QuickBooks
QuickBooks Setup Checklist for Small Businesses
The core settings, account structure, and workflow decisions to review before your books go live.
Confirm company settings first
Start with the legal name, tax details, fiscal year, users, and permissions before entering daily transactions.
- Review business name, address, tax form, and fiscal year.
- Set user roles so sensitive payroll and banking data stays protected.
- Confirm sales tax, invoice, and payment settings before sending customer documents.
Build a practical chart of accounts
A clean chart of accounts keeps reports readable and prevents duplicate categories from spreading across the file.
- Keep account names business-friendly and consistent.
- Avoid creating new accounts when an existing category already fits.
- Separate income, direct costs, operating expenses, assets, liabilities, and equity clearly.
Connect bank feeds with review rules
Bank feeds save time only when rules, matching, and review habits are set up carefully.
- Match existing transactions before adding new ones from the feed.
- Use rules for recurring vendors, not one-off or unclear transactions.
- Reconcile monthly so feed errors do not become reporting errors.