Quick Start Tutorials

This section provides a quick introduction to 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.

Basic Steps for Using ManagePLUS

The Quick Start Tutorials present the following basic steps for working with ManagePLUS. As you grow comfortable with ManagePLUS you will find yourself cycling through these steps, or at least most of them, repeatedly. So while you don't need to follow all of these steps all of the time, being familiar with this general order for doing things can make using ManagePLUS easier.

"Must I follow these steps in exactly this order?"

No, the order isn't crucial—ManagePLUS is very forgiving of doing things in any order. You might wonder then, whether the order is important at all. But it is! If you are new to ManagePLUS or have just added a new company file, following these steps in the order shown below will make things go more smoothly by assuring that necessary data is in place when it's needed.

1.	Add/open a new company file in ManagePLUS to match your QuickBooks company file. (ManagePLUS company files correspond 1:1 with QuickBooks company files.)

2.	Select an accounting period to work with. This will be the particular year, quarter, month, or other accounting period for which you want information or reports.

Work with the Chart of Accounts. You'll refresh ManagePLUS' copy of your Chart of Accounts list from QuickBooks, then associate units of measure—pounds, gallons, bushels, tons, etc.—with those accounts for which you want quantity information displayed (with units of measure appropriately labeled) on reports.

Add management quantities. Currently ManagePLUS only supports management quantities for the Classes and Chart of Accounts lists, though support for this feature in other lists is planned for the future.

First, if necessary, you'll refresh copies of these list(s) from QuickBooks (i.e., if you think the list may have changed in QuickBooks). After that, you may associate management quantities with any of the list's items you want. If you do, then ManagePLUS reports will show revenues and expenses for those items on a per-management-quantity-unit basis, such as per hour of labor, per ton of production, per acre of crop, per truck mile driven, etc.

Enter extra quantity information in your transactions, in QuickBooks. This only applies to you if you're using ManagePLUS' advanced quantity handling features, all of which involve entering at least some quantity information in the Memo or Description field of QuickBooks transactions. (This isn't actually a "step" to be done at a particular time. Rather, it is something you'll do all along as you enter transactions in QuickBooks.)

6.	Work with transactions. You'll refresh ManagePLUS' copy of transactions from QuickBooks, for the accounting period chosen in step 2. If you're using the advanced quantity handling features, after refreshing transactions you will also check for quantity errors them.

"Play" with transactions, using ManagePLUS' visual tools. ManagePLUS has powerful features for organizing and viewing transactions: by just dragging column headings around and making a few mouse clicks, you can have detailed transaction summaries and analysis right in the Transactions window, with very little effort.

Create and view/print reports. Basic ManagePLUS reports give you quantity information and quantity-related statistics beyond what QuickBooks' provides. Other reports contain expanded management information (per-unit revenue and expense information) as described earlier. And because ManagePLUS creates reports in its own internal spreadsheet, you can play "what-if" based on your actual accounting data, changing numbers right there in the report and seeing the results immediately.

Beyond the Basics

After you've worked through the tutorials in this section, be sure to at least browse through the "How-To" Procedures section so you'll know about other features that are available.

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