Managing Customer, Vendor, and Products and Services Lists

Now that you’ve created your company files, it’s time to add the people you do business with on a regular basis. This includes the customers to whom you sell your products and services and the vendors from whom you purchase services and supplies. We will also cover how to create a products and services list in QuickBooks Online so that you can keep track of your sales.

In this chapter, we will cover the following key concepts:

• Managing customer lists in QuickBooks Online
• Managing vendor lists in QuickBooks Online
• Managing products and services lists in QuickBooks Online

By the end of this chapter, you will understand how to add, edit, delete, and merge customers, vendors, and products and services that you sell.

The US edition of QBO was used to create this book. If you are using a version that is outside of the US, results may differ.

Managing customer lists in QuickBooks Online

A customer is anyone that you sell products or services to. A customer can be an individual or a business.

Some of the information QuickBooks Online allows you to keep track of related to customers includes contact information, such as their telephone number and email address, payment terms, invoicing, and payment history. You can enter customer information manually or import it from an Excel spreadsheet. If you need to make changes to the contact information for a customer, you can do so easily. If you stop doing business with a customer, you can make customers inactive so that they no longer appear in the customer listing. You can also merge customers if you have duplicates. In this section, we will show you how each of these works, beginning with manually adding customers.

Manually adding customers in QuickBooks Online

In order to add new customers to QuickBooks Online (QBO), you need to have the basic contact details of...

Managing vendor lists in QuickBooks Online

A vendor is an individual or a business that you pay. Vendors can be 1099 contractors, which are independent contractors whom you pay $600 or more in a calendar year, utility companies, or businesses you purchase products from. Similar to customers, you can keep track of all vendor information, such as the company’s address, telephone number, email address, and federal tax ID number for 1099 reporting. 1099 reporting is required for contractors that you have paid $600 or more to within a calendar year.

In this section, we will show you how to add new vendors, edit existing vendors, inactivate vendors, and merge vendors in QuickBooks.

Manually adding vendors in QuickBooks Online

To add new vendors to QBO, you need to have each vendor’s contact details. This includes a business telephone number, remit to address, email address, and tax ID number (or social security number) for 1099 vendors You can also enter the payment...

Managing products and services lists in QuickBooks Online

The products and services that you sell are referred to as items in QuickBooks. You can track all of the products and services that you sell in QuickBooks Online. This includes the product name, product (item) number, product description, cost, selling price, and quantity on hand. It’s important to set up products and/or services so that you can easily invoice customers for their purchases. In addition, these items are linked to an account on the chart of accounts so that QuickBooks can do the accounting behind the scenes for you. Once you have added products and services to QuickBooks, you will be able to run detailed reports on the products and services you sell.

In this section, we will cover how to manually add items, import items, modify existing items, inactivate items, and merge items in QuickBooks Online. You will need to create items in order to invoice customers.

Pro Tip: Keep in mind that you...

Summary

In this chapter, we covered how to manage customer data by manually adding and importing the information, editing existing customers, and inactivating customers you no longer do business with.

In addition, we covered how to manage vendor data by manually adding and importing the information, editing existing vendors, inactivating vendors you no longer do business with, and merging duplicate customer and vendor records.

Finally, we showed you how to manage products and services, also referred to as items, including how to add and import data, how to edit existing products and services, how to inactivate products and services, and how to merge service items in QuickBooks Online.

Keep in mind that you will need to update customer, vendor, and products and services lists when the information changes. For example, if customers and vendors move, you will need to update your records with their new mailing address. In addition, if you start selling new products and services...