Customize your QuickBooks display

Learn how to customize your workspace, toolbar, tabs, and color display in QuickBooks for Mac.

If you use specific features every time you use QuickBooks, you can customize them so the default display shows what’s most important to you. Here’s how.

Set up your default workspace

You can set the transaction windows you want to automatically show up when you open QuickBooks.

1. Open a transaction window you often use, like Write Checks.
2. Go to the Window menu.
3. Select Workspace, then Save Workspace. Do this for other transaction windows.

The next time you open QuickBooks, your new window arrangement will be the default.

Customize your QuickBooks toolbar

You can customize your toolbar to help you with your daily QuickBooks tasks.

1. Go to the QuickBooks menu, then select Settings.
2. Select Toolbar/Tabs.
3. Select the changes you want to make:
   • Select Display Toolbar if you want to see the toolbar while using QuickBooks. Then, select how you want it to show up: Vertical or Horizontal.
   • Select Keep Vertical Toolbar Expanded if you want the vertical toolbar to be expanded at all times.

You can also add transaction icons or windows to the toolbar so you can easily open them up.

• To add or remove icons, just drag and drop them in the toolbar. To rearrange them, drag them around the toolbar.
• To add a link to a transaction window on the toolbar:
  1. Open the window you want to link, then select Customize on the toolbar.
  2. Drag the window to the toolbar.
  3. Add a description, then choose an icon for the link.

Use tabbed windows

You can set up transaction windows to open up as tabs to maximize space.

1. Go to the QuickBooks menu, then select Settings.
2. Select Toolbar/Tabs.
3. Select Use Tabbed Windows.
4. Select how you want to organize your windows:
   • Select Tab Similar Windows Together to combine or tab similar windows such as forms, reports, lists, centers, and registers.
   • Select Tab All Windows Together to combine or tab all windows.

Use Dark Mode

For macOS Mojave (10.14) and later versions, you can use Dark Mode in QuickBooks.

1. Go to the Apple menu, then select System Settings.
2. Select General, then select Dark.

Note: When you select an accent color, QuickBooks uses it for icons and buttons.

Customize the color of your account registers

You can assign colors to your account registers to make your daily tasks more fun. You can do this if you use QuickBooks in Light or Dark Mode.

1. Open any account register.
2. At the upper right, select the color ▼ dropdown. For more options, you can select Other to open the color palette.
3. Select the color you want your register to show up. The register content, text, and rows appear in that color.
4. If you don’t want the text to show up in the color you chose, select the color ▼ dropdown. Then, uncheck Allows Color Text.