
Instead, what you see when you type in the URL for QuickBooks Online is actually closer to a true dashboard than what QuickBooks 2013 for the desktop offers. You still have access to the graphical “process map” that has been the center of QuickBooks desktop versions for years, but you have to click Home | Getting Around to see an abbreviated version of it. QuickBooks Online doesn’t offer as much flexibility. Any other windows you have open when you click Save Current Desktop will also be available at launch. So you could set your Desktop View Preference to display one of your Snapshots every time you open your company file. There are several more, and you can choose which ones to show. The Payments Snapshot, for example, consists of several mini-windows containing graphs and tables for data like Invoice Payment Status, A/R by Aging Period and Recent Transactions. Each gives you an overview of the most critical activity and information in those areas. These three screens are as close to true dashboards as QuickBooks comes. You have some control over what page opens when you run the desktop version of QuickBooks.Ĭlick on the Company menu, then select Company Snapshot. This is where QuickBooks lets you specify what screen should open when you launch the program. Open the Edit menu and select Preferences and then Desktop View.


If you’ve ever taken a QuickBooks training course, you’ve probably learned about all of the program’s “Preferences.” These are simply groups of options that let you customize QuickBooks to better match your workflow. The opening screen has been cleaned up and streamlined to make your work experience more pleasant and productive.įamiliar, but better: QuickBooks 2013 took a giant leap in terms of usability.

The programs have matured so much over the years that the Home Page was beginning to get crowded and a bit claustrophobic. Intuit completely revamped its software’s user interfaces in the 2013 versions. We’ll look at the differences here so you can learn to use QuickBooks’ options. But QuickBooks Online provides more of a true dashboard. They also provide “Snapshots” of different sections of the programs. QuickBooks Pro and Premier offer more flexibility in terms of where the program opens than does QuickBooks Online. QuickBooks Online and the desktop versions have very different Home Pages. People generally consider this their Home Page. The word just refers to kind of a home base, a screen or page you can turn to when you want an overview of whatever information you’re creating and tracking. You may have run across the term “dashboard” as you work with your computer applications. What do you see when you first run QuickBooks? Does it help you start the day?
