An Essential Step for New QuickBooks Users

If your company or organization is new to QuickBooks, you must know that your accounting records are not complete until you enter the transactions between the QuickBooks start date you have chosen and the current date, if any. There are two ways to do this.

The first method involves entering individual historical transactions. If you choose this method, you should enter transactions in the following order.

1. A/R transactions. These fall into seven types that must be entered in a specific order.
2. A/P transactions. This category has three types that must be entered in a specific order.
3. Historical payroll transactions.
4. Bank and other transactions. There are four types that must be entered in a specific order.
5. Reconcile each bank account for each month.

Using the second method, you can enter historical transactions by creating a summary journal entry for each month between the QuickBooks start date you chose when you setup your QuickBooks company file, and the current date.