Discover the Best QuickBooks Classes in NYC
Once upon a time, shortly after dinosaurs stopped roaming the earth, Scott Cook came up with the idea that home computers would replace paper and pencils for keeping track of people’s finances. He, therefore, with the help of programmer Tom Proulx, started Intuit, and together they came up with personal finance software, Quicken. Eventually, Quicken begat QuickBooks, software for small businesses interested in updating their accounting from the scribal methods in use since Fra Luca Pacioli codified double-entry bookkeeping in the 15th century.
Cook left Intuit in 1998, and Quicken was sold off in 2016, leaving QuickBooks as Intuit’s de facto flagship product. The software is designed so that businesses of modest size can keep track of their finances. Far from being merely a program that can turn out a balance sheet at the click of a mouse, QuickBooks can also monitor inventory, handle taxes and track employee mileage. The online cloud version of the software even makes it possible to check up on your company’s finances using a mobile device. QuickBooks is obviously doing something right, as it commands an 80% market share among small businesses in the United States.
The software exists in two versions, one (QuickBooks Pro/Premier/Enterprise) a desktop program that makes it possible to keep your company’s data on your own server, and the other (QuickBooks Online) that offers the convenience of cloud-based software. The two versions are very different products with different capabilities. QuickBooks Pro, the more challenging to learn, also does more than the online version, although, confusingly, it doesn’t do the online version can do things that the desktop one can’t.
Best QuickBooks Classes & Schools in NYC
If your goal is to learn QuickBooks in New York City, the Technical Institute of America offers both a Basic and an Advanced QuickBooks class. The first module takes students through all the fundamentals of operating the desktop version, from creating a company file to setting up vendors, customers, payroll, and reports. The follow-up takes students through additional functions of the software, ranging from online banking to keyboard shortcuts and from the printing out of 1099s to the creation of an annual budget. Both classes are taught by QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors and prepare students for the QuickBooks Certification exam. Upon passage of the examination, you may lay claim to the QuickBooks Certified User credential, which was developed by Intuit and is recognized throughout the business world. The Technical Institute of America was founded by instructors and provides New Yorkers with education in many aspects of business technology. Its premises are located in Manhattan’s Garment District.
A one-stop complete course in the desktop version of QuickBooks is available to Gothamites in the form of NYIM Training’s QuickBooks Certified User Certification. In addition to classroom instruction in desktop QuickBooks, the course also includes two hours of private instruction and the administration and proctoring of the QuickBooks Certified User examination. NYIM’s classes feature interactive teaching, a free retake option (for the course as well as for the exam), and the chance to take most of their classes online if you’d rather not face the rush-hour crowds in the rat-infested subway to get to class. If you do wish to take NYIM’s classes in person, the school is located in Midtown Manhattan.
If you’d prefer a school in Lower Manhattan, ONLC Training Centers has its computer labs located in the Financial District and offers its own QuickBooks Introduction. All the basics are here as well, including setting up a company, invoicing, and paying bills. ONLC has schools throughout the United States; its classes are also available online. Its in-person classes are taught using a remote instructor.
If you’d rather track expenses while keeping your financial head in the cloud, NYC Career Centers has you covered with its QuickBooks Online Level I class. Very much like the desktop version classes above, this course will take you through the fundamentals of using QuickBooks Online. You’ll learn, among other things, how to get started, process payments, and reconcile accounts. Some training in accounting terminology is included as well, making this class a good choice for beginners. NYC Career Centers’ classrooms are located at Madison and 34th, about as convenient a location as can be found in congested and gridlocked Midtown Manhattan. The school also offers QuickBooks Online Level II for those seeking enlightenment beyond the basic class. Both these classes are also available to be taken online.
NYC Industries That Use QuickBooks
Given QuickBooks’ market share, pretty much any industry that includes small businesses is going to include QuickBooks users. That very realistically can include the dry cleaners on the corner, the liquor store across the street, and the restaurant on the next block from your apartment. Those are usually very small businesses and may not have full-time bookkeepers on staff, but they have to track their money somehow, and the numbers show that most of them are using QuickBooks to do it.
Not all New York City QuickBooks users are storefront operations. The office buildings that comprise so much of the urban landscape are home to many more small businesses than large ones. Although LinkedIn takes up ten floors of the Empire State Building (it is that edifice’s largest tenant), there are 1000 different businesses filling up the 2.8 million rentable square feet of office space spread over the 101 commercial floors of the building. Most of those are small and probably range from not-for-profit organizations to manufacturers of plus-size waterproof golf wear. And the odds are that most of those small businesses in that art déco microcosm of the City are running QuickBooks.
QuickBooks Jobs & Salaries in NYC
New York City is home to more than 200,000 businesses, 98% of which qualify as small, having fewer than 100 employees; the enormous majority of those (89% of the total figure) have fewer than 20 employees. All those small businesses need to keep books, and, given QuickBooks’ market preeminence, very likely most of them are using Intuit software to keep their beans in order. That, in turn, creates a need for bookkeepers in the Five Boroughs who can operate QuickBooks. While accountants and auditors (the accountants who check other accountants’ work) have to have four-year college degrees in accounting, pretty much anyone trustworthy who can add can become a bookkeeper if they possess the requisite skills. Those skills notably include QuickBooks.
Bureau of Labor Statistics May 2022 figures state that some 95,000 people are employed as bookkeepers and accounting clerks in the New York/Newark/Jersey City metropolitan area. As for wages, the mean annual salary for bookkeepers in New York City is almost $55,000, which means that just about half of all bookkeepers make more than that.
Although one can imagine that a CPA with the educational and professional background required to attain that qualification might look down on QuickBooks, the reality is that many accountants need to know how to use the software as the only means for understanding a QuickBooks client’s books. There’s even a special edition of desktop QuickBooks for accountants for precisely this reason.
Because they bring more qualifications and education to the job, accountants are better paid than bookkeepers. BLS figures for accountants in the New York/Newark/Jersey City area reveal an annual mean salary of $114,000. The numbers also show that there are some 125,000 accountants and auditors active in the area. Although those employed by large companies can avoid having to learn QuickBooks, most of these accountants, particularly those in independent practice, work with the software on a daily basis.
