Introduction

Running or working in a small business is one of the coolest things a person can do. Really. We mean it. Sure, sometimes the environment is difficult – but it’s an environment in which you have the opportunity to make a lot of money. And it’s also an environment in which you can build a company or a job that fits you. In comparison, those working in the big-company, corporate world are furiously trying to fit their round pegs painfully into square holes. Yuck.

You’re wondering, of course, what any of this has to do with this book or with QuickBooks. Quite a lot, actually. The whole purpose of this book is to make it easier for you to run or work in a small business by using QuickBooks.

About QuickBooks

Let us start off with a minor but useful point. QuickBooks comes in three different flavours: QuickBooks SimpleStart, QuickBooks Pro, and QuickBooks Premier. QuickBooks SimpleStart is a much simpler version of QuickBooks Pro. In fact, it’s so simple you won’t need much help using it. But if you do, this book can help guide you. QuickBooks Pro is a good choice for established businesses where fancier features like stock item backorders, multiple units of measure, tracking time and expenses by customer (or job) and using that information to invoice customers, are not important. And of course, QuickBooks Premier is the top of the range flavour – it has all the bells and whistles. We should also mention that up to three users can be working in QuickBooks Pro simultaneously, ...

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