Re: total newbie questions

[John Locke <..hidden..>]

Hi Keith,

Keith Lowe wrote:
> Here's an example:  I can enter a new vendor, and go to A/R-->Add
> Transaction to enter a vendor bill, but then what's next?  The manual
> kind of says use Cash-->Payment or Payments, but I can't figure out
> how that should work.  And after I've entered several bills, I should
> be able to run an A/R  Aging report, but I can't get that to show any
> data - it is just blank.
>   
Are you getting the terms mixed up? I've never used Quickbooks, but the
above statement sounds a little mixed up: Vendors go with A/P, not A/R.
Customers go with AR. You would go to AR to enter a bill for a customer,
or AP to enter a bill you received from a vendor. General sales process
goes like this:

1. Add parts/services (line items for invoices)
2. Add Customers
3. Create sales invoice in AR, and post.
4. You should now be able to see open invoices by going to
AR->Reports->Transactions, click Continue at the bottom of the page.
This will show all your open invoices. There's also an Outstanding
report (pretty much the same thing) and AR Aging.

5. When your customer pays, go to Cash->Receipt. Click "Update" and you
should get a list of customers with outstanding invoices. Select the one
who has paid, and click Continue. Select the invoice to pay and click
Update, and the amount will be filled in. I then enter a Source number,
usually the check number or transaction number, and click Post.

There are a bunch of shortcuts here: you can search for a specific
customer, you can use Cash -> Receipts (plural) to receive cash from
several customers at once, you can use the POS module to generate the AR
transaction with inventory adjustment and receive payment all at once,
or use a regular AR transaction to accept money without having a line item.

You can also expand the process by doing quotations or sales orders,
which can then get converted to an invoice. The purchasing process is
similar, but with parallel screens for interacting with your vendors
instead of your customers.

Hope that helps,

-- 
John Locke
"Open Source Solutions for Small Business Problems"
published by Charles River Media, June 2004
http://www.freelock.com