Creating and Managing Accounts

Hey @AbbeyBear,

Getting organized and structuring your accounts in a way that makes sense to you is key. Besides the standard Chart of Accounts and the advice from @lynda, you might want to start thinking about how you'd organize your income and expenses into parent and subaccounts.

To start with a simple example, you might consider organizing all of your "Marketing" expenses as such:

• Advertising (Account Type: Expenses / Detail Type: Advertising/Promotional)
  
  
  • Marketing expenses (Account Type: Expenses / Detail Type: Advertising/Promotional, sub account of "Advertising")
    
    
    • TV ads  (Account Type: Expenses / Detail Type: Advertising/Promotional, sub account of "Marketing Expenses")
      
      
      • Channel 1 ad (Account Type: Expenses / Detail Type: Advertising/Promotional, sub account of "TV ads")
        
        
      • Channel 2 ad  (Account Type: Expenses / Detail Type: Advertising/Promotional, sub account of "TV ads")
        
        
    • Paper advertisements (Account Type: Expenses / Detail Type: Advertising/Promotional, sub account of "Marketing Expenses")
      
      
      • Magazine 1 ads (Account Type: Expenses / Detail Type: Advertising/Promotional, sub account of "Paper advertisements")
        
        
      • Local newspaper ads (Account Type: Expenses / Detail Type: Advertising/Promotional, sub account of "Paper advertisements")
        

         

Since these don't have a long lifespan (<1 year), you'd categorize them as expenses. Go into your Accounting Tab, select the Chart of Accoutns, and create a few new accounts. The workflow will look like this: 

On the other hand, if you have equipment such as computers/tablets, tables and signage that you plan to hold onto for more than 1 year that's owned by and exclusively used for your business, can create a Fixed Asset  account to track your equipment:

• Computers (Account Type: Fixed Asset/ Detail Type: Fixed Asset Computers)
  
  
  • Computers in office (Account Type: Fixed Asset / Detail Type: Fixed Asset Computers - is a sub-account of "Computers")
    
    
  • Tablets for tabling  (Account Type: Fixed Asset / Detail Type: Fixed Asset Computers - is a sub-account of "Computers")
    
    

     

• Tabling Equipment (Account Type: Fixed Asset/ Detail Type: Fixed Asset Equipment)
  
  
  • Tables (Account Type: Fixed Asset/ Detail Type: Fixed Asset Equipment, is a sub-account of "Equipment")
    
    
  • Signs for tabling events (Account Type: Fixed Asset/ Detail Type: Fixed Asset Equipment, is a sub-account of "Equipment")
    
    Note: if you plan to track things like vehicle costs, reach out to your accountant so you can properly account for the depreciation. 

You can follow a similar process for your labelling and bottling. I don't know about any special taxation associated with these since I am not in the industry (that's a good question for your accountant).

Correct me if I am wrong, @lynda, but if Abbey wants to track the cost of bottling (the labor and the materials) and labelling and have them be an aggregate of your "Production costs," she could create a Cost of Goods Sold  account and then sub-accounts under each: 

• Bottling  
  • Materials (Account type: Costs of Good Sold, Detail type: Supplies and Materials)  
    
    
  • Labor (Account type: Costs of Good Sold, Detail type: Cost of Labor)  
    
    
• Labelling
  • Materials  (Account type: Costs of Good Sold, Detail type: Supplies and Materials)  
    
    
  • Labor (Account type: Costs of Good Sold, Detail type: Cost of Labor)  
    
    

This way, you can associate and calculate these costs against your sales so you have an accurate end-to-end view the entire sales cycle per bottle. At this point, however, the accounting is getting fairly complicated and I'd recommend reaching out to an accountant to get this set up comprehensively from the start. 

Also, @WineGuy has tons of experience in the wine industry and may be able to offer some invaluable insight. Hope this gets you started on the right track.

Getting Started with QuickBooks Online

• “Setting up for Success” – Task-based tutorials for first-time users

• “Your First-time with QuickBooks Online” – Time-specific workflows for first-time users

• “The QuickBooks Encyclopedia” – Basic accounting and QuickBooks feature definitions