How to Use QuickBooks Registers in QuickBooks 2019

Watch the QuickBooks 2019 video tutorial. We will talk about working with the register.  In this video, we will show how to use registers and its overview.

Hey there! Welcome back. We are now in module seven. In this particular module, we are going to talk about some of the different banking activities that QuickBooks has available.

In the first module, we’re going to talk about working with the registers. A register would be like your checkbook register, for example.

You’re going to see there are several different types of registers and I wanted to go through each one with you to show you a little bit about how they work. And show you about what kind of information you can get when you’re looking at a register.

You’ll probably spend most of your time looking at your checkbook register. I wanted to show you a couple of different ways from the Home screen (that you can get to the register).

One is if you look over (here) where it says: “Account Balances”. You will see the checking here. Double click and go right to your checkbook register.

Now, another way you can do this from the Home screen (if you notice right here). It says: “Check Register“. If you click here, then it will ask you to select an account. And, you do have a dropdown and you can see that you have a couple of different bank accounts here.

You could select the one you want and click OK and then you’re in the checkbook register this way. There are more registers than just the checking account register. And I wanted to go show those to you.

You’re going to have to get to those through the Chart of Accounts. So let me go ahead and open this, and then, we’ll see our checking, our savings, and our petty cash register right there at the top.

Now, if you notice when you’re looking at the Chart of Accounts, (all of the ones that have a balance right here) they all have a register you can go look at. You’ll notice if I scroll down this list, and I get down here to where you see the income accounts, all the way down, there are no balances there.

That means that if I double click these, I’ll actually get a report. And then, when I double click any of these (where I see a balance total), I’ll get a register.

For example, let’s say that I opened this one that says: “Vehicles”. When I open it here’s the vehicles register. And all of these can be closed with the X at the top.

I’m going to open the checking account register and let’s just look at how these are set up and some different ways you can view the register and get some different information.

When you’re looking at the register here you’ll notice it looks very similar to the one that you would actually have in your desk. There is going to be a place for the date.

There’s a field for the check number, and that field can hold anything you want to put in the field. You can leave it blank, you can write the word Debit. If you like check numbers, that’s fine.

The next thing is your payee. If you’re writing a check who would that check be made payable to. You’re going to see the payment amount here. And if it happens to be a deposit, you’ll see that amount here and then, of course, the balance. The running balance in your register here.

The second line is going to be your Chart of Accounts. You also have a place for a memo line right over here.

Now, if you’d rather see this in what they call a one-line fashion, I want to show you a different view, a different way you can look at this register. All the way down in the bottom left of your screen, you’ll see one line and there’s a checkbox. Now, you’ll notice that everything is on one line. It’s the same fields, just on one line. You can always go uncheck that to take it off if you don’t like that.

The other thing is notice, this list, it is sorted by date right now and that’s probably how you want the list sorted. But notice that I have some options.

I could sort these by amount. I could sort the transactions by the cleared status. You can just see the different ways you can sort the list here.

Also, I want you to notice on each transaction right in this area. It tells you what type of transaction this is. If we go up near the top, you’re going to see that there are some options you can use to search for things in the register.

For example, the Go To. Let’s say you’re looking for a particular payee. You could actually put that payee’s name right here and search Back or Next.

Back means wherever you’re clicked you will go up in the list. Next means wherever you’re clicked you’ll go down in the list when you’re searching.

I might choose to search by the number instead or an amount, (just depending on what information I do know) before I choose to search.

This register can be printed. You can specify the date range you’d like. And also, if you wanted to print the splits. The splits basically mean that if that transaction is split amongst more than one account or more than one line item on the account (you would see those details as well).

You can edit the transaction you’re clicked on. If you make a change to this transaction and Save & Close at the bottom then the changes will be reflected in the register as soon as you see it.

If you don’t want to click Edit Transaction, you can actually double click right in this area where it says, Bill Payment, for example, and that’s another way to pull it up and edit that transaction.

The next thing you’ll see is what they call a Quick Report. If you notice I’m on Daigle Lighting. If I run a quick report then what I’m seeing is all of the checks in the register for Daigle Lighting. So, it’s just a quick report on that particular vendor.

I also can download the transactions. And we’re going to talk about that over in section two in just a moment.

Now, a few other things I just want to make note of. You’ll notice there’s a column here that has a checkmark, and some of these are checked and some are not. As a matter of fact, let me scroll up the list here so you can see this.

You see how these have a checkmark? Those are transactions that have already been reconciled. What you do not want to do is uncheck one that’s already checked or check where there’s a blank space right now.

Either one of those can throw out your reconciliation. So just make sure you don’t check or uncheck those.

One very important thing to know about the register. You’ve already seen that things dump into the register automatically.

Let me go back and show you what I’m talking about. If you remember on the Home screen one of the things we did was we entered bills and we went to pay bills.

At that point, it dumped the check we wrote into the register. So, there was no need to go to the register and actually add that check.

The other side is when we talked about our customers. We actually had gone through and created invoices, received payments, and then we recorded the deposit here.

Again, there was no reason to go into the register and add that deposit. Because QuickBooks did it for us at this particular point.

There are some things that you will have to manually put in the register. For example, what if you go to the ATM? You’ll need to enter that information.

What if you just used the debit card for lunch somewhere? You’ll need to enter that type of information. So, I’d say a good 70% of the time you’re going to stay out of the register, but then you will have that 30% where you have to type.

Now when you’re ready to type in the register all you want to do is go to the very bottom. There will be a blank one available. And you will just type your information all the way across.

The other thing is if you were on the Home screen and you went over to the Write Checks feature, whenever you click Save & Close on this window then it’s automatically in the register as a transaction.

The last thing I’ll just mention real quick is when we use the term Checks in QuickBooks a check would be anything that came out of the bank account. If you think about this when you’re looking at the register money can only go in or out.

The way it comes out could be electronically withdrawn. It could be that you used a debit card, an ATM. It really doesn’t matter how the money came out of the account.

It’s considered a check in QuickBooks and you would enter it all the exact same way. The only way to denote the difference is maybe you put something in this particular field right here. Maybe the word ATM-like we’ve discussed or the word Debit.

So, that’s a quick overview of how the registers work. I’m going to go ahead and close this particular one. I want to talk to you over in section two a little bit about downloading transactions from the bank into your registers.

Cindy McGuckin

Cindy McGuckin is an IT trainer with over 20 years of experience. Cindy currently manages the IT Training Department at Trident Technical College, she's a Member of the Association of IT Professionals, Charleston, SC chapter and the Treasurer of the South Carolina Association of Continuing Higher Education.Cindy is a Microsoft Office and QuickBooks expert and her online courses have received hundreds of 5-star reviews. Her no-nonsense approach to teaching complicated topics makes her classes engaging and interesting.