Quicken All-In-One Desk Reference

About This Book

The Quicken All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies is a reference book, not meant to be read in any particular order. Just as you would pick up a gar¬dening book and look to the Table of Contents and the Index for the particu¬lar flowers or shrubs about which you want to know more, I envision you picking up this book and seeking a path to the financial topics you want to study.

You’ll notice that, unlike many other Quicken books on the market, this book does not refer to a specific version of the Quicken program. Although I’ve used the most up-to-date version of the program for my illustrations and examples, I’ve tried to make the book all-encompassing and useful to owners of any version of Quicken. After all, the rules for basic data entry in Quicken programs over the years have changed very little. I’ve tried to encompass that continuity and produce a book that can be read by more than the small group who happened to purchase the current model.

When it comes to finding your way around, I hope you’ll refer to the Table of Contents and the Index extensively, as they have been constructed with logic and significance in mind. They should lead you directly to the parts of the book that provide you with the information you need.
I strived to avoid redundancy in this book, and yet there are certainly times when one topic requires material from another topic to make an explanation understandable. In these cases, I included cross-references to other parts of the book where you can flip to if you want related or, in some cases, more in-depth information.

How This Book Is Organized

The Quicken All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies is a compendium of eight separate books, each covering a completely different aspect of Quicken and personal finances. The minibooks all get along together and freely talk about each other behind their respective backs, but you might find that some books are more to your liking than others, and nobody’s going to mind if that hap¬pens. Here’s a rundown of what you can expect in each of the books.

Book I: Personal Finance Basics

I take back everything I said about your needing to have Quicken. You don’t even need Quicken for Book I: This is all about finances and nothing about computers. The idea behind Book I is to get you up to speed on a variety of basic areas of personal finance — areas that can then be translated into Quicken in later books. This personal finance minibook provides you with essential information about earning and spending your money, borrowing money, improving your credit score, budgeting, shopping for insurance, and saving for college and retirement.

Book II: Quicken Basics

It doesn’t matter if you’ve never used Quicken before. Book II provides all the basic how-to information necessary for setting up your finances in Quicken and learning the ropes. You discover how to install Quicken, set up your bank accounts, enter transactions, and reconcile your bank account. You also find out about the world of online banking and how to get your own accounts set up for online services, if that interests you.

Book III: Investments

One of the main reasons people purchase Quicken software is to track their investments. In Book III, you see how to do just this. You can enter all of your investment holdings in Quicken, monitor the performance of your invest¬ments, and even use Quicken to keep an eye on investments you’re consider¬ing for future purchases.

Book IV: Household Finances

Discover how you can use Quicken to help keep your debt to a minimum, stay on top of your credit card spending, reconcile your credit card accounts, save money on your mortgage, and keep track of your personal belongings for insurance purposes. Find out about Quicken’s online bill pay¬ment services, and see how you can create a budget that really works.

Book V: Taxes

You’re going to love owning Quicken when it comes time to prepare your tax return. Book V shows you how to enter information in Quicken that can be readily transferable to your tax return. No more burning the midnight oil in mid-April. Your tax return can be completed in January if you take advantage of the tax features offered in Quicken. See how to produce reports that pro¬vide the information you need for your tax return, and, if you like, find out how you can transfer your Quicken data right over to TurboTax to produce your tax return right on your own computer. Tax-planning tips round out this book that is all about individual income taxes.

Book VI: Retirement Planning and Other Saving

In Book VI, you see how to monitor your retirement saving in Quicken and receive some basic planning tools to help determine how much money you need for retirement, and how long it’s going to take you to acquire that money. You also get familiar with the rules for withdrawing money from your tax-deferred retirement accounts and find out about receiving Social Security benefits and other joys of retirement. Book VI also presents infor¬mation about saving for college, including 529 plans and other long-term savings opportunities.

Book VII: Quicken Reports

One of the primary reasons for using Quicken is to assemble all of your financial information in such a way that it can be easily accessed. When you produce reports in Quicken, you provide the tools for real financial planning and analysis. Find out about the standard reports that come with Quicken and how those reports can be useful to you. Then discover how you can cus¬tomize Quicken’s reports so that you get the exact information you need to make informed decisions about your finances.

Book VIII: Small Business Finances

Quicken is the first choice of many small businesses when it comes to track¬ing business finances. You can create customer invoices in Quicken, prepare estimates and track individual job performance, record and track accounts receivable and accounts payable, generate a payroll for your employees, record fixed assets, and produce reports that show you how your business is doing.

Appendixes

These tips and tools really relate to all of your Quicken use, so I decided to create a series of appendixes on the Web for this information. The Web site for Quicken All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies, which is located at www.dummies.com/go/quickenaio, includes the following appendixes:

♦ Backing Up Data: Find out how to back up data on-site and off-site, and about online storage of your backed-up data files.
♦ Aggravating Things About Quicken: I love the program, but that doesn’t mean Quicken is perfect. Here are a few of my pet peeves, and an opportunity for you to submit your own.
♦ Resources for Personal Finance: The Internet is full of outstanding resources for personal financial information. Here are a few noteworthy and useful sites.
♦ Getting Help with Quicken: If you’re looking for answers to sticky questions, and can’t find them here, try the variety of support sources offered by Intuit, the folks who brought you Quicken.
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