Discover the Best QuickBooks Classes Near Me
QuickBooks is accounting software designed for small-to-medium-sized businesses. It is the market leader by an enormous margin, with more than an 80% share of the United States’ smaller business market and some eight million users worldwide. Those figures are for both versions of the software marketed by Intuit: QuickBooks Pro (the stand-alone desktop edition) and QuickBooks Online (the cloud-based one.) There’s very little arguing with success, and numbers like these suggest that QuickBooks is a highly viable digital accounting solution that can perform a host of accounting tasks with or without the assistance of a human accountant.
Both QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks Online are available only through subscription plans that offer numerous pricing tiers and add-ons that can rapidly become very expensive. A subscription for the most popular (“Plus”) tier of the online version will easily run your enterprise in excess of $80 a month, while the more powerful “Advanced” tier starts at $200. For an additional monthly fee (a steep one), either version of QuickBooks can set up and run payroll for you. Each version has its own weaknesses and strengths. While the desktop version is unquestionably more powerful and can, for example, generate far more reports and graphs than the cloud version, it is also significantly harder to learn to use. The desktop version also allows you to customize handsome invoices, keep track of sales orders, and affords the far greater security of keeping all your records right where you can see them. On the other hand, QuickBooks Online can handle tasks the desktop version can’t (a conspicuous example is international invoicing), is accessible from just about any device anywhere under the sun, offers payment processing integrations, and is significantly easier to learn. Both versions can accomplish a great deal for your business, and the tier-pricing system makes it possible for QuickBooks to grow in step with your company. Although the software has its drawbacks (price, an unfriendly learning curve, and customer service that apparently is anything but), its market position testifies to its ability to do what it sets out to do.
If you own a small business, QuickBooks (in either of its incarnations) may be an extremely welcome adjunct to your commercial activities, assuming that you can figure it out. Although QuickBooks Online has the steeper (that is to say, more manageable) learning curve, even a seasoned accountant (which you most probably are not if you’re reading this) isn’t going to be able to use it fresh down from the cloud. It’s not ideally intuitive, but neither are such things as double-entry bookkeeping.
Not all small business owners want to keep their own books, nor do they always have the time to do so. They, therefore, have recourse to professional bookkeepers who track their finances and keep their accounts and inventories in order. Bookkeepers, as opposed to accountants, who must have four-year college degrees in the subject, are financial professionals with some college (or at least a high school diploma) who perform day-to-day accounting duties. If your goal is employability as a bookkeeper, learning QuickBooks thoroughly is probably the most important step you can take to launch yourself onto that career path. QuickBooks is a highly marketable skill that can make you a valuable employee, either as a full-time bookkeeper, a part-time one for several companies, or as a jack-of-all-trades employed in a small company that needs a versatile team member who can keep the books part-time and use the rest of their days to work on everything from order fulfillment to maintaining the company’s social media presence.
Whether QuickBooks obviates the need for a human accountant is an unresolved question. Certainly, having a professional accountant or CPA to oversee the books every month (or quarter) is a safe bet: humans can detect errors in ways that QuickBooks can’t, and catching mistakes early is a way to avoid hassles (and expense) down the road. Accountants who do work with clients who use QuickBooks also need to know how to use the software if they’re to be able to do their job properly. There is even a dedicated edition of the desktop version of the software designed for accountants who oversee other people’s QuickBooks books.
Best QuickBooks Classes & Schools
A complete course in QuickBooks, available in-person in New York City or online anywhere (including the International Space Station), is available from NYIM Training: QuickBooks Certified User Certification. The course comprises two classroom modules (beginning and advanced Quickbooks Desktop), a two-hour private session with an instructor, and the QuickBooks Certified User examination, proctoring, and all. There are even free retake options for both the class and the exam. NYIM Training is located in Midtown Manhattan and specializes in interactive instruction in such important business software as Excel, the Adobe Creative Cloud programs, and, of course, QuickBooks. The QuickBooks Certified User credential was developed by Intuit, the maker of the software, and is an industry-recognized testimonial to the holder’s abilities in using the software. Intuit has developed both Desktop and Online versions of the exam; this program covers the former. An online version of the class (including the exam) is also available from NYIM.
Also in New York City, a QuickBooks Introduction is available from ONLC Training Centers. The curriculum covers setting up a company, invoicing, processing payments, integrating bank accounts with the software, and paying bills. ONLC has locations in most major American cities; their New York school is located in the Financial District on Wall Street proper. ONLC’s classes are conducted using a live but remote instructor. This class can also be taken fully online.
Moving from classes in Gotham to those available in Tinseltown (not that you can’t learn QuickBooks in the 46 states that separate New York from California), two community colleges in Los Angeles offer classes that introduce students to the Way of the QuickBook. Los Angeles Community College, as part of its extremely eclectic collection of adult education classes, offers a one-day class called QuickBooks Fundamentals I that covers such tasks as paying bills, calculating sales tax, and reconciling bank accounts. A level II class that covers more advanced topics is available as well. LACC is located on Vermont Avenue, east of Hollywood and west of Downtown.
If you’d prefer a more westerly location, West Los Angeles College has its own Beginning QuickBooks class. The course goes through all the basic functions of the software, including creating invoices, purchase orders, and checks. West Los Angeles College is located in Culver City; the QuickBooks class is provided by the school’s extension division and is not offered for credit.
For those who’d rather take a live online class from home, from the office, or from a remote Alpine valley, the Digital Workshop Center teaches a QuickBooks Online for Beginners workshop. Unlike the above classes, this one tackles the more user-friendly (and substantially different) cloud-based version of the software. The course is hands-on and has students using mock company files to acquire the knowledge required to navigate the software. Digital Workshop Center is located in Colorado; its course listing includes a wide selection of professional development classes, certificate programs, and bootcamps dedicated to teaching students of all types the skills they need to succeed in the workplace.
Chicago-based Computer Training Source offers its own version of QuickBooks Online Part I, which covers all the expected topics: transactions, banking, sales, expenses, and reports. For those more interested in the desktop version of QuickBooks, the same school also provides students with the option of QuickBooks Desktop Part I, which covers largely all the same topics as the Online class, only geared to the occasionally baffling desktop version of Quickbooks. There is also a QuickBooks Desktop Part II that delves into more advanced topics, including sales tax, customizing invoices, and payroll. Computer Training Source has provided software training for adults since 1991, both in-person in Chicago and, more recently, online.
If you have absolutely no accounting background whatsoever and don’t know a balance sheet from a balance beam (let alone from an income statement), you might do well to learn some of the basics of accountancy before tackling QuickBooks. It will help with the learning curve and spare you from having to learn two sets of things at the same time. To this end, the American Management Association offers its How to Speak Accounting online seminar. In the space of half a day, you’ll become conversant with most of those inscrutable accounting terms and become able to hold a conversation with an accountant. Although designed for non-financial managers, entrepreneurs, and small business owners would both be a good fit for the class as well. The American Management Association is based in New York and is devoted to business talent development through a large assortment of classes and workshops, both online and in person in Midtown Manhattan.
Another class that will teach you about accountancy and bookkeeping and facilitate your QuickBooks learning curve is Bookkeeping Fundamentals from the Digital Workshop Center, which has its landside school in Fort Collins, Colorado. This course runs for three afternoon sessions and, therefore, can go into the subject in more depth than the above entry from the American Management Association. You’ll learn about accounts, debits, credits, transactions, journals, ledgers, and reports, and even touch upon financial analysis. Attention is also paid to bookkeeping best practices, as the class is designed for those who want to prepare themselves for careers as bookkeepers. The class should dovetail smoothly into a QuickBooks class and have you ahead of the pack when you do sit down to delve into the mysteries of the software.
Once you’ve plumbed those mysteries, you may still not have achieved total clarity with QuickBooks. Payroll may still be something of an enigma, given that it’s an add-on to a QuickBooks subscription and one of the last subjects to be covered in a QuickBooks class. The Digital Workshop Center can come to your rescue (or at least your aid) with a course entitled Payroll Fundamentals. The class, which runs for three sessions in the afternoon (Mountain Time), is designed for future bookkeepers who want to learn best practices for the recording and distribution of payroll using QuickBooks. It will give you an extensive tour of the payroll universe, ranging from the practical differences between employees, statutory employees, and contractors all the way to calculating and remitting voluntary deductions such as medical insurance and retirement accounts. Few bookkeeping tasks can create as much discontent and chaos as sloppy payroll: people can be justifiably touchy about their money and get very upset when they aren’t paid what they’ve earned. Any bookkeeper should be able to manage payroll accurately, making this a very worthwhile online class to append to your other QuickBooks training.
Industries That Use QuickBooks
One ought perhaps not to ask which industries use QuickBooks, as the software’s enormous market share shows that businesses across the board employ the software. What sets QuickBooks users apart from Fortune 500 companies is the size of the enterprises involved. QuickBooks was designed for small and medium-sized businesses, although the Enterprise version of the desktop software is equally as well suited to businesses that are close to no longer being medium-sized. Indeed, a puzzlement for many businesses is judging correctly when they’ve outgrown QuickBooks and need to move on to a different type of accounting software.
You’ll be able to use your QuickBooks knowledge at practically any small business at which you land a job. You should be aware that the Desktop version of QuickBooks Enterprise comes in several industry-specific editions designed to accommodate the particular needs of certain types of businesses: contractor, manufacturing and wholesale, retail, nonprofit, professional services, and accountant. Thus businesses in these fields are even more likely to have confided their financial records to QuickBooks. The accountant edition, one should mention, is designed for accountants who service QuickBooks Pro clients.
QuickBooks Jobs & Salaries
Being designed for smaller entities, QuickBooks’ primary target user is the entrepreneur in need of keeping track of a business’s financial records. Business owners aren’t the only people who use the software, however: bookkeepers and accountants also have frequent recourse to QuickBooks. A bookkeeper is someone on a company’s staff who takes care of making entries to and generally maintaining the company’s books. An accountant, on the other hand, comes with a degree and possibly CPA certification and is more likely to lend something more like a monthly or quarterly hand to the company’s bookkeeping efforts.
Termed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks, the BLS’ 2022 figures report that bookkeepers make a national median salary of approximately $45,500. Predictably, larger metropolitan areas show higher numbers than the national median: bookkeepers’ average annual salaries in the New York Metropolitan Area run to just under $55.000, while those in Greater Los Angeles come out to about $53,000. Middle-sized cities show, as would be expected, smaller salaries: roughly $46,000 in Cleveland and approximately $47,500 in Dallas/Fort Worth. An example of a city with an average salary lower than the national median figure would be Billings, MT, where bookkeepers earn just south of $42,000 annually, a number that reflects the much lower cost of living in the Billings area, one of the more affordable places to live, not only in Montana but in the country as a whole.
As for accountants with four-year college degrees, the same Bureau of Labor Statistics figures give a national median annual salary of roughly $77,000, significantly higher than the figures quoted above for bookkeepers, a reflection of the extra qualifications accountants bring to the table. Once again, the salaries on the upper side of the national median are to be found in larger cities: approximately $114,000 in the New York Metropolitan Area, $92,500 in Los Angeles, and $89,500 in Dallas/Fort Worth. On the other side of the median would be much smaller cities such as Montgomery, Alabama (some 200,000 inhabitants), where an accountant can look at a mean annual salary of approximately $72,000. All these figures bear out the nearly universal truth that the higher the salary in a given locality, the higher the cost of living.
What Will I Need to Learn QuickBooks?
Learning QuickBooks does not require a great deal of equipment. Of course, you need a computer or device on which to run the software (there’s even an app for QuickBooks Online that allows you to operate the software from a mobile device), a calculator, and pencils and paper. As for getting the software, Intuit makes a student version of both versions of QuickBooks available, for which you may be eligible. QuickBooks Online is also available on a 30-day free trial basis. Thus you needn’t invest in a subscription to QuickBooks before you’ve learned to operate the software and find it to be right for your business.
As for the calculator, QuickBooks does have one that performs a wide variety of functions built into both versions of the software, but there are times when a stand-alone financial calculator will come in handy. Amazon’s best-selling financial calculator will set you back all of $35.00, so that’s not going to be the most expensive thing you’ve ever purchased. Be aware that that graphing calculator you used in school isn’t suitable as a financial calculator, which is designed to figure such things as tax, depreciation, and compound interest.
Should you choose to attend a brick-and-mortar school, most of the necessary equipment will be made available to you while you’re in class. That would include a computer and a copy of the software with which to work. Most classes, on the other hand, are BYOC (bring your own calculator).
Is it Difficult to Learn QuickBooks?
QuickBooks is by no means the easiest, most intuitive, and most user-friendly software ever concocted in Silicon Valley. If, on top of that, you’re not fully versed in the principles and language of accounting, be fully prepared not to understand the software as it descends from the cloud like Zeus come to court Io.
QuickBooks comes with a learning curve that needs to be surmounted. This type of learning curve is usually described by non-mathematicians as “steep,” meaning that substantial time and energy (and some mild hair-tearing) are going to be required to get past it. Although that does describe the QuickBooks learning curve, strictly speaking, such learning curves are shallow rather than steep. Moreover, there is a sizable difference between the learning curves for QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Pro: the former is positively precipitous in comparison to the effort required to crack the latter nut. Although the two editions share a common name, they are, in reality, two different products with different capabilities, and while QuickBooks Pro can do more, it makes doing more more difficult for beginners.
Of course, the speed with which you learn the software also depends on how much you want to get from it. If your business is relatively simple, you won’t need to learn every advanced feature it includes. If you have a complex inventory, on the other hand, or a convoluted payroll, you’re going to need more time to learn how to work those elements into your company’s books. You’re also going to need more time if you’re new to accounting and have to learn the basic concepts of bookkeeping as well as how to use the software. All that said, people have been learning to use QuickBooks successfully for forty years, and its significant market share attests to the fact that the learning curve is surmountable. You can certainly learn to use QuickBooks; you may just need some time and a good teacher (recall that Intuit’s customer service and help desk are nothing to rely upon) to get fully up to speed.
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