Setting Up A New QuickBooks Ledger Account

These are the steps for setting up a brand new Ledger account.

It’s going to start with asking you about the business.

Fill in the information and click Next.

Select the kind of business, then click Next.

Select the methods your business uses to make money and click Next.

Select what you’d like to do in QuickBooks and click Next.

I know some of these options are not available in QuickBooks Ledger, so I’m going to select them and see what happens.

We’ve made it through the setup and are in our QuickBooks Ledger account.

Inside QuickBooks Ledger

There are a lot of pop-ups that appear to teach you things. Feel free to check those out on your own; I will ignore them.

Let’s look through the software and see what it’s like.

First, the homepage and left-side grey menu look familiar. I don’t see any big differences there.

Let’s navigate to the Chart of Accounts.

Click Transactions in the menu, then Chart of accounts.

It’s a pretty boring chart of accounts to start with. 

To add accounts, click the green New button and follow along with my blog post: How to Add Accounts to the QuickBooks Online Chart of Accounts

+New Menu

Let’s take a look at the +New menu in the upper left. There’s a lot of stuff missing. 

Let’s compare it to the test drive file that uses QBO Plus.

Here we have QB Ledger on the right and QBO Plus on the left:

CUSTOMERS

The entire CUSTOMERS column does not exist in QB Ledger. You cannot add customers to QB Ledger.

VENDORS

In this column, we’re missing 

• Bill
• Pay bills
• Purchase order
• Vendor credit

EMPLOYEES

In QB Ledger, this column only has the option to add contractors.

QBO Plus has the option to upgrade and add Payroll or additional employees. (The arrow to the left of something means it’s an optional add-on). It also has employee time tracking options built in.

OTHER

In this column, we’re missing:

• Statement
• Inventory qty adjustment
• Add product/service

These are not surprising as they all involve customers/products that, as we’ve already seen, are not part of QB Ledger.

Gear Menu

Let’s take a look at the gear menu in the upper right corner and compare it to the test drive file that uses QBO Plus.

Here we have QB Ledger on the right and QBO Plus on the left:

YOUR COMPANY

In this column, we’re missing Custom for styles in Ledger.

Manage users

Let’s click on Manage users to see how many users we can add to QB Ledger.

I can see myself in the Accounting Firms tab. I can click Invite, so I know I can add at least one other accounting firm.

In the Users tab, I see myself as the Primary admin. The green button says Upgrade so I can’t add additional users.

This is similar to Simple Start where you can have 2 accounting firms and one user.

LISTS 

One major thing missing from Ledger in this column is Products and Services. Custom fields are also missing.

TOOLS

This column is the same in both versions of QBO.

PROFILE 

This column is also the same in both versions. I have Switch company in QB Ledger because I’m logged in as an accountant user.

Features  Available in Simple Start That Are Missing in Ledger

If we look at the QuickBooks Online sales page, we’ll see a list of features available in Simple Start. Everything with a red box around it is NOT available in Ledger.

Customer Related Stuff

Invoices and payments, Sales and sales tax, and Estimates are all customer-related. Customers are not included in the QB Ledger.

Receipt capture

This is something you’ll usually find with Transactions. Here’s what it looks like in QBO Plus:

You can add attachments in QB Ledger, so you can use that to keep track of your receipts.

Mileage tracking

Mileage is normally found with Expenses.  When you look at it in QBO Plus you’ll see the option to add a trip manually or download and use the QuickBooks Mobile app for automatic mileage tracking.

Connect sales channels

Sales channels are related to selling products that you don’t have in QB Ledger. Here is the information from Intuit on the sales channels you can add to other versions of QBO:

Downgrading/Upgrading Subscriptions

I looked at a sample file I have with a QuickBooks Plus subscription. When I checked out the options for downgrading this file, I found that only Essentials and Simple Start were available. 

At this time, you cannot downgrade QBO clients to Ledger.

You CAN upgrade QB Ledger to any other version of QBO.

Who Is QuickBooks Ledger For?

Looking at what’s missing, Ledger will work for businesses that run on a cash basis. It will not work for accrual-based businesses.

It will not work for businesses that track outstanding receivables or who they have sold things to. This is why Products and services were missing. Products and services go on invoices and sales receipts, and we don’t have the ability to create those in QB Ledger.

Intuit suggests the following industries as being a possible fit for QB Ledger:

These industry verticals may be a good fit, especially if the clients have minimal or infrequent transactions:

• Real estate (property management)
• Trust & estate
• Oil & gas
• Investment or private equity firms

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Below is a video if you prefer to watch a walkthrough.

If you have questions about QuickBooks Ledger click the green button below to schedule a free consultation.