SeroBooks is a desktop accounting program for small and medium-sized businesses. You use it to invoice customers, take their payments, enter and pay vendors' bills, keep track of stock, run your bank accounts, file sales tax and read the reports your accountant asks for. It is built the way QuickBooks Desktop works: the same menus, the same form names, the same Home Page, and the same way of opening each form in a window of its own.
This article is a short orientation. If you are about to set up a company for the first time, read Setting up your company, step by step next. If you already know QuickBooks Desktop, read Coming from QuickBooks Desktop.
What SeroBooks does
| Area | What you do there | Start with |
|---|---|---|
| Customers and sales | Estimates, sales orders, invoices, sales receipts, statements, credit memos and payments received. | Create Invoices, Receive Payments |
| Vendors and purchases | Purchase orders, receiving stock, bills, expenses, vendor credits and bill payments. | Enter Bills, Pay Bills |
| Items and inventory | Your products and services, stock on hand in each location, adjustments, assemblies, labels and forecasting. | The Item List |
| Banking | Cheques, deposits, transfers, credit card charges, registers, bank feeds and reconciliation. | Write Cheques, Reconcile |
| Accounting | Chart of accounts, general journal entries, the general ledger, trial balance, year-end and income tax. | Chart of Accounts |
| Sales tax | GST/HST, PST and QST, and US sales tax, from the tax on each line to the filed return. | How sales tax works in SeroBooks |
| Reports | Close to two hundred reports, from Profit & Loss to A/R Aging, each one clickable down to the transaction behind a figure. | The Report Centre |
| Payroll | Employees, pay runs, remittances and year-end slips, where your plan includes payroll. | Payroll in SeroBooks |
| Amazon | Amazon settlements, orders, fees and taxes, where your business sells on Amazon. | Amazon in SeroBooks |
Which of these you see depends on your plan and on your role. A menu item you cannot open is simply not shown, and a screen your role can see but not use asks for approval when you open it. See Permissions: "you do not have access".
How SeroBooks is laid out
When you sign in, SeroBooks opens on the Home Page: the work of the business drawn as a flow chart, with an icon for each job. Across the top of the window is the menu bar (File, Edit, View, Lists, Favorites, Company, Customers, Vendors, Employees, Banking, Reports, Window, Help). Every form you open appears in its own window over the Home Page, and the open windows are listed along the bottom so you can switch between them.
- A tour of the SeroBooks screen names every part of the screen.
- The menu bar explains how the menus work.
- Windows: One Window, Multiple Windows and arranging them explains the windows.
- Keyboard shortcuts lists every key.
Where your books are kept
Your company's books are kept on the SeroBooks server, and SeroBooks needs an internet connection to read and save them. The app keeps a copy of your lists (customers, vendors, items and so on) on your computer so that screens open quickly; it refreshes that copy when you sign in. Several people can work in the same company at the same time, each signed in with their own name. See Where your data lives and how it syncs.
Getting help
- Press F1, or choose Help ▸ SeroBooks Help, to open the help for the screen in front of you. See Using this Knowledgebase.
- Ask Maya, the assistant built into SeroBooks, a question about your own books. See Ask Maya, your assistant.
- Message the people in your company with Team Chat. See Team Chat.
Next steps
- Read Setting up your company, step by step.
- Open Help ▸ Getting Set Up and work through the Getting Set Up checklist.
- Take the tour of the screen.