 QuickBooks Online. Help and support options. Get ready to start moving on up with QuickBooks Online. We're going to be using the free QuickBooks Online Test Drive, searching in our online search engine for QuickBooks Online Test Drive, selecting the option that has Intuit.com in the URL, into it being the owner of QuickBooks. Support Accounting Instruction by clicking the link below, giving you a free month membership to all of the content on our website, broken out by category, further broken out by course. Each course then organized in a logical, reasonable fashion, making it much more easy to find what you need than can be done on a YouTube page. We also include added resources such as Excel practice problems, PDF files and more like QuickBooks backup files when applicable. So once again, click the link below for a free month membership to our website and all the content on it. We'll be selecting the United States version of the software and verify that we're not a robot. Zooming in by holding down control up on the scroll wheel, we are currently at the 125% on the zoom in. Noting in the cog dropdown, we're currently in the accountant view as opposed to the business view. We may switch back and forth between the two views so you can see where things are located within them. Now we're not going to be opening up the reports as we normally do every time because our major focus here is going to be on the help resources for QuickBooks online. Because QuickBooks is such a widely used software within its marketplace that being typically small to mid-sized businesses, we have a whole lot of different resources, different places that we can go to find support, to find answers to different questions, such as for example, within the software, we have the help options here. We can go to the Intuit website and look there for resources. We can also go outside of Intuit and search for professionals that work in accounting, many of which are quite familiar with QuickBooks and we could look at QuickBooks professionals in and of themselves, people that specialize in the use of QuickBooks. We can also look for resources on YouTube and other general search engines into a browser, for example. So there's more resources like that, especially those searchable resources and people that are professionals or specialized with the use of QuickBooks than many other accounting software. So that can be a benefit. What we need to do then is try to hone down and narrow down the types of questions that we have and then possibly think about what the best resource would be to then get answers to those questions. The first way I would do that would be to say, is the question that I'm looking at basically an accounting type of question or is it specifically a QuickBooks type of question in terms of how the software is functioning. And sometimes there's going to be crossover between the two. But if we look at the software in terms of how the software is functioning, primarily in terms of, for example, is there a glitch in the software? Is it running slow or if there's some kind of technical problem, then the place you would typically want to go is going to be to Intuit itself. If there's a problem with your account, if you need to level up the account or level down the account, then of course the place you would typically want to go would be to the help sources within QuickBooks, within Intuit, the owner of QuickBooks itself. If you're talking about an accounting problem, then you might want to look at other resources such as just an accountant and you might first always be thinking in your mind, what's my end goal? Is it going to be to create financial statements at the end of the period? Is it to create the taxes at the end of the year? If so, do I have someone else involved such as a CPA firm, a tax firm? And if you do, you probably want to include them in the loop somehow. So if you're looking for technical accounting questions, you might want to talk to them first to see where they might guide you. And then you could of course look to other resources like YouTube and whatnot on how to post things and those kind of stuff as well as the help options within QuickBooks. So if we go through the kind of options for help, the first place we can go is clearly the help dropdown up top. So if I go to the help dropdown, we've got the two tabs. We've got the assistance. So you see here it says hi there. I've got some tips on getting ready for year end and so on and so forth. So we might actually be able to get contact more easily than we have in the past with a live chat with someone at QuickBooks. Now, again, sometimes the live chat and the people on the other end is quite informative and quite helpful. But usually they're most helpful with things that are specific to your account. Do you have payroll turned on? Do you have, right? You need to upgrade your software. Do you need to downgrade it? What kind of services do you have and so on and so forth? And the billing of it and changing those types of questions. When you get to technical questions within QuickBooks, they still might be good in that range as well. Like how do I do a particular thing? But when the thing you're looking at becomes more aligned around accounting concepts, then you might go outside of the range of the typical assistant possibly on QuickBooks, depending on who you're dealing with. And in that case, you might need to talk to someone more on the accounting side of things and then work with them and a QuickBooks expert to try to see how the accountant thing can be applied within the software. And then, of course, if we go to the tab to the right, we've got our search field, which works like a typical type of search field. So if you want to have a question on payroll, you can type in payroll and you get your results down here, get started with payroll. QuickBooks online payroll, full service hub. QuickBooks payroll populates form 941 and so forth. And so that's another common way that you can go going to, in essence, the source to be searching for typical kind of questions that might come up that might be accounting related as well. If you just need to think about how exactly you're going to do something. However, every time you do something that's a little bit outside the box, then you might want to be communicating with your accountant as well. So that's the first place that you would clearly most likely be looking. Note that you can also be searching on the Intuit website. So you can go to intuit.com, Intuit.com. I typically go to the QuickBooks software up top, which has been laid out this way for quite some times. I usually like to go all the way to the bottom because sometimes they change their page, but they have always had this or have had for a long time the products at the bottom and then just verify that I'm looking at the online. Remember that if you're searching on like YouTube for support, then you got to remember that there's a big difference between the desktop and online softwares in terms of the look and feel. So you want to make sure that you're looking at resources that relate to the online version when you're searching for resources when using the online version. Now in here, they currently have the dropdown up top for the support. So you can see the support here. They've got the getting started support topics, training, community and resources. So some of this information might be similar stuff that you would find in the help dropdown that we saw in the actual software, but it might be easier or easier to see and more laid out here in a more searchable way. So that's clearly another resource that you can go to. So you've got your search engine, QuickBooks Online. You got the selecting the products. We're looking at online recommended help for QuickBooks Online. What are tags? So tags is one of those options we looked at in the past. So it's a specialty kind of area. Fixed bank errors is common topic. Fixed issues the first time you reconcile. When you do your first bank reconciliation, we'll talk about that. There's often issues with the first bank rec. So we'll have that in a separate section or course. And then browse common topics, account management, company information, login, data security, advanced accounting, chart of accounts and so on. And then the banking areas. Learn QuickBooks. So you've got your video tutorials. So we might they might have some nice tutorials just for learning. Ask the community. So you've got other kind of places where you might be able to post things and hopefully get answers to that questions. What's new in QuickBooks Online? So you can discover the latest stuff. Remember that QuickBooks Online even more than desktop because it's a web based software is changing all the time. They're always trying to do stuff to it if not if if nothing else just to the look and feel of it. So you can see that for the changes and then you got your resources find an expert. So notice that QuickBooks has training that's designed specifically for QuickBooks. So when you're looking for experts for to help you, you probably first want to be thinking what's the goal that I'm doing my bookkeeping for? Is it just for taxes? Do I need to make financial statements with it and so on? If so, you probably have a tax professional or CPA firm and you might want to make sure that they're in the loop when you're looking for an expert. And then you might ask them whether or not you should get someone else like another bookkeeper or something. And then you might search for bookkeepers who are professionals within QuickBooks itself. That could be another way to narrow down the search. Then you got resource centers and you got the QuickBooks blog that you can check out. So those are those resources. Let's go back to QuickBooks. Also, you can just do a Google search or any other browser engine not to promote Google over any other browser or whatever. And you can also do the YouTube thing. And there's a lot of resources and people that will put information on the YouTube's. Now if I go to the account tab up top and we go to the account account and settings. Then you can also manage basically your users over here. Actually, let me do that again. I'm going to close this out. It's going to be under the do you want to leave? I'm going to say yes, it's going to be under the cog drop down and then manage users, manage users. And this is where you might be adding or subtracting people that would be using the actual software. And so you might have different people working on it at one time, for example. And then you can go to your accountant area over here. And this is often useful so you can share your data with your accountant. So instead of at the end of the year giving them like financial statements to make the tax returns from and having them contact you. You can have them help you out. And then down at the bottom, this is another area where it says an accountant can be your best business partner. Make it easy to work together. Invite yours to your QuickBooks. So this is where you can basically invite your accountant. Remember, that's your end goal for most small businesses. Many small businesses, most is to get their taxes done, get the year-end information done. So make sure that you are in alignment with whoever's going to do that and constructing your bookkeeping system in such a way that it's going towards that end goal, keeping them in the loop. So if you don't have an accountant, then you have this find a pro down here. So I would think that this might be the better, you know, another place you can go within the software to kind of search for the pro. If I just go on that one, you can search by location, service provided by, and then you can, you know, check off what services you need. And then industry served. Note that your industry is quite important. And think about this as a bookkeeper. If you're a bookkeeper as well, you really want to start thinking, do I have a specialty industry? Do I have a specialty kind of format that I want to lay out? Do I have a group of people that is most attuned towards a specific industry? For example, if you're a professional in construction, if you really want to design a system that's as automated as possible, and maybe you have a CPA firm and a payroll firm that you work with, then you might be looking at those kinds of businesses that you can make basically a cash, use a cashed base system, maybe an automate with the bank feeds and then try to use the payroll professionals to help you out the payroll and the CPA firms. You need to know what industry you're in in order to do that. And then you can really streamline and scale your businesses possibly more easily sometimes in those cases. And then you've got your QuickBooks online edition items here and then you can search for your professionals. So that's another option that you have. I think that's also down here in the accountant or my accountant down here. So this is just another way to get to that same place and then find the pro. So those are the options. So remember, and then if you have an expert, then you've got your my expert chat up top depending on the plans that you have put in place. So those are kind of the ideas. So my main advice with the help is that so you don't get overwhelmed with where to go with the help. What do you want the help for? Is it a technical issue for the running of the QuickBooks online software? If so, obviously contacting QuickBooks is generally the place to go. What's wrong with what's up with the account? Do I need to increase the account? Do I need to add something to account and so on to change my plan in some way and that kind of stuff or some kind of technical issue or glitch? Things aren't running right for whatever reason or something like that. Or is it an accountant based process? If it's an accountant based thing, even if you want to figure it out yourself, if it's somewhat complex, you might want to just keep thinking in mind. Bring the CPA firm with a tax preparer in to the game so that you're making sure that you're orientating this towards your end goal, which is oftentimes tax preparation year and financial statements. And once on alignment, then you can start looking at all those other resources, possibly bringing in a bookkeeper that's a QuickBooks professional bookkeeper to help in that group in that setting towards that end goal. Working with your CPA firm and tax professional and or tax professional. And then of course you can search other areas as well as YouTube search sites and the YouTube website. I'm sorry, the QuickBooks website. So I think if I hit the cog dropdown and switch to the business view, all the resources are basically the same here because we've been basically been working up in the help items up top. The my accountant is under the bookkeeping and then experts. That's where that my accountant is under the business view.