I recently worked with the organization “More Than Self”, a non-profit that provides funding for school materials so that poor children in Guatemala have the supplies they need in order to attend school. More Than Self also supports Guatemalans in obtaining healthy food and safe drinking water. To fund these needs, More Than Self purchases handmade products from Guatemalans, and then sells these items to retailers in Arizona.
To set up the QuickBooks file for More Than Self, I sat down with Gail Basham, the executive director. The first thing I did was click on View on the top bar, followed by a click on Top Icon Bar. Now the icon bar is on top instead of on the left side. I then clicked on Edit, Preferences, Desktop View, Switch to colored icons/light background on Top Icon Bar. Now the Icon Bar is no longer black, and is much easier to see. Now I clicked on View, Open Window List. I did this so that I can now use the Window List feature, which is very handy for moving from one open window to another.
After setting preferences and modifying the icon bar in QuickBooks, we set up the Chart of Accounts. We determined that Gail would use Sales Receipts instead of Invoices to record her sales, because she collects payment at the time of sale.
To use a sales receipt, one must first set up Items. To do that, on the top bar, I clicked on List, Item List. Then on the top bar, I clicked on View, Add “Item List” to Icon Bar, which made the Item List a shortcut on the Icon Bar. Any time you open a window in QuickBooks, and want to have that window be a shortcut on the icon bar, just click on View, and when you look down the list under View, you will see the option to add that window to the icon bar.
Before we set up any items in the Item List, we discussed what the Item List should look like. We determined that we should set up items for the ten categories of items that she sells, and have sub-items New and Antique, and sub-items of the sub-items for the such things as size, color, etc.
Two example are:
Runners
New
Small
Runners
Antique
Small
When you use sub-items, you can run a sales report to see what you have sold for that sub-item, and you can also run a sales report to see what you have sold for the group that the sub-item is under. You can set up your item list with every item standing alone without sub-items, but then you can’t run a sales report to see what your sales were for a group of item.
Now we were ready to set up individual items. To do that, I had Gail click on Item, then New at the bottom of the window. She then clicked on Non-Inventory Part in the TYPE drop-down box, since she is not going to keep track of the inventory in QuickBooks at this time.
For the Item Name, I had Gail put in the name that she wanted to use for this product to find it in the Item List. This is not the name that the customer sees on the Sales Receipt. For example, she might put in the Item Name as RunAntSm, but the name she will put in the Description box would be Antique Runner, Small. So I had her put in Run as the Item Name, and since it is not a sub-item, she did not put anything in the Sub-item box.
Gail then put in DO NOT USE in the Description box. Since she is only using this item to run reports for all her runner sales, she will never use this item on a Sales Receipt. I recommend to my clients to put in DO NOT USE, so that if they ever put this item on a Sales Receipt by mistake, they will know not to use it.
She left the Rate at 0.00 because she will not be putting this item on a Sales Receipt. For the Account box, she had to choose an Income Account from her Chart of Accounts. She chose Merchandise. Then she clicked on Next to save this item to the Item List, and to go to the next Item List screen to add the next item.
For the next item, she put in RunAnt as the Item Name. Then she clicked on the box to the left of “Subitem of,” and chose Run from the drop-down box below that. For the Description, she put in DO NOT USE because she is never going to use this item on a Sales Receipt. She left the rate at 0.00, and chose Merchandise as the Account. Then she clicked on Next to save this item to the Item List, and to go to the next Item List screen to add the next item.
For the next item, she put in RunAntSm as the Item Name. Then she clicked on the box to the left of “Subitem of,” and chose the “Ant” that is a sub-item of Run from the drop-down box. For the Description, she put in Antique Runner, Small. She left the rate at 0.00 because she will determine the price at the time of the sale. She chose Merchandise. Then she clicked on Next to save this item to the Item List, and to go to the next Item List screen to add the next item.
Gail added a few more items, and then for homework, I asked her to put in the rest of the items she sells before we meet again next week.
