A learning place

People sometime find that they are new to QuickBooks? , but have to jump in and use it for the records of their business, and start to feel tense. There is a way out: a second company file, set up just for learning QuickBooks? . It could be set up in the interview, but would need to be filled with the same information.

A second company can be set up by a simple process of copying. It may be better to get some account information into your company file, and then make a copy. Before making a copy, you need to know where the file is, and it is easy to find out. Assuming that you have QuickBooks? 3 or later, click File|Open company. (You may have to click File|Close company, first.) Do not proceed to open the company. The display will show the file name and path. The file name will be of the form company.qbw and the path (file name and directory) is c:\qbooksw in most cases. Press Escape to terminate the File|Open command. The next step will not work if a file is open.

Use the operating system (Chapter 23 or Chapter 24) to make a copy of your company file. The suffix .qbw must be kept, so that QuickBooks? will recognize the file. Something like learn.qbw would do well.

Back in QuickBooks? , open that company. Within it, open the bank account register. Click Edit|Change account color. Select a color that will not let you forget that this is not your real company. You may want to do this with Receivables, also. Transactions entered here cannot be copied to the real company. On the other hand, use of this file is like driving a car with a sign on the top that says "Driving School." It is a license to blunder. You don't even have to worry about hitting anything.