It’s an easy process, but you need to be sure you set them up smartly.
Most processes in QuickBooks are fairly easy once you get accustomed to them, or after you’ve taken a QuickBooks training course. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to put some thought into using them.
A lot of the issues you’ll have to ponder come up in the setup process, or when you’re beginning to use a new feature. “Type” lists are a good example. There are three in QuickBooks:
- Customer Type
- Vendor Type, and
- Job Type.
You can, of course, add more as your business continues to grow. But if you consider their creation carefully from the start, you’ll find them to be especially helpful when you’re customizing reports.
To find them, open the Lists menu and select Customer & Vendor Profile Lists. Click on Customer Type List to start.
The Customer Type List menu lets you work with these classifications. (Screen shots taken in QuickBooks 2013.)
To begin making a list, click the arrow next to Customer Type to open the menu, and then select New. The New Customer Type window opens. In the blank field next to the Customer Type label, enter a name for your new Customer Type. In the example above, the business sells contracting services and materials, so two Types have been included: Commercial and Residential.
Note: You can only assign one Type to QuickBooks transactions. There will be other ways you can filter your company file when you create reports, though. QuickBooks classes can help you think through these decisions.
Let’s say you wanted to break down the Residential Type further to divide your residential customer base into geographical areas. In the New Customer Type window, you’d click in the box next to Subtype of and select Residential from the drop-down list. Then enter your geographical area in the field and click OK. Do the same thing for every desired area.
Once you learn how to use QuickBooks’ “Types,” you’ll be able to build more targeted reports.
You’ll go through a similar set of steps to create your lists of Vendor Types and Job Types.
When you created your Lists, you opened a drop-down menu for each Type and clicked New. There are other things you can do from that menu, including:
- Editing and deleting existing vendors
- Making a Vendor Type inactive
- Switching between two views
- Changing the columns in the list, and
- Finding all transactions that use the current classification.
QuickBooks training can help you create intelligent lists that will aid tremendously in your reports. So the process of creating Types shouldn’t be taken lightly. Care taken here will give you a better picture of your finances down the road.
