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Bookkeeping help for QuickBooks Desktop

Find help with the work that fills your week.

From entering supplier bills to checking inventory, Zeno helps you work through the tasks you already do in QuickBooks Desktop. Choose a task below to see what you can ask Claude or ChatGPT to prepare, check or explain.

You review proposed entries before they post. Check the coding and amounts, and set aside anything that needs more information. Available tasks depend on your QuickBooks edition, company settings and Zeno licence.

New: prepare more sales, purchasing and inventory work together. Read the September update →

Choose the workday you want to change

What is on your list today?

Choose a category to see the tasks Zeno can help with, or search below for a particular job.

Complete explorer

Search the work in your own words.

Try the name of a form, a vendor problem or a task on your month-end checklist.

Working through a stack

The part that eats the week. Work arriving in volume becomes a batch you read before posting, with a per-line record and supported reversal paths afterwards.

You’d just say: “Here is this month’s Amex statement. Get it ready and show me what needs a decision.”

Turn a statement or a folder of bills into one reviewable batch

Zeno matches each line to the real names and accounts in the file and flags what needs a decision.

Read the whole batch before anything posts

The table shows every line, its coding, and the reason anything is held back. Nothing is written yet.

Leave one line out before you approve

Take out the posting you are not sure of, a name you do not want created, or a row of a cleanup, and put it back later. The rest of the batch carries on.

See which client is waiting on you

Every batch in progress across every client, and whose move it is, without opening a company file.

Add the missing names, or load a whole list, in one approved step

A batch blocked on names you have not set up yet gets them created together, then re-checked. The same step loads a chart of accounts, a class list or any other list QuickBooks lets you add to, from a spreadsheet.

Set up a whole list from a spreadsheet

A chart of accounts, a class list, a season of new customers and jobs, items and terms can be prepared together as one table, where QuickBooks supports adding them. Every name is checked against the file, near-duplicates are called out by name, and parents are created before what refers to them.

Look at an export before bringing it in

Which columns it has, a few sample rows, and which columns read as dates and amounts. Nothing is read in yet.

Bring in a spreadsheet from another system as one batch

Say which column is the date, the amount, the payee and the bank, and every row is read for you. A date that could be day-first or month-first is asked about, not guessed. The column choices go on the review page, so a wrong one is caught before anything posts.

Bring in an IIF file without the risk

Review the new names and transactions from an IIF file before posting. Reversal is available for supported entries, subject to the transaction and the current books.

Say yes or no on the record

Your answer is recorded with your name, the time, and your own words, whether you gave it in chat or on the review screen.

Approve on the review screen and have the chat pick it up

Once the link is in front of you, the chat waits for your decision. Approve or reject on the page and it carries on from there. Nobody has to go back and say so.

Turn a batch down, with the reason kept

A batch you refuse shows as rejected instead of sitting there looking untouched, and it cannot be posted until somebody looks again.

Post the batch once you have approved it

Posting is a separate action from preparing. A clean batch is not permission.

Undo a whole batch

Reverse supported entries from a posting run in the same company file. The result says what was removed, already gone or refused; special records have limits.

Look back at everything you have posted

Every batch this workstation has put into QuickBooks, newest first.

Open one batch and see what each line did

QuickBooks' own result for every entry, including the ones it refused and why.

Answer "who entered this, and from what?"

Trace any transaction back to the batch, the person who approved it, and the document behind it.

Bills and paying them

Everything between a vendor invoice arriving and the check clearing.

You’d just say: “Enter these bills, code the Home Depot ones to the Riverside job, and show me anything unusual.”

Enter a month of vendor bills at once

From a folder of PDFs, a spreadsheet, or a statement, coded and ready to read.

Code a credit card statement line by line

Charges and credits both, split across accounts, jobs, and classes.

Write checks, including the ones that split

Several accounts, jobs, or classes on one check, without opening the form each time.

Record a vendor credit and have it waiting

It sits against the vendor and comes off the next payment run.

See what one vendor is owed before you pay them

Every open bill and every credit sitting against them, in one list, so a payment run applies the credits instead of missing them.

Pay a run of bills, with the discounts and credits applied

Picks up the terms discount and any credit on file rather than paying the gross. One vendor or the whole run as a batch, paid by check or by card.

Raise a purchase order

Nothing posts and no balance moves until the goods or the bill arrive.

Receive goods that arrived before the invoice did

Stock goes up and the cost sits in a liability. It does not become payable until the bill comes. A day of deliveries against many orders is one batch.

Close out an order the vendor will never finish

Stops a part-delivered purchase order following you around, without pretending it was billed.

File and pay the sales tax you collected

The liability payment, recorded the way QuickBooks expects rather than as a plain check, for one agency or every agency due this period as a batch.

Billing and getting paid

From the quote to the deposit, including the customers who get a statement instead of an invoice.

You’d just say: “Invoice every tenant this month’s rent and tell me who is still open from last month.”

Invoice a customer, or a whole run of them

One at a time or the entire monthly billing, prepared together and read once.

Bill rent or a retainer to a statement instead

The charges gather on each account and one statement covers the period. A whole rent roll is one batch you read once.

Ring up a sale that was paid on the spot

No invoice, no open balance, straight to undeposited funds or the bank.

Quote a job before you bill it

Nothing posts. Each estimate is there to become an invoice when the work is done, and a hundred of them out of the estimating system arrive as one batch.

Take an order now and invoice it when it ships

The order stays open in the invoicing window until it is filled. An order desk export lands as one batch.

Close an order the customer cancelled the rest of

Three of the five shipped and the other two are not coming. This is how you say so.

Apply a payment across several open invoices

One check settling four invoices, allocated the way you would allocate it.

Credit a customer for a return or an overcharge

Held on account for the next invoice, or refunded.

Put a refund back on the card it came from

Returns a customer's credit to the card rather than cutting a check, one at a time or the processor's whole refund file as a batch.

See who owes you and how late they are

Every unpaid invoice, straight out of the company file.

The bank and the reconciliation

Getting the register to look like the statement, which is where a mismatched deposit costs an afternoon.

You’d just say: “Bank Tuesday’s five checks as one deposit so it matches the statement line.”

See what is sitting in Undeposited Funds

Everything taken in but not yet banked, ready to be grouped onto a deposit.

Bank a day of receipts as the one line the statement shows

The receipts that went in on one paying-in slip become one deposit, so the reconciliation matches.

Move money between accounts

Between operating and payroll, or to the money market and back.

Tick off what has cleared before you reconcile

Marks the lines cleared. The reconciliation itself is still yours to finish in QuickBooks.

Find a register line by check number, payee, or amount

The lookup you would otherwise do by scrolling a register with a date range guessed at.

The bank feed

The month of transactions, worked as a queue instead of typed in one at a time. Import the statement file you download from your bank without setting up a live bank connection.

You’d just say: “Import this month’s Amex download and code everything you already know.”

Set up an account you download statements for

Once per bank or card account, naming the QuickBooks account its lines belong in. A bank must go to a bank account and a card to a card account, and moving one that already posts somewhere asks first.

Tell the cards on one account apart

Name each card by its last four digits and give it a default account, so the office manager’s charges arrive suggested to office supplies unless a rule says otherwise.

See who holds which company card

Every card on each card account, its holder, its default account, and how many of its charges are still waiting.

See your accounts and what is waiting in each

How many lines still need a decision, per account, without opening anything.

Check a download before you import it

Shows which column was read as the date, the amount and the payee. Check those choices before importing the transactions.

Import the statement your bank gives you

Reads the .qfx, .ofx, .qbo or CSV you downloaded. Lines already imported are recognised, so re-importing a month to pick up its last few days does not double it.

Catch the ones already entered by hand

Zeno checks the file for the check or deposit a line might already be, before you post it a second time.

Find the four checks behind one deposit

When no single transaction matches a bank line: the ones that add up to it, the other half of a transfer, or a search of the register for the check that cleared late or went in for the wrong amount.

Confirm a line is something already in the file

It leaves the queue without posting, and the transaction it matched is recorded beside it.

Work the queue

What the rules already coded, what they suggested, and what still needs you. Sort by oldest first or narrow the list to one card.

Code what the rules could not answer

Your decisions are recorded against the lines, or a line is linked to what is already in the file. Teach one as a rule and next month it is answered before you look.

Drop a line you are not posting

A transfer you will enter from the other side, or a line that is not this company. It leaves the queue but is remembered, so the next import does not offer it again.

Turn the coded month into one batch to approve

Review the proposed entries together before posting. Supported entries can be reversed later, subject to the transaction and the current books. The two sides of a transfer become one entry, and a line already in the register is held back rather than posted twice.

A live bank connection

A paid add-on, and the one part of this product that needs an account and a network. Transactions come in; nothing about your books goes out. We hold your bank connection, not your bank history.

You’d just say: “Connect the operating account so I stop downloading statements.”

Set up the feed for your practice

One sign-in for the whole practice, shared by every workstation working from the same journal.

Connect a bank or card

You get a link to open in a browser, on any device. Your banking credentials go to the bank and never reach the workstation or us.

See which connections are healthy

See which bank connections stopped working and when, so a disconnected account does not look like a quiet month.

Choose which accounts you actually want

You pay per account, so leave off the savings account nobody codes. Each one you keep is pointed at the QuickBooks account its lines belong in, checked to be the right kind, and moving one later asks first.

Pause a connected account without losing its place

New lines stop arriving while it is paused; where the account posts and what is already waiting stay put. Resume it and the relay reads the paused stretch again, so the gap is filled in.

Choose where the feed starts

Connect mid-year without doubling the months you already keyed, or reach back as far as the bank allows (up to two years) for books that start earlier. The date can be moved later; nothing already in your queue is doubled.

Collect what the bank has sent

Straight into the same queue a downloaded statement fills, coded by the same rules. Nothing posts without the usual approval.

See the bank balance beside the books

What the bank says each account holds, next to the QuickBooks balance for each account on the feed, with the difference explained: transactions not yet in QuickBooks, entries waiting for approval and amounts the feed cannot account for.

Stop a connection

The bank login is removed and billing for it stops. Anything already in your queue stays exactly as it is.

Month-end and the close

The entries that come round every period, and the counts that only happen once a year.

You’d just say: “Post the usual month-end accruals and this month’s depreciation entry.”

Post the recurring and adjusting entries

Accruals, depreciation, and allocations: the entries that look the same every month.

Adjust inventory to what the count actually found

Quantity or value, against the account you use for shrinkage.

Set up warehouses, and move stock between them

Sites for each yard, van or shop, and transfers that move what exists without touching the P&L. A rebalancing across sites is one batch. Needs QuickBooks Advanced Inventory.

Price a customer differently without changing the item

A price level is a percentage off everything or a list of items priced specially, attached to the customers who get it.

Buy by the case and sell by the each

A unit-of-measure set with its conversions. Check the ratios first because QuickBooks offers no way to correct one.

Bill a senior and a junior at different rates

A billing rate level for the same service item, attached to the person whose time it is.

Trade in more than one currency

Add the currencies a multicurrency file needs and keep their codes right.

See what stock is standing at each site

Quantity on hand per warehouse, not the total across all locations. This prevents promising a customer stock that is 200 miles away.

Set up an assembly and what it is made of

The bill of materials every build reads. Changing it shows you which parts would stop being consumed.

Build assemblies and account for the parts consumed

Components come off the shelf, finished units go on, one build or a production run as one batch. A build the stock will not cover is refused, or recorded as pending until it is if you ask for that.

Finish a build that was left pending

The build that could not run for want of stock, completed once the stock is there.

Log business mileage

Trips against a vehicle, for the deduction or the client rebill. A mileage log arrives as a spreadsheet and posts as one batch.

Keep the vehicle list straight

Add the truck a trip is logged against, or fix the one that was misspelled.

Leave a reminder in the file for whoever opens it next

A to-do with a date, about the customer, vendor or employee it concerns, on the QuickBooks To Do List where the next bookkeeper sees it. Corrected or marked done from here too.

Keep the pipeline in the Lead Center, apart from the books

A prospect with its locations and contact people, not a customer until someone converts it in QuickBooks. Read, added and corrected from here.

Set up the workers comp codes a payroll file needs

A class code with its rate per $100 of payroll and the date each rate took effect, and the next rate added when the insurer announces it.

Create the accounts and items QuickBooks recognises as its own

Set up special accounts and items such as Undeposited Funds, Opening Balance Equity, Retained Earnings, received-not-billed and finance charges so QuickBooks uses them for their intended purpose.

Fix the hours somebody entered wrong

Corrects the entry in place rather than deleting it, so an invoice already built from it keeps its link.

Log the hours against the job

Worked time, by employee or subcontractor, one entry or the whole timesheet import as a batch. Billable hours reach the next invoice.

Reports and answers

The statements come out of QuickBooks itself, so they are the reports your client and their accountant already expect. The questions that span clients do not need a file open at all.

You’d just say: “Which of my eighteen clients spent more on repairs this quarter than last?”

Ask for a P&L, balance sheet, trial balance, or aging

Run from QuickBooks, so the numbers are QuickBooks' own. No menu hunting for the right variant.

Ask one question across every client at once

QuickBooks opens one file at a time. This does not, so a practice-wide question takes one answer.

Keep a searchable copy of each client

Built on your PC, refreshed when you say, so questions never wait on a file being open.

Check how current that copy is

What it holds, when it was last refreshed, and how much older history the file has that it does not, before you rely on an answer from it.

Pull up the company's own details

Legal name, address, and fiscal year: the header facts a filing asks for.

Pull up the budget for the year

Every budget set up in the file for a fiscal year, with the annual figure on each row. Budgets are still written in QuickBooks.

Fixing what is already in the file

Cleanup work, on files you inherited and files you did not. Every correction shows you the before and after and waits for your word.

You’d just say: “Home Depot is in there three ways. Merge them into the one I actually use.”

Correct a transaction in place

Change supported coding, dates, classes or lines. A cleanup plan can apply a header patch or a line recode across a selection, with live changes checked again before applying.

Void a transaction and keep the trail

It stays in the register at zero, which is what an auditor expects to find.

Delete one outright when that is really what you want

Gone rather than voided. Zeno will say which one you are asking for.

Correct, void or delete many transactions together

Prepare a header patch, line recode, void or delete against a selection. Supported list records can also be corrected or deleted through a cleanup plan. Review each row and its warnings; snapshots preserve the record, not an automatic undo. Back up the file before destructive cleanup.

Delete the typo vendor before anyone uses it

Removes a list record nothing references, after a preview, from any list QuickBooks lets go of. Anything with history is refused.

Merge the three spellings of the same vendor

HOME DEPOT, Home Depot, and Home Depot #4 become one name with all the history.

Correct a customer or job

Names, addresses, terms, or the job it hangs under.

Correct a vendor

Including the 1099 settings you find wrong every January.

Correct an employee or one-off payee

The other name lists, which are easy to get wrong and awkward to fix by hand.

Renumber or rename an account

A chart tidy-up, with a warning about what it re-labels on reports already printed.

Correct a class

Rename it or move it under a different parent.

Correct an item, and optionally its history

Fix the account an item points at and re-code what was already posted through it.

Correct what is inside a group item

Change the members of a bundle you bill as one line.

The lists everything hangs off

Set up and look up names, accounts and items. Supported lists can be loaded through a names plan; only eligible records without references can be deleted.

You’d just say: “Set up the six new subcontractors from this list and mark them all 1099.”

Add a customer or a job

Including jobs under an existing customer.

Add a vendor

With the 1099 setting done at the point of creation.

Add an employee or one-off payee

For someone the file pays who is neither a customer nor a vendor.

Add an account to the chart

In the right type and under the right parent.

Add a class

For departments, properties, funds, or however you cut the P&L.

Add an item

Service, inventory, non-inventory, or the other item types.

Bundle items you always bill together

One line on the invoice, several items behind it.

Set up a discount, subtotal, or sales tax item

The lines that change what an invoice adds up to, including the tax rate and the agency it is owed to. Rates and memberships can be corrected later.

Set up sales reps and tax codes

Who the sale is credited to, and the codes that record why something was not taxed.

Set up payment terms

2% 10 net 30 and the rest.

Add a customer type, payment method, or shipping method

The small profile lists that reports get grouped by.

Look up a customer or job

Balance, terms, and the jobs beneath it.

Look up a vendor

What is owed and how they are set up.

Pull the chart of accounts

The whole chart, or the part of it you are coding against.

Pull the class list

To check what you are allowed to code to before you code to it.

Pull the item list

With the accounts each item posts to.

Pull the employee list

Names, status and hire dates, inactive included. The list leaves out social security numbers and pay.

Pull the terms, tax codes, and rep lists

The small lists postings are coded against, with the exact spellings QuickBooks will accept.

Keep the custom fields filled in

See what custom fields the file defines, and write the route number or PO reference onto the record.

Keep a register of what the firm owns

The fixed asset list records what was bought, when it was bought, its serial number, and when it was sold so the depreciation schedule stops. It posts nothing.

Set up the custom fields themselves

Define a field and which records carry it. Removing one shows you first how much history goes with it.

Check the file is ready for January

Review 1099 box mappings and P&L accounts that no tax line will report before preparing returns from incomplete reports.

Fix a 1099 box mapping

Map the account a subcontractor was paid from onto the right box, so their 1099 is not short. Shows you first what would stop being reported.

See what sales tax is owed, and to whom

See each agency and the tax items behind its total, in the same structure used to file a return.

What it remembers about each client

The difference between a tool and a colleague. Corrections you make once come back next month, and the things you know about a client that no rule can express are written down.

You’d just say: “From now on, anything from Ferguson goes to plumbing supplies on the Riverside job.”

Teach it how a vendor should be coded, once

The correction you make this month is the coding it proposes next month. Match on the payee, the memo or an amount range, and code the lines already waiting as well.

Try a rule before you trust it

See exactly which waiting bank lines it would catch, and how often it would have matched over the last two years. Nothing is saved.

See the coding rules in force

Everything it has been taught for this client.

Drop a rule that no longer applies

Changes nothing already posted.

Ask what the coding should be, without committing

For the line you are unsure about: the rule that covers it, or how the file has coded that payee before.

Write down something a rule cannot express

Why this client splits rent across two classes, and what the owner wants seen separately.

See what it knows about a client

Everything recorded, including what is still waiting on you.

Confirm a note so it starts surfacing

Nothing it worked out on its own is used until you have agreed with it.

Remove a note

For when the client changes how they want it done.

Get to know a new client from their own history

Two years of the books read into notes and coding rules for you to confirm, plus the questions worth asking the client first.

Write down a procedure the way your firm does it

The month-end checklist, with the client-specific parts left as blanks.

See the procedures on file

This client's, the ones that apply to everybody, and the checks built into Zeno.

Walk a procedure with this client filled in

The same checklist, with the right accounts and names already in it. The built-in check-up reads the books itself and lists what to raise: stale invoices, Undeposited Funds that never cleared, lines parked in Ask My Accountant.

Approve a procedure for use

A draft nobody has read cannot be run.

Retire a procedure

When the process changes.

Record what you did this session and why

The note you would have written on a legal pad, kept with the client.

Read the work log back for a period

What was done on this client last month, for the review or the invoice.

Several clients on one PC

For a firm rather than a single set of books. Each client keeps its own rules, notes, history, and searchable copy.

You’d just say: “Which company files are on this machine?”

Find the company files on this PC

Without QuickBooks needing to be open.

Register the file QuickBooks has open

Picks up its real name and path rather than asking you to type them.

Register a file by name and path

For the ones on a server or a mapped drive.

See every client this workstation handles

And which of them are set up and current.

Take a client off the list

Removes the name only. The company file is untouched.

Recurring work for every client

The monthly close and the quarterly sales tax, on a calendar instead of in your head. Each period waits on the Today page on this PC until a person marks it done, and an agent can prepare the work when it falls due. Nothing runs while no one is at the PC: work due at the weekend is waiting on Monday.

You’d just say: “Set up a monthly close for Riverside, due ten days after month end, and run the check-up on it.”

Set up the work you do for a client every month or quarter

A close, a sales tax filing, a review, with how often it comes round and when each period is due.

See the recurring work across the practice

What runs for each client and how often, and which PCs have been asking for work, so a machine nobody opened stands out.

Hand the routine part to an agent

Attach a procedure you have approved, or the built-in check-up, and each period is prepared for you to review. A draft nobody has read is refused.

Stop a piece of recurring work

No new periods open. Anything still open stays until someone closes it.

See what is due now

Every period that has come due, across every client, with the procedure for each.

Pick up a period and get its checklist

Claimed for two hours, so two people sharing the practice never prepare the same batch.

Report back on what was prepared

The batches made, nothing to do, or what got in the way, written to the work log. The period stays open until you approve the work.

Mark a period done, and lock its dates

Once a month is marked done, Zeno refuses anything dated inside it until you reopen it: new plans, direct postings, corrections, voids and reversals. The one exception is a batch already approved before you closed the month, which can still be applied, so plan it again if it should wait. QuickBooks' own closing date is left alone.

Put a period aside until the statement arrives

Off the list until the date you choose. Nothing is closed or locked.

Part of a firm on Zeno for Firms

For a practice that manages Desktop clients under its Zeno for Firms subscription. Each registered company file counts as a client book, the connector is included, and no licence key is needed on this PC. Nothing about the books leaves the workstation: the firm learns company names and what its subscription allows.

You’d just say: “Enroll this workstation in our firm with the code from the console.”

Enroll this workstation in the firm

One code from the console, once per journal. Registered company files become client books on the firm subscription.

See what the firm subscription allows here

Which files are registered, whether posting is entitled, and when that was last confirmed.

Take this workstation out of the firm

The local journal, rules, and history stay exactly as they are.

Getting set up, and when something is wrong

Roughly ten minutes for the first company and a few for each one after. QuickBooks asks for permission once per file.

You’d just say: “It stopped seeing my company file. What is wrong?”

Walk the setup for a new workstation

The whole thing, in order, with the next step always named.

Pick up where a client left off

Close it and come back tomorrow without starting again.

See how far each client got

Which files are finished, which are waiting, and on what.

Finish a client with a harmless test

One real question answered end to end, proving the whole chain works.

Skip a client for now

With the reason kept, so you know why when you come back.

Ask what is worth doing next

Reads your setup, batches, rules, and notes and suggests the useful next thing.

Find out why it is not connecting

Checks the whole chain and names the first broken link and its fix, instead of you guessing.

Check how this workstation is configured

Licence, whether writing is switched on, and where the history is kept.

Check for a newer version

Asked at the moment you ask it, not from a cached answer.

Download the update

Verifies the download. Running the installer is still your decision.

Write to Zeno about Zeno

A roadblock or a request, sent from the chat you hit it in. Your build, machine and licence go with it so nobody has to ask; you see the whole message before it sends.

Have a different job in mind? Tell us what you need and we will help you work out whether Zeno can do it. Connection and tool details are in the technical reference.

Try one job on a company file you know.