QuickBooks › Setup

QuickBooks setup that stays clean — from day one.

Published price from $850

We build the foundation properly: a chart of accounts that fits your business, feeds and rules that hold, opening balances that tie, and the apps connected cleanly. Set it up right once and the monthly close stops being a fight.

Fixed-fee, scoped in writing. QuickBooks Online or Desktop. We're a bookkeeping firm, not Intuit support.

Chart of accounts done right Opening balances that tie

Reviewed before delivery: before the file comes back to you, each account in it is reconciled to its statement and anything unresolved is written down. The six review steps.

Quick answer

A QuickBooks setup builds the file's foundation correctly the first time: a chart of accounts that actually fits the business, connected bank feeds with categorization rules, correct opening balances, and sales-tax and user-role settings configured before the first transaction lands. When the file is straightforward, it's done within a week or two of receiving your details and access.

What a real setup involves

The foundation, not just an account login.

Anyone can create a QuickBooks account in ten minutes. A setup is different work: it's the structure underneath that decides whether next year's books reconcile or drift. The piece that matters above all is the chart of accounts — shaped around how your business runs, not the generic default that turns every report into noise.

From there it's feeds and rules that categorize correctly instead of guessing, opening balances set as of your start date so the file ties to reality, and the apps you depend on — payments, payroll, point-of-sale — connected so they flow cleanly instead of double-counting.

We set the file up to be kept — ideally on a reconciled monthly close so it stays in shape.

Chart of accounts, built to fit

Structured for your operating shape so reports mean something — the part a generic template gets wrong.

Feeds, rules & opening balances

Bank and card feeds connected with rules that hold, and opening balances set so the file ties to source from day one.

Apps, users & sales tax

Payments, payroll, and POS connected cleanly; user roles and sales-tax settings configured right.

How a setup runs

Four steps to a file that stays clean.

Free consult

We learn how your business operates and which version fits, then put the fixed fee and the timeline for the setup in writing before any work starts.

Build the foundation

Chart of accounts structured for your business, products and services, sales-tax settings, and user roles configured correctly.

Connect & balance

Bank and card feeds connected with rules, app integrations linked, and opening balances set so the file ties to source.

Verify & hand over

A review before delivery that the file reconciles and reports cleanly, a short walkthrough, and an optional month-end close so it stays that way.

A table of chart-of-accounts structure by type of business: contractors split cost of goods by job with retainage and work in progress; restaurants separate food and beverage cost, send tips to a liability and show comps, voids and card fees; law practices keep client trust apart from operating funds, tracked client by client; and e-commerce sellers book sales tax as a liability by jurisdiction and break out platform fees and inventory, so each report answers a real question. — Whatever the trade, a setup passes when the owner can open a report and get a true answer to a real question.

A chart of accounts built around how you make money, by type of business
Business	Split out in the chart	So the report shows
Contractors and trades	Cost of goods by job: materials, labor, subcontractors; retainage and work in progress	Which jobs make money, a half-finished one included
Restaurants and food service	Food and beverage cost apart; tips to a liability; comps, voids and card fees visible	The margin you actually have
Law and professional practices	Client trust (IOLTA) apart from operating funds, the liability tracked client by client	Trust money kept apart, as a bar compliance review expects
E-commerce and retail	Sales tax collected as a liability by jurisdiction; platform and merchant fees; inventory and cost of goods	A real gross margin, and the sales tax you owe

Related QuickBooks work

Setup is one piece — here's the rest of the silo.

Desktop → Online migration

Already on Desktop and moving to Online? Migrated intact, with a verified cutover.

QuickBooks migration

QuickBooks cleanup

Past months already a mess? Inflated balances and broken reports fixed at the root.

QuickBooks cleanup

Online vs Desktop

Not sure which version fits? The honest comparison, by how you actually work.

Online vs Desktop

What makes a setup last

A chart of accounts is built around how you make money — not from a template.

The generic QuickBooks template hands every business the same couple dozen accounts, which is exactly why DIY reports can fail to answer a real question — the structure was never built to. What the chart of accounts actually needs depends on the work:

Contractors & trades

Cost of goods split by job, with materials, labor, and subcontractors tracked separately, and retainage and work-in-progress handled — so a half-finished job doesn't read as pure profit and a profitable-looking month isn't hiding an underwater job.

Restaurants & food service

Food and beverage cost of sales split out (they move very differently), tips flowing to a liability rather than income, comps and voids visible, and card-processing fees broken out — so the margin you read is the margin you actually have.

Law & professional practices

Client trust (IOLTA) kept rigorously separate from operating funds so the two never commingle, with the trust liability tracked client by client — the structure a bar compliance review looks at first. Bar-rule responsibility stays with the attorney; we build the books so it's clean.

E-commerce & retail

Sales tax collected booked as a liability by jurisdiction, platform and merchant fees (Stripe, Shopify, Amazon) broken out instead of buried, and inventory and cost of goods tracked — so gross margin isn't a guess and the sales-tax you owe isn't a year-end surprise.

Whatever the trade, the test is the same: can the owner open a report and get a true answer to a real question? We build the foundation so the answer is yes.

QuickBooks setup FAQ

Setting QuickBooks up right: common questions.

What does a proper QuickBooks setup include?

A real setup is the foundation everything else sits on: a chart of accounts shaped around how your business actually operates (not the generic template), bank and credit-card feeds connected with categorization rules that hold, correct opening balances as of your start date, your products and services and any sales-tax settings, user roles and permissions, and clean connections to the apps you use — payroll, payments, point-of-sale. Done right once, the monthly close stays easy; done carelessly, every month fights you.

QuickBooks was set up in a hurry and it's a mess — can the foundation be fixed?

Yes. A DIY setup goes wrong in a few predictable places, because the defaults don't know your business: a chart of accounts that doesn't match the business, bank rules miscategorizing everything, and opening balances that were never set, so nothing reconciles. We rebuild the foundation — restructure the chart of accounts, fix the feeds and rules, and set correct opening balances — so the file is clean going forward. If past months are already wrong, that's a QuickBooks cleanup, and we'll tell you which you need.

Should you set up QuickBooks Online or Desktop?

For a typical small business starting out, QuickBooks Online — it's cloud-based, works from anywhere, connects to the widest range of apps, and is the version Intuit is investing in. QuickBooks Desktop still suits a few specific cases. We help you choose honestly based on how you operate rather than defaulting to one, and the version comparison is laid out in full on our Online vs Desktop page.

How long does a QuickBooks setup take?

A straightforward setup is done within a week or two of getting your details and access; more involved files — multiple bank and credit-card accounts, inventory, payroll, or app integrations — take longer. You get a fixed scope and timeline in writing before any work starts, so there's no open-ended meter.

What do we need from you to start a setup?

Not much. To start we need access to the QuickBooks subscription (or we'll help you pick the right one), read-only or login access to your business bank and credit-card accounts so we can connect the feeds, your entity details (legal name, EIN, business type, and the date you want the books to start from), and a recent statement for each account so opening balances can be set correctly. If you have a list of customers, vendors, products, or services, that speeds things up — but if you don't, building those cleanly is part of the work.

Can you set up QuickBooks if you're coming from spreadsheets, Wave, or another app?

Yes. Moving from spreadsheets, Wave, Xero, or a shoebox is a normal starting point, not a problem. We don't need a tidy prior system — we need the source records: bank and card statements, any outstanding invoices and bills, asset and loan balances, and prior sales-tax or payroll filings if they apply. From those we build the chart of accounts and set opening balances that tie to reality as of your start date, so the new file is correct from the first day rather than carrying old errors forward.

What are "opening balances" — and why does it matter that they tie?

Opening balances are what every account is worth on the day your QuickBooks history begins: cash in each bank account, what customers owe you, what you owe vendors and lenders, the value of inventory and equipment, and your equity. They have to tie — meaning each one matches its real-world source, like the bank statement or the loan payoff — because everything after them is built on top. If the opening balances are guessed or skipped, the file never reconciles, the balance sheet is wrong from day one, and the error compounds quietly until tax time. Skipping them leaves every later reconciliation without a starting point, which is how a DIY setup turns into an expensive cleanup.

Get QuickBooks set up right.

We scope your setup, build the foundation, and verify it reconciles — fixed fee, in writing. New file or a botched DIY one, we get it clean. We verify the new setup before handoff, and the first conversation is free.

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Reviewed before delivery Fixed fee, in writing QuickBooks Online & Desktop