After you have set up Microsoft Office Accounting 2009 and are ready to use it, you should become familiar with some of the top tasks that you can accomplish with it.

Sell to customers

• Create an invoice
  In Office Accounting 2009 there are three main ways to create an invoice: Open a new invoice form, convert a quote to an invoice, and convert a sales order to an invoice. This topic steps through all three.
• Sell products and services online
  Accounting 2009 makes it possible for you to incorporate online sales into your system. From the Online Sales home page, you can perform all the tasks related to selling your products online, from signing in to an online marketplace to listing your items and downloading orders.
• Receive a payment
  When you receive a payment from a customer, you can apply it to any unpaid invoices. A payment might cover one or more invoices, or it might not completely cover an invoice. This topic steps through what to do when you receive a payment from a customer.
• Set up taxes
  If your company is required to collect sales tax from customers and pay the collected taxes to a tax agency, you must activate the sales tax feature in Accounting 2009. This topic describes how to activate the sales tax feature in Accounting 2009.

Manage contacts in Outlook

• Integrate Office Accounting with Business Contact Manager for Outlook
  Learn how you can link Microsoft Office Outlook with Business Contact Manager and Accounting 2009 databases. Changes in Accounting 2009 records are reflected in Business Contact Manager for Outlook account records. The opposite is also true. Business Contact Manager for Outlook users with Accounting 2009 permissions can create quotes, sales orders, and invoices for Accounting 2009.

Pay vendors

• Record expenses
  Sometimes you will pay for expenses and then record them later. This topic steps through how to record expenses paid for with check, cash, or credit card.
• Enter bills
  When you receive a bill for items that you have purchased, you can enter it into Accounting 2009. How you enter a bill into Accounting 2009 is determined by whether you created a purchase order or an item receipt first.
• Pay bills
  The Pay Bills form displays a list of your company's unpaid vendor bills. You can choose to pay individual bills or pay all of them. If you have set up online banking services, you can pay your bills by using the electronic payment method. This topic outlines how to use the Pay Bills form to pay vendor bills.

Pay employees

• Sign up for payroll processing through Payroll for Office Accounting
  You can save time and avoid errors and penalties by signing up for Payroll for Microsoft Office Accounting, the only payroll service that is fully integrated with Accounting 2009. This topic describes how to sign up for Payroll for Office Accounting.

   Note   After you have signed up for payroll processing through Payroll for Office Accounting, the Sign Up for Payroll Services link will send you directly to the ADP payroll processing site.

• Run payroll
  After you have signed up for Payroll for Office Accounting, you should create employee records, enter employee time records, and then download payroll records so that payroll information is incorporated in Accounting 2009. These tasks can be accomplished on the Payroll for Office Accounting Web page.

Manage finances

• Set up a bank account
  This topic helps you understand how to set up a bank account. After you set up a bank account, the account will be listed with other accounts that you can choose from when you write checks and perform many financial transactions.
• Download bank transactions
  To keep your account register in sync with your online bank account, you can download your transactions from your bank or financial institution to Accounting 2009.
• Make a deposit
  This topic steps through how to make a deposit and covers how deposits work in Accounting 2009.
• Write checks
  Entering bank transactions in Accounting 2009 is done by recording activities in each account's bank account register. When you write or print a check, that transaction is entered into the account register for the account from which you are drawing the funds. This topic steps through how to write checks with Accounting 2009.
• Reconcile a bank statement
  When you receive a statement from a bank or other financial institution, you can match the transactions on the statement to the transactions recorded in the Accounting 2009 bank account register for an account. This topic steps through how to reconcile your bank account register with a bank statement.
• Record a bank statement
  An easy way to get started with Accounting 2009 is to record transactions from a bank statement. This topic steps through how to do it.
• Bank online
  If you bank with a financial institution that supports online banking, and it is listed in the in the Accounting 2009 Set Up Online Banking wizard, you can set up your bank accounts in Accounting 2009 so that, depending on your bank's policy, you can pay bills and transfer funds online or download transactions. Read this topic to learn more.