (or any other column on the item list) click on the header of the column you wish to sort by.

Pop-Up Messages

Tired of the Pop-up messages while you are working?  Go Edit and select Preferences.  In the General tab put a check in Turn off pop-up messages for products and services.  It will not eliminate all of them but it does reduce the