I just bought Quickbooks and I'm going to practice with our own business. I'll probably use a starting date of 1/1/08, but that would eliminate any chance of doing the prior year in QB, right? We used Excel for our 2007 records, but I was thinking it would be nice to go back and do it in Quickbooks at some point.
You can go back as far as you like. The starting date really just reflects the date in which you will start reconciling your records. However, if you start with 2008 and then want to go back and add 2007 I would either set it up as a separate company file or at the very least set up a separate bank account (in QB) for your cash transaction so you don't mess up any reconciliations you've preformed in 2008.
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Rebecka Melson ~ Virtual Business Services
Do you mean that you are going to re-create all of your 2007 transactions or just enter year-end balances? If you are re-creating I definitely agree with Rebecka that you should set up 2007 as a separate file. It's going to take some time to catch up on 2007 and meanwhile you will be keeping 2008 current. As you are entering your historical data be careful to do bank reconciliations in chronological order. I had a client who tried to reconcile her most recent statement before she had completely caught up on her history. What a mess that was to untangle.
Karen & Rebecka's advice is great. One option you have if you want to have the data for 2007 in QB but don't want to actually put in all the detail since you have it elsewhere would be to do a journal entry with your final 2007 numbers so you can do comparisons, etc. within the program. The point of this would only be so you could do a comparison on your income/expenses of 2007 to 2008 which can be a good thing for budgeting and business planning. If you want to see details this way you'd go back to your excel sheet for details. Recreating all of 2007 can be time consuming so this might be something to think about.
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Lanel Taylor, CVA ~ Virtual Bookkeeper Taylored Office Solutions Custom fit solutions for all your office needs.
Thanks for your responses. I didn't know I could just enter totals for 2007, and entering six months of transactions for 2008 will be more than enough practice. I'll check it out to decide whether to do it as a separate file or a journal entry as Lanel suggested.
Going back in time with QB?
Linear Mode
