QuickBooks is accounting software for tracking and managing finances. It is widely used by small businesses and individuals to send invoices, make payments, handle inventory, manage payroll, and prepare taxes. An important factor that goes into deciding to learn a new skill is researching complementary and related skills. Doing so will help you make more informed decisions about what you want to learn, and it will help you decide whether or not learning a specific skill is the right decision for you. You will also learn what kind of skills you may want to learn to complement your training later on. Read on to learn more about related QuickBooks training options such as learning accounting principles or how to use MS Excel, understanding data analysis or financial modeling, and making sound investment decisions.
What is QuickBooks?
QuickBooks is a widely used accounting and bookkeeping software from Intuit. Primarily used by small and medium businesses, QuickBooks helps businesses to track and manage everything to do with their finances. Using QuickBooks, businesses can monitor their cash flow and profits and losses by tracking sales, expenses, customers, and payments. QuickBooks is also often used to create and send invoices, manage a business’s inventory, and handle employee payroll. It also has budgeting, time tracking, and daily task features to keep businesses running efficiently.
QuickBooks helps businesses ensure the accuracy of their records by directly connecting sales channels to QuickBooks and reconciling bank transactions with the information one inputs. The software also has features to help with tax preparation and can be used as a way to collaborate and share documents with an accountant. QuickBooks is a subscription-based software with tiered pricing that comes in different versions depending on the user’s storage and business needs. Intuit offers QuickBooks with basic to premium plans of its cloud-based QuickBooks Online, a computer-installed QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise version for larger or more complex companies, and a version for freelancers and independent contractors called QuickBooks Solopreneur.
What Can You Do with QuickBooks Skills?
QuickBooks software has many different applications and uses across a wide variety of industries. Many small and medium-sized businesses use QuickBooks for its record-keeping features as it was originally designed for businesses without a dedicated accounting department. QuickBooks allows someone to track and categorize many things such as expenses, sales, transactions, and customer, vendor, and inventory lists. This makes QuickBooks a great option for those needing to keep all of their business records in one place.
Additionally, many people use QuickBooks to create and send invoices, manage employee payroll, help prepare their taxes, maintain a budget, and automate tasks. QuickBooks includes features to automate accounts payable and receivable. Many use QuickBooks to automate sending customer invoices or payment reminders or even to keep employees updated on crucial tasks and send deadline reminders. These features of QuickBooks allow you to increase productivity and maintain efficient workflows so that you do not constantly need to task employees with work that can be done by the QuickBooks software itself.
Not only do businesses use QuickBooks, but QuickBooks is often used by self-employed people like freelancers and independent contractors. QuickBooks offers a specific version of the software called QuickBooks Solopreneur (formerly QuickBooks Self-Employed or SE). Many people find that once they link their accounts, it is easy to import their transactions and the QuickBooks software will automatically work to tag one’s income. Self-employed users will likely need to do a bit of extra work to categorize their transactions more effectively for their own needs, but QuickBooks can do much of the bookkeeping work automatically and make tracking finances easier for individuals.
Skills Related to QuickBooks
There are many skills that will complement one’s QuickBooks training. Not only can these skills help small business owners to better understand the QuickBooks software, but QuickBooks is also used in accounting and finance-related professions. Learning skills that complement one’s use of QuickBooks can be the first step on the path to becoming a Bookkeeper, Accountant, Financial Manager, or Financial Advisor.
Accounting
QuickBooks was designed to help automate bookkeeping and accounting functions, but it is still useful to know accounting terms and principles to use QuickBooks. Most people find they need to know the basics of double-entry accounting to understand fully how to use QuickBooks. Additionally, many trained and licensed Bookkeepers and Accountants will need to use QuickBooks as part of their work with individual clients or small businesses.
For those who want to learn more about accounting, Noble Desktop’s intensive two-day Financial Accounting Bootcamp offers beginner-friendly training. This hands-on bootcamp combines topics from introductory and intermediate-level accounting classes to provide a full introduction to financial reports and Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Taking this class can be the beginning of pursuing a career in Accounting or just allow one to better use and understand QuickBooks for their own accounting needs.
Excel
Knowledge of MS Excel is useful for those across many different professions, from Business Managers and Data Analysts to Bookkeepers. Excel skills will complement QuickBooks training as Excel is another common way to store and organize financial data and one can upload data from Excel spreadsheets into QuickBooks for easier use. Knowing Excel will also offer an additional way for one to track and monitor their finances, whether one uses QuickBooks or another accounting software.
There are many options to learn Excel and Noble Desktop’s Excel Bootcamp is a great choice for those wanting to learn everything, from basics to advanced Excel skills, in one class. Over the course of three days, students learn basic calculations, functions, and formatting and more advanced forms of summarizing data with Pivot Tables, creating macros, and doing data analysis in Excel. Some professionals will opt to learn Excel prior to learning QuickBooks, while others find it useful to learn Excel as an add-on and complement to their use of QuickBooks.
Data Analysis
Learning how to organize, analyze, and visualize data is a skill set that will complement one’s use of QuickBooks. QuickBooks’ software provides users with ways to understand their financial data and training in data analysis will not only allow one to better understand reports that QuickBooks generates but it will also allow users to draw their own conclusions about their financial data. Training in data analysis will allow one to better predict how their business or their client’s business will perform and make better decisions based on the historical data one sees in QuickBooks or through other financial reports.
Knowing how to analyze financial data can not only help one use QuickBooks, but it can also help someone start down a career path in financial analysis, financial modeling, or data analysis. Noble Desktop’s Data Analytics Certificate can be the start to enhancing one’s use of financial data or transitioning into a career as a Data Analyst. This hands-on course provides comprehensive training in the skills and tools necessary to make predictions and decisions based on one’s analysis of raw data.
Financial Modeling
Financial modeling is creating a spreadsheet with a business’s historical data that one can then use to aid in predicting future outcomes. Often, one will use Excel to create this spreadsheet and it will contain data like a business’s costs or income that will be used for purposes of prediction and decision-making. QuickBooks software does have forecasting and financial modeling abilities, so understanding financial modeling can help one understand the theories behind the software. Additionally, learning financial modeling for oneself can open up career possibilities not only in accounting and financial analysis but also in investment banking or equity research.
Noble Desktop’s three-day Financial Modeling Bootcamp aims to teach students how to create comprehensive financial models. This bootcamp will cover essential concepts in corporate finance, accounting, and financial modeling while leading students through building a financial model on a real company. One will need intermediate Excel skills to take this bootcamp as the first part of the bootcamp will focus on using Excel for financial modeling.
Investing
QuickBooks software has limited investing features. However, one can use a business’s historical data and financial reports generated in QuickBooks to make sound investment choices. Those in accounting and finance will often find themselves in advisory roles where they are asked to help a business or client with their investment portfolio, making investing a useful complementary skill to learn alongside QuickBooks.
Learn the basics of investing by enrolling in Noble Desktop’s six-hour Stock Market Investing class. This interactive class teaches students how financial markets work by covering the fundamentals of valuation, financial statements, and stock investing. With in-person and live online options, this is a great entry point into learning about the stock market and should allow one to start viewing QuickBooks data and reports with an eye toward investment opportunities.
Learn QuickBooks Skills with Noble Desktop
Noble Desktop offers expert in-person and live online training for those interested in learning QuickBooks. Every Noble Desktop class comes with expert, hands-on guidance, small class sizes, and free retake options and many classes offer both part-time and full-time options so that one can find the QuickBooks or finance class that works best for their schedule. For fast and comprehensive training in QuickBooks, consider enrolling in Noble Deskop’s QuickBooks Bootcamp which teaches students everything they need to know about how to use QuickBooks to track and manage a business’s finances. This bootcamp uses interactive training to teach students the basics of QuickBooks like configuring a company profile, working with customer, vendor, and inventory lists, and invoicing and processing payments as well as the more advanced management and customization features. Noble Desktop offers this bootcamp live online from any location and it can be taken in person at Noble Desktop’s training facility in New York City.
Noble Desktop also has accounting classes and bootcamps which are a great option for anyone interested in developing their skills or learning more about finance and accounting. The Intro to Financial Accounting & Financial Statements class uses hands-on exercises to teach students the fundamentals of analyzing financial statements and reports. After completing this introductory class, students can progress to the Intermediate Financial Accounting class which teaches more complex topics like earnings per share and deferred taxes. For those who want a comprehensive, accelerated class that tackles both beginner and intermediate topics of accounting, consider the Financial Accounting Bootcamp which teaches everything students need to know in two class sessions.
Noble’s finance and accounting classes are great for those who want to grow their financial literacy beyond learning about QuickBooks. These classes are also useful for those interested in becoming a Bookkeeper or Accountant. If this is something that interests you, you can learn more about the career path of an Accountant by reading Noble Desktop’s comprehensive guide to accounting, a free resource that covers essential information about accounting and how to learn the skills necessary to make this one’s career. Learning principles of accounting or receiving QuickBooks training can be the first step on the path to becoming a Financial Manager or Financial Analyst. For those who want to work in finance, Noble Desktop’s guide to finance is a useful way to read about different career options and how to receive training for careers in finance.