Get started and adjust settings after you sign up for QuickBooks Online

Welcome to QuickBooks Online! When you first sign in to your QuickBooks Online account, you'll be directed to the homepage dashboard. Your dashboard displays an overview of your company, a checklist to help you get set up, and a Task list for anything that may need your attention.

In this article, you'll learn how to:

• Get to know your Home Dashboard
• Set up your company
• Manage users and their access
• Edit contact and sign-in information

Get to know your Home Dashboard

The QuickBooks dashboard is your home base for everything you need to do in QuickBooks Online. It's divided into three tabs: Home (Take me there), Cash flow (Take me there), and Planner (Take me there). These tabs help you focus on the most important tasks in QuickBooks and get your work done faster. You can quickly set up and explore how your business is doing.

In addition, you can customize the homepage to highlight the info that is most important to you. Select Customize layout to add individual widgets, resize them to your needs, and drag widgets to reorder them. Gain massive insights at a glance. You can track Cash Flow, your business's profitability with profit and loss, expenses, income and sales widgets, and see all your connected bank account balances in one place.

Modify the Shortcuts widget to include your most frequently used transactions. Create an invoice, review banking transactions, record a bill on the fly, quickly set up customers, and check on your payroll health.

Note: The dashboard view may vary from one company user to another. QuickBooks Online determines what information it displays by each user’s access rights.

Set up your company

There are two ways to start your QuickBooks setup:

Option 1: Go through the list of company settings and set them at once

1. Open Account and Settings.
2. Navigate using the sections on the left menu and edit as necessary.

Check out these videos for more details on how to set up sales, expense, and advanced settings:

How to set up Sales settings

How to set up Expense settings

How to set up Advanced settings

Option 2: Configure settings as you work

When it's your first time creating a report, a setup interview window will open for you. Each setup interview has simple, straightforward questions about what you’re looking to do and how you’re planning to use the function you're using at that time.

When you answer these questions, you automatically configure your settings. You can answer some or all of the interview questions right away, or you can select Cancel. If you cancel, the next time you sign in to QuickBooks and create a report, the setup interview opens at the point where you left off.

If you want to change a setting, you can always open Account and Settings.

Manage users and their access

Users include the primary administrator and any other users the administrator has added. These users count toward your current user limit.

You must be a Primary Administrator or a Company Administrator to add, delete, or change a user's access. To manage users, open Manage Users.

Check out this video for more info on how to add users and manage their settings:

How to add and manage users

Edit contact and sign-in information

QuickBooks Online allows you to change your own name, address, phone number, email address, and user ID. If you have the appropriate access, you can change another user's name, email address, and access rights.

To change your own contact and sign-in information:

1. Open Company, then select Edit ✏️ in Contact info.
2. Edit the information as necessary.
3. Select Save and then Done.

To change contact and sign-in information for another user:

1. Open Manage users.
2. Select the user that you want to change then Edit.
3. Update the information as necessary.
4. Select Save changes.