How to Set Up Customers and Jobs in QuickBooks 2019

Watch this QuickBooks 2019 training tutorial video, we will discuss the customer center to see how to set up a customer’s information. We will go through the sample file and explore the different options we can fill up in customer information page.

Welcome back. We are now starting in module four where we’re going to talk about working with customers and jobs. This will be the module where we start talking about your accounts receivable.

You have the ability in QuickBooks to track each customer that you do different jobs for but you can also track the jobs individually as well. So if you wanted to track them separately or all together as one customer you can do that.

Let’s go ahead and get started here with section one where I show you how to set up some of those customers and jobs and then there will be a second part to this. Make sure you watch both parts.

The first thing you’ll need to do is enter your customer name and their information in the Customer Center. The way you’re going to get to the Customer Center is from your Home screen you’re going to click Customers right here.

Remember you could also get to the same place by clicking Customers up here on your icon bar or go into the menu where it says Customers and accessing the Customer Center this way.

This is a list of all of your existing customers right here and you’ll notice they’re set up alphabetically by last name. That is not something QuickBooks does automatically. It’s something you will have to remember to do when you create your customer.

It doesn’t matter how you set this list up but just do it in an order that’s good for you so you can find those customers when you go to look for them.

When you’re looking at this list if you need to make this column a little bit wider you can actually pull this line that separates the column just like you would an Excel spreadsheet and that way you can see the full name.

This column here shows you the balance that’s owed per customer and also per job. This last column is where you would have an attachment if you had set one up.

You would actually double click there and that would actually open up this screen where you could go and get a file that’s in your computer by clicking here or you can scan something right here or you can drag and drop something that you might have on your desktop or in Outlook or something right into this window here.

Whatever you do when you click Done it will be attached there and that way you can double click in the future and go open that up without having to leave QuickBooks to do that.

Notice I’m looking at the active customers currently. If I pull this list down I can also look at the full customer list. If you’re looking at the full customer list you’ll notice there’s this area on the left here that’s kind of blank. And if you scroll down you might see an X there.

If I click next to a customer name and you see an X that means that customer is now inactive. What that means is that when you’re in QuickBooks working and you pull down a list of the customers this customer will not show up on the list because they’re inactive.

However, they can always be activated again just by clicking the same X to activate them. And also if you’re actually wanting to use them somewhere else in QuickBooks and you just type their name in it’ll ask you would you like to activate them at that particular time as well.

Let me go ahead and pick Active Customers again. You’ll notice also the customer clicked on the information you see on the right side of the screen has to do with that customer or that particular job if you’re clicked on a job.

Here you see the customer information like their name and their address if they have phone numbers that you’ve recorded and email address. You’ll see all that right here.

There are also some quick reports you can run related to this customer over here on the right. These are just links and you would click and run that particular report.

Here is where you would actually attach a file. It’s the exact same thing I showed you a moment ago as far as double clicking over on the left here.

And then this is how you would edit that customer information. You would just click the little pencil icon, make your changes, and then click OK at the bottom and those changes would then be reflected on this window.

A neat little thing that you might notice as well is there’s a map and some directions here. Now if you notice I can put my mouse on this line that separates the two parts of this window and drag straight down.

That’ll give me a little more room. If I click the Map option it’s actually going to open Google Maps and give you a map to that particular address. Really cool little feature there.

At the bottom of the window you’ll notice there are several different tabs and the first one is the Transactions tab. These would be any transactions that occurred for that particular customer job that you’re clicked on.

if you wanted to go to one of those particular transactions you just double click on it and it’ll take you right to that transaction. This is a great way if you wanted to search for something instead of having to search all through QuickBooks and using the Find feature if you can get to this window and pull up your customer transactions you can just double click and go right to it.

Currently, I’m looking at all the transactions. Notice that I can filter this list by looking at just invoices or just credit memos if I wanted to. I can also come over here and filter by date if I like.

So, currently I’m showing the fiscal year but I could choose to look at anything that happened last week, last month. You get the idea.

At the bottom of this list, you’ll notice an option that says Manage Transactions. Here I could go ahead and create any of these transactions for my particular customer but chances are you’re not going to be on this screen when you want to actually create one of these transactions. These are actually on the Home screen.

Also, notice I can run some reports down here if I want to. This would let me view this list in a report format.

The next tab over is my Contacts tab. These would be any contacts that I have dealings with associated with my customer. It could be the actual customer himself, it could be the person that works in the front office, the partner. All you would have to do is come down to the Manage Contacts and add a new contact.

When you add a new contact it’s going to ask you information like the job title, the person’s first name, their last name, and you’ll see there are some fields where you can plug in phone numbers, email addresses, etcetera.

And also are they a primary contact, a secondary or an additional contact right up at the top here? Once you fill that in you would just Save & Close and that information would show up just like you see right here as a contact.

Now if I wanted to open this contact I’d double-click on it and that would be like editing the contact and I could Save & Close it or just look at the information if that’s all I needed.

The next tab over are your To Do’s. To Do’s are things you have to take care of related to this particular customer. You might have to make a phone call, it could be you need to set up a meeting, you need to create an email and send it. These are To Do’s right here. And you can also see the status of your To Do’s. Are they done? Are they still active? Or are they inactive? And also you can look at these by date if you’d like to.

Let’s set up a To Do so you can see how this works. I’m going to come to the bottom where it says Manage To Do’s and create a new To Do. Here’s where I specify what type of To Do this happens to be. And also where I set the priority. Is it high priority, low or medium?

It will assume it’s with the customer that you’re clicked on but you can always change that to a vendor, a lead or an employee if you want. You would need to set a due date for that To Do. And if you wanted to put a time in here you have to check this little box and then the time becomes available.

Then all you do is put the details of your To Do down here on the Detail section. We’ll say Set up meeting with Aaron. I’m going to go ahead and click OK and now you’ll see that To Do shows up down here at the bottom.

Now once I’ve completed that To Do I would want to go ahead and double click where it says Done and then this will pop up and then I can change the status to Done and it will look like this with a checkmark there.

The next tab over are your Notes. Your notes would be any notes you want to keep related to this particular customer. All you would do is come to the bottom where it says Manage Notes and add a new note. You can put anything you want here in the Notes section.

There is a date and time stamp option you can click on and you see it just added the date and time there. And then I can write my note whatever it might be. You can turn your note into a To Do and it would show up under the To Do tab as well.

Notice you could also print that if you wanted to. I’m going to click OK and you would see any notes you had set up right here.

Now the last tab is your Sent Emails. One of the features you have in QuickBooks is the ability to email any form to your customer. A form might be an invoice, for example.

Once you actually send that out it will be tracked right here so that you could see a list of these any time you wanted to.

Let’s go ahead and do this. I’d like to set up a new customer and show you all of the things that you’re going to have to tell it when you set up that new customer. Let’s go ahead and flip over to part two of module four. That will be working with Customers and Jobs Part 2.

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.