Are you a veteran returning to civilian life or a member of a veteran’s family aiming to avail yourself of entitlements and benefits? This article is designed to help you navigate your options for taking advantage of these services to enter into a professional skills training program and learn the QuickBooks skills you’ve always wanted to learn. Learning QuickBooks is useful for those running their own small business or who are self-employed, as it is a way to track and manage one’s finances easily. Learning QuickBooks can also be the first step on the path to pursuing a career as a Bookkeeper, Accountant, Financial Manager, or Financial Analyst.
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.
Support for Veterans
If you are a veteran or a family member of someone who has served, the GI Bill can cover the costs and expenses of your education. The first GI Bill, the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, provided returning WWII servicemen with benefits including funds to pursue an education after fighting in the war. While this original bill expired in 1956, congress has since signed the Post-9/11 GI Bill and the Forever GI Bill into law to ensure that veterans, service members, and their spouses and children can receive similar education benefits.
For those who meet the requirements for the Post-9/11 GI Bill, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will provide funds to cover tuition, housing, and educational supplies for approved in-person and online courses of study. One can also apply to transfer these funds to a spouse or dependent so that they can use them for their education. The VA recognizes the need to continue to support veterans and their family members even after their time of service has ended. This education support exists as a necessary step to help veterans and service members become a vital part of the US workforce and ease the transition back into civilian life. Many also choose to use these education benefits while still serving, though this can result in receiving reduced benefits and you should check with the VA to confirm what will be covered.
Noble Desktop offers VA-supported programs for veterans and service members looking to continue their education or even transition back into the workforce. Consider enrolling in Noble’s Data Analytics Certificate, a comprehensive, career-oriented program that teaches students how to analyze data and use data to make predictions. This certificate program is offered in person in New York City and covers essential skills and tools like Excel, Python, SQL, and Tableau. While this program does not itself teach QuickBooks, understanding data analysis can complement one’s QuickBooks training. With a knowledge of how to understand data, not only can one better understand the reports QuickBooks generates but they can also turn the financial data in QuickBooks into actionable insights to aid important business strategies and decisions.
Why Learn QuickBooks
Learning QuickBooks can be a great way for individuals to manage their own finances or to start on the pathway to pursuing a career in accounting or finance. Outside of use by accounting and financial professionals, QuickBooks is most often used by self-employed individuals and small business owners. Those working as freelancers or independent contractors can find it useful to use QuickBooks to track expenses, sales, and milage, customize invoices, set goals for financial growth, and prepare their taxes.
Small business owners will likely use more varied features than self-employed individuals, as QuickBooks can fill the role of an Accountant as well as a Financial Manager. For small business owners, in particular, it is useful to receive QuickBooks training to optimize one’s use of the software and ensure that one is using the basic and advanced features of QuickBooks that are necessary for their own business’s needs. Many QuickBooks learners find that while some features of QuickBooks are easy to understand, the more advanced forms of tracking, management, automation, and customization can be more difficult to learn, making QuickBooks training useful.
In addition to learning QuickBooks for handling your own finances, QuickBooks training can be an entry point into accounting and finance careers. Bookkeepers and Accountants are the professionals most often tasked with utilizing QuickBooks as part of their job. Those seeking to become licensed Bookkeepers in the US will even be required to complete QuickBooks training, whereas for Accountants it will be important to become familiar with the software to aid their work with small businesses and individuals who use QuickBooks to track and manage their finances.
Those interested in other professions in finance, like financial analysis, management, or advising, should also consider learning QuickBooks. QuickBooks is not only useful for general bookkeeping or accounting, but it can also aid one’s ability to advise and manage businesses professionally. Finance professionals will want to draw on the historical data that QuickBooks collects to help businesses or individuals develop a budget, maintain profitability, strategize and plan for the future, and make sound investments. It will be beneficial to familiarize oneself with how this software works for finance professionals who intend to work with small business owners or self-employed individuals who use QuickBooks
Why Choose a Skills Bootcamp?
A skills bootcamp can be a great way to learn QuickBooks. Bootcamps are accelerated classes focused on teaching comprehensive knowledge of one skill or one topic. Like certificate programs, many bootcamps teach career-oriented skills and some even offer career support services to help students with tasks such as assembling a portfolio or navigating the job market. QuickBooks bootcamps are often one-to-two-day classes that will teach comprehensive QuickBooks skills or divide introductory, intermediate, and advanced skills into different singular bootcamps.
A QuickBooks bootcamp will be the fastest way to learn how to use the software. QuickBooks bootcamps will allow one to learn the most important features in a matter of hours or days, which is much quicker than if one learns QuickBooks from a complete certificate program or during a four-year university program. While one can find QuickBooks taught in community colleges or in bookkeeping and accounting certificate programs, these options will take multiple weeks, months, or even years to complete in comparison to receiving training from a bootcamp.
Both bootcamps and certificate programs are career-oriented, so it is useful to determine which option better aligns with one’s professional and personal goals. Certificate programs are best for someone who wants to enroll in a longer program of study where they can learn all or mostly all of the theories and skills necessary to start working within that career field immediately upon completion of the program. This is the benefit of a certificate program, it will teach students many different skills for a career in accounting, bookkeeping, finance, or financial data analysis. A bootcamp, by contrast, will only teach one how to use QuickBooks, which makes it a good option for those who only need this specific training or who want to test out accounting and finance tools prior to taking a full certificate program.
There are some downsides to learning QuickBooks in a bootcamp. Bootcamps are often intensive forms of training which is not the best option for every learner. For those who want to learn QuickBooks slower, it might be better to find a certificate program that incorporates QuickBooks training or take an on-demand class that will allow learners to move through QuickBooks course material at their own pace. Additionally, to complete a bootcamp, someone might need to be able to attend a class, in person or live online, for three-to-six hours at a time, and not everyone has a schedule that can accommodate this. For those with inflexible schedules, consider finding a bootcamp with part-time options or one that is offered in the evenings or on weekends.
Learn QuickBooks at 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.