This section provides a quick introduction to the basics of using ManagePLUS. We suggest you work through the lessons in the order presented, which is roughly the order you'll follow when using ManagePLUS with your own QuickBooks records.
As you grow comfortable with ManagePLUS you will find yourself cycling through these steps, or at least part of them, repeatedly. While you don't need to follow all of these steps all of the time, being familiar with this general order of doing things can make using ManagePLUS easier.
"Must I always follow these steps in this same order?"
No, ManagePLUS is very forgiving of the order in which you do things. But for the purpose of these tutorials the order is important.
And especially if you are new to ManagePLUS or have just added a new company file in ManagePLUS, following the steps in the same order as presented in the tutorial lessons will usually make things go more smoothly, assuring the necessary data is in place when it's needed. |
It's based on a "farm business" example. Why?
The tutorial lessons are based on a sample QuickBooks file containing transactions from a farm business. Why did we choose that business type? Here are some of the reasons:
| • | We wanted to use a commodity-based business for the example, because businesses which buy and sell commodities provide lots of opportunities to "show off" the special quantity handling and reporting features of ManagePLUS. Farm and ranch businesses are typically (though not always) significantly commodity based in terms of both sales and expense items. |
| • | We needed a business type with clear examples of cost centers and profit centers, to demonstrate ManagePLUS' management accounting features. Most farms and ranches are pseudo-manufacturing businesses with clearly obvious profit centers (crops, livestock, or other farm production) and cost centers (machinery, labor, and management areas that incur costs while providing services to the profit center parts of the business). |
| • | We could have based examples on an imaginary factory making an imaginary product (i.e., "widgets"), but using a real-world business type promotes more realistic examples. So we needed to settle upon a business type for the examples with a simple enough business model to be fairly accessible to (comprehended by) all readers, and farming/ranching seemed to be a good fit. |
Right or wrong, these are the reasons why the tutorials are based on a sample QuickBooks company file called MP Farm Example.QBW.
What QuickBooks version do I need for the tutorials?
As this is written, the sample files provided with ManagePLUS are compatible with U.S. desktop editions of QuickBooks, 2006 and later.
ManagePLUS itself should be compatible with U.S. desktop editions of QuickBooks 2003 and later; however, the sample files we provide are not compatible with those earlier versions, as we no longer test ManagePLUS with QuickBooks versions prior to 2006.
ManagePLUS is also compatible with Canadian and U.K. QuickBooks versions 2004 and later. However, we do not yet supply sample files compatible with those versions.
 | This information is subject to change without notice. For current information, please visit our Web site or email us at info@goflagship.com with your QuickBooks compatibility questions. |