That's great to hear, @KEE Tradesman LLC! Here's what you'll do -
Let's wrap up a couple things in your QuickBooks Essentials account first:
1 - Download all of your reports for your records
2 - Cancel your QBO Essentials account from the Gear Icon
Sign in to your QBO Essentials account
Select the Gear Icon
Select Account and Settings
Select Billing and Subscriptions
In the QuickBooks section, select Cancel
Select Continue to Cancel, then Continue to Cancel again
Finally, answer the exit survey questions (to help us improve QBO/understand your reason for canceling), then scroll down and select Confirm Cancel
Now that you've canceled your QBO Essentials account, we can start your QB Self-Employed account:
3 - Sign up for QBSE
You can choose to Buy now for 50% off for the first 3 months (pricing is subject to change) or toggle to sign up for the Free trial for 30 days
Upon sign-up, you'll be asked to start an Intuit account. Since you already have an Intuit account (your username and password for your QBO Essentials account), you can select Sign In and use your existing Intuit login credentials. Check out my second image attached as an example.
4 - Setup your account
Start by setting up your bank accounts for automatic categorization
From the Gear icon, select Bank Accounts and setup your banks
Once the bank accounts are set up, you'll see your bank transactions in the Transactions tab. This is where you'll categorize your transactions as "Business" or "Personal". You can also set up Rules which allow QBSE to automatically categorize recurring transactions for you.
Setup your Tax Profile
This is very important in order for QuickBooks to accurately estimate your quarterly taxes.
From the Gear icon, select Tax Profile and complete all the information in the profile and save.
Setup your Vehicle Profile (if you will be tracking your business mileage)
From the Gear icon, select Vehicle Info and enter your vehicle's information and save.
Once you wrap this up, you'll track your mileage in the QuickBooks Self-Employed mobile app on your cell phone (we'll cover this a bit later).
Setup your Home Office profile (if you have a home office)
From the Taxes tab on the left-hand menu, select Annual, scroll down and expand Home Office Deduction. Complete the information about your home office.
Setup your Invoicing
From the Invoices tab on the left-hand menu, you have the option to set up your Merchant Services account or create an invoice. We encourage setting up your merchant services account to receive your payments faster from your clients.
Setup your Invoice Profile
Select Create a new invoice and from the bottom of the invoice, fill out your Invoice Profile
I hope this helps! Please feel free to let me know if there's any place of confusion, or if you have any more questions.
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