This practical, step-by-step course walks you through the most common transaction workflows you'll face when running the books of a real small business in QuickBooks Online 2026. Using the "Get Great Guitars" practice file, you'll move beyond setup and beginning balances into the day-to-day data entry that bookkeepers, accountants, and business owners actually perform — with every transaction tied back to its impact on the balance sheet, profit and loss statement, and trial balance so you understand not just what to click, but why the numbers move.

You'll start at the financing stage — recording owner contributions and bank loan deposits that capitalize the business — then progress through the acquisition of fixed assets (property, plant, and equipment), short-term investments in stocks and bonds, and the full inventory purchase cycle using purchase orders and linked vendor payments. From there, the course shifts to the revenue side: creating invoices for inventory sales tracked on a perpetual basis, recording customer payments against open invoices, processing point-of-sale sales receipts, and finally moving funds from undeposited funds into the checking account through proper deposit forms.

Each lesson is built around the same pedagogical pattern: open the financial statements side by side, perform the transaction, and then review exactly how the entry flows through the books. By the end of the course, you'll be able to confidently handle the core transaction types that make up the majority of bookkeeping work in any product- or service-based business — and you'll understand the accounting logic behind every form QuickBooks Online presents.

This course is ideal for bookkeepers, accounting students, small business owners, and anyone preparing to take over the books of an existing company or set up a new one from scratch.

Topics Covered:

1. Recording deposits from owner investments and bank loans to capitalize a new business
2. Recording the purchase of fixed assets (property, plant, and equipment / depreciable assets)
3. Recording short-term investments in stocks and bonds
4. Entering purchase order (PO) forms for inventory ordering
5. Recording cash payments for inventory linked back to an open purchase order
6. Creating invoice forms for inventory sales using perpetual inventory tracking
7. Entering received payment transaction forms to apply customer payments to outstanding invoices
8. Processing sales receipt forms for point-of-sale transactions
9. Recording deposits to the checking account from undeposited funds
10. Reading and interpreting the Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss, and Trial Balance side by side as transactions are entered
11. Understanding the accounting impact of each QuickBooks Online form on financial statements
12. Working with a realistic practice file (Get Great Guitars) to reinforce real-world workflows