Overview

The setup tasks you need to complete depend on the features you want to use and whether your business was operating prior to your conversion month.

What features do you want to use?

The following table provides some examples of different setup requirements.


Your needs	Setup required
Basic	If you only want to use your software to fulfill basic accounting requirements (such as report tax payable or produce a year-end balance sheet), you may only need to do an initial bank reconciliation for each of your bank accounts. Reconciling accounts helps ensure the integrity of the information you record in your company file .
Intermediate	If you want to track the money that you owe vendors or that are owed by customers, you will need to use the Purchases and Sales command centers. Before you can use these command centers, you need to complete the sales and purchases setup tasks in this section.
Advanced	If you want to track the on-hand quantity and value of items you buy and sell, you need to create records to store the details of your items. You do this using the Inventory command center. Also, when you buy and sell an item, you will need to record details about each transaction (such as who you purchased the items from, how many you purchased, and the price). You do this using the Sales and Purchases command centers. Hence, you need to complete the sales and purchases setup tasks in this section.

When did your business start operating?

The setup tasks you need to complete will also depend on whether your business was operating prior to your conversion month.

The following table describes the setup required for new and existing businesses.


Business status	Setup required
New	If you have just started your business, you may have very little information about your future customers, vendors, employees, and items that you buy or sell. You can add these details later when you have more information. However, if you intend using the advanced features of your software (such as recording invoices or tracking departmental profit), you should read through the setup tasks to see which features you might use and the tasks you need to complete to start using them.
Existing	If your business was operating prior to your conversion month, it is likely that transactions that occurred prior to your conversion month still affect your business. For example, a customer may owe you money for sales you made prior to your conversion month, or you may have outstanding bills to pay. You will need to enter these historical details in your company file.

Advanced tasks

You may not need to do every task. An introduction to each task helps you determine whether you need to do the task and, if so, the information you needSet up sales

You can use the sales features to:

▪	prepare sales quotes, orders, and invoices

▪	generate statements

▪	view customer sales history

▪	see how much your customers owe you.

note : Do you need to do this task?

If you want to record sales and print invoices or statements, you need to set up the sales features.

Before you start using the sales features, you should enter the following information:

▪	Credit terms and credit limits Enter the credit terms and credit limits you generally extend to your customers.

▪	Customer details Create a record for each of your customers and enter such details as their addresses and phone numbers.

▪	Historical sales [Existing businesses only] If customers owed you money on the first day of your conversion month, you will need to record some details about the corresponding sales, such as the invoice date and the amount that is outstanding.

You can use the Sales Easy Setup Assistant to do these tasks. To access the assistant, go to the Setup menu, choose Easy Setup Assistant, and then click Sales.

You can also use the Sales Easy Setup Assistant to specify your preferred invoice layout, the income account you will allocate most of your sales to, and several other settings. These settings will automatically be selected for new customer records you create; however, you can change them as required.

Optional sales setup tasks

In addition to the Sales Easy Setup Assistant tasks, you may also want to do the following tasks if they are relevant to your business.

Task

See

Customize forms

Change the appearance of the default invoice and statement forms.

Customizing forms

Import cards

Import customer information from:

•	another company file

•	another accounting system

•	a spreadsheet

•	a text file.

Importing data

Synchronize customer records with Mac Address Book

Synchronize your customer card records with your contact records in Mac Address Book.

Synchronizing AccountEdge cards with Mac Address Book cards

Synchronize customer records with Outlook for Windows

Synchronize your customer card records with your contact records in Microsoft Outlookfor windows.

Synchronizing AccountEdge cards with Microsoft Outlook contacts

Create job records

Create job records to track the progress and profitability of the work you do for your clients.

Jobs

Group cards

Use identifiers and custom lists to group the cards of customers who have similar attributes.

Grouping your contacts