In this first lesson of our course, you'll find out how to start the Peachtree program, and we'll take a stroll around the various elements of the software. We'll open a sample company and get familiar with the different types of screens that appear as you work. Throughout the lesson, you'll see how Peachtree uses fields and records to track your information.
 

In Lesson 2, we'll use the New Company Setup Wizard to create a new company and track its accounting information. When you set up a new company, Peachtree asks some very important questions that ensure it stores and reports information exactly the way you want it to. We'll also take a brief look at where and how Peachtree stores the new company information on your computer's hard drive.

This is one of the most important lessons in the course! THis lesson will help you develop your chart of accounts. Everything you do in Peachtree is based on your chart of accounts, so we'll make sure you know how to set yours up right. After getting your accounts in order, you'll enter beginning balances, and then you'll run reports to view and verify the beginning balances you entered.

You know that protecting your data is crucial. In this lesson, you'll discover Peachtree's security features so you can protect data from unauthorized access. You'll also learn how to back up your data so you don't have to worry about computer crashes or data corruption. Finally, you'll discover how, in the event of an emergency, you can restore your data backups and continue working with your Peachtree company data. With good security and backup practices, you'll never need to worry about losing crucial data again!

One of the many ways Peachtree saves you time is by using defaults. When you set up default information, you lay the groundwork for customers and vendors. Then, when you create new records, Peachtree can enter some of the data for you, and you only need change the information if it should be different. Learn to work on setting up default information for vendors and customers, and we'll see how to set up the sales taxes most businesses must collect from customers. You'll also find out how to enter the beginning balances for your customers and vendors so you can pick up right where you need to.
 

I like to call Lesson 6 "The lesson where you discover how to manage your stuff." By stuff, I mean the goods and services you buy, as well as the goods and services you sell—in other words, your inventory. You'll learn about inventory defaults, inventory classes, costing methods, price levels, and beginning balances. You'll also see how to create inventory adjustments in Peachtree when the numbers on the screen don't match your actual inventory. Finally, we'll look at some of the standard Peachtree reports that deal with managing your inventory.
 

In this lesson, you'll begin working with vendors —those people or companies from which you buy the goods and services that you need to operate your business. You'll set up records in Peachtree to store static information about your vendors, such as their addresses, and you'll also work with purchase orders, which tell your vendors what products you want to purchase. Finally, you'll enter bills from your vendors so you can keep track of them and pay them on time. At the end of the lesson, you'll see some of the standard reports that help you manage your purchases.

Practice paying the bills you entered in the previous lesson. You'll find out how you can write a group of checks in one sitting, as well as how to generate and record a single check. You'll also discover how to write special checks, such as refund checks to a customer. And we'll talk about easy ways to handle those bills and payments you make on a regular basis—Peachtree can save you lots of time with its Recur feature!

In this lesson, we'll talk about selling to your customers. You'll set up customer information, such as names, addresses, and phone numbers, and then you'll invoice them for services and products that you sell to them. You'll find out how to create and apply credit memos to your customers if you need to, and finally, you'll see the reports Peachtree offers to help you track your customers and their purchases.

Learn about collecting the money. As you know, when people buy something from you, they're supposed to pay you for it! You'll see how to track the receipt of your customers' money in Peachtree, whether they pay by cash, check, or credit card. Then we'll go over how to deposit it into your bank account correctly. We'll also spend some time talking about ways you can encourage your customers to pay their bills on time.

After all the work you've put into Peachtree, you'll want to see the results in the form of reports. You'll already be familiar with some reports from previous lessons, but in this lesson, you'll discover how to customize those reports so they better fit your needs. You'll also see how to send reports to Excel for further evaluation or to a PDF file so you can share them with others. You'll be amazed at all the ways Peachtree gives you to keep track of your company's finances!