Your first hour in AcboBooks

Before you start

• Install AcboBooks. The 15-day trial starts on first open; no sign-up.
• Decide your start date — usually the first day of a fiscal year or quarter. Everything before it comes in as opening balances.
• Have on hand: your last balance sheet (or trial balance), open customer invoices, unpaid vendor bills, and the latest bank statement.

1. Create the company

File → New Company. Enter the legal name, address, country (United States or Canada), home currency, and fiscal year start. Set the administrator password — it cannot be recovered, so store it somewhere safe.

Moving from QuickBooks® Desktop? Use File → Import from QuickBooks instead; it creates the company, lists and opening balances for you, and you can skip to step 5.

2. Chart of accounts

AcboBooks seeds a standard small-business chart. Add what you need (Lists → Chart of Accounts → New) and delete what you won't use. Keep account numbers if your accountant uses them. Bank and credit-card accounts go in now; their balances come in step 4.

3. Customers, vendors and items

Enter the names you invoice and the names you pay. For items, create a service item for each thing you sell by the hour or job, and inventory items only for stock you count. Sales-tax items are set up under Lists → Sales Tax.

4. Opening balances

• Bank and credit cards: enter the statement balance as of the day before your start date.
• Open invoices: enter each one dated when it was issued, so aging is right from day one.
• Unpaid bills: same, dated when received.
• Everything else (loans, equity, fixed assets): one journal entry dated the day before your start date, from your last balance sheet. Post the difference to Opening Balance Equity.

Run Reports → Trial Balance as of the day before your start date. It should match the balance sheet you started from.

5. Send an invoice, pay a bill

Customers → Create Invoice. Pick the customer, add item lines, save, and email as PDF. When the money arrives: Customers → Receive Payment, apply to the invoice, deposit to the bank account.

Vendors → Enter Bill, then Vendors → Pay Bills to pay one or many at once by cheque or bank transfer. Print cheques from the register if you still use them.

6. Connect or import the bank

Banking → Bank Feeds. Connect with OFX Direct Connect if your bank offers it, or download an OFX/QFX statement from online banking and import it. Match each downloaded line to what you already entered, add the ones you didn't, and set up rules for the regulars.

7. Reconcile

Banking → Reconcile. Enter the statement ending balance, tick the lines, watch the difference reach 0.00, and finish. A reconciled month is the point at which your books become trustworthy — do it every month.

8. Close the period

When your accountant has finished with a month or year, set a closing date under Company → Settings. Changes before that date then require the closing-date password, and the audit log records any that are made.

Next

• Payroll & year-end guide — if you have employees.
• Help centre — how-tos by topic.
• For accountants — sharing the file and multi-user.