Quick Tips for Searching in Quickbooks

The power of the search engine in QuickBooks has gotten much better over the years. However, there are still some tips that can help you save time. Here's a rundown of how to look for what you need in QuickBooks.

First and foremost, make sure you have the "Search" function enabled. If you don't see the Search box in the upper right hand corner of your file, you need to turn it on. To do that, select Preferences from the Edit menu, highlight Search in the list on the left and then on the My Preferences tab, check the box to show this on your icon bar. You can even make selections on where to search by default. Each user in QuickBooks has the ability to enable and control this feature.

Then, on the top right hand side of your screen, populate the Search field in the icon bar with your desired text. The down arrow lets you determine what areas of QuickBooks to search  — the company file or the Help contents.

Based on your selection, the search results will appear with links to the related information. Here's an example of a search for the word "payroll."

When you choose to search the company file, you can narrow your search to a specific list, transaction type, amount, or date range. You can even see the last time the file was indexed with the latest information. And if desired, you can choose to index on demand (this may temporarily affect QuickBooks performance for other users, so be careful not to do it while others are working).

Here's a tip for those using an updated version of QuickBooks. Make sure, under "Search Preferences," that you have the "Automatically open drop-down lists when typing" checked. This makes searching easier.

Here's an example. Let's say you're searching for something with the word "American" in it. In older versions of QuickBooks, the Search function would just give you results of items that start with the word "American." In  updated versions of QuickBooks, anything that has the word "American" in it will pop up as you start typing.