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Setting up QuickBooks Online for a new New York LLC: the first hour
A new LLC and an empty QuickBooks Online file. What you do in the first hour decides whether the books stay simple or turn into a cleanup job next spring. Here is the order, with Intuit’s own help article behind each step.
Updated 2026-09-19. Steps refer to QuickBooks Online and link to Intuit’s own help articles.
Company settings first
Open Settings, then Account and settings, then the Company tab. Intuit describes it as where you view and edit your logo, company name, address, contact info and Employer Identification Number, along with the business type used for tax filing.
Enter the name exactly as it is filed with New York. That is the name on your invoices and the name anyone comparing your books to the state record will look for. If the EIN letter is not in front of you, leave the field empty rather than typing a number from memory.
Set the fiscal year and the accounting method
Still in Account and settings, open the Advanced tab. Intuit lists two things there that belong in the first hour: setting up the fiscal year, and specifying your accounting method.
If your year runs January to December, the first month is January. Cash or accrual is a question for whoever files your return, not a setting to guess at, because it changes what every report shows. Ask once now and you will not have to re-read a year of reports later.
Source: Set up advanced account settings in QuickBooks Online ↗
A chart of accounts a service business can actually use
You already have one. Intuit builds a starting chart of accounts from the business entity you chose when the file was created. Do not rebuild it on day one.
Add an account only when a real transaction has nowhere sensible to go. Each new account needs a name, an account type and a detail type, and for bank, asset, credit card, liability and equity accounts an opening balance with an as-of date. The type decides where the account lands on your reports, so it matters more than the name.
For a small service business that usually means a short list: one or two income accounts you could name from your own invoices, and expenses that match what actually leaves the bank, like vehicle, tools and supplies, subcontractors, insurance and software. Fifteen accounts you understand beat sixty you inherited.
Source: Add an account to your chart of accounts in QuickBooks Online ↗
Connect the business bank account
Go to Bank transactions and select Connect account, find your bank, sign in with your online banking credentials, choose the accounts to connect and pick how far back to pull. Intuit notes that download timespans vary by bank, from 90 days up to 24 months.
Connect the business checking account and the business credit card. Leave personal accounts out. Every line the feed downloads has to be categorized by a person eventually, and personal spending is the fastest way to make that work pointless.
Pick a start date you can defend: the day the LLC opened the account, or the first day of the year you will file. That date is the line before which nothing lives in QuickBooks.
Source: Connect bank and credit card accounts to QuickBooks Online ↗
Add customers as you invoice them
Customer display name is the only required field when you add a customer, so there is nothing to prepare. Add each customer the first time you bill them and fill in the rest later.
If you already keep a customer list in a spreadsheet, QuickBooks imports customers from an Excel or CSV file instead. Use that only if the list is current. Importing a stale list gives you names to clean up before you have made a dollar.
Send the first invoice
Select Create, then Invoice. Pick the customer, add a line for each product or service, check the invoice date, due date and terms, then choose Review and send to email it. The invoice status changes to Sent.
Set the terms before you send, not after. An invoice with no due date is a payment you will chase from memory. Send the first one the day the work is done, while the file is still empty enough that you can see it.
Source: Create invoices ↗
What not to import
You do not need last year in QuickBooks to start this year right. Intuit describes the opening balance as the amount in a bank or credit card account on the day you start tracking it. That single number stands in for everything before the date you picked.
So leave three things out of the first hour. Old paid invoices, which only add names and numbers nobody will reconcile. Statement files covering months the bank feed already downloaded, which is the most common way a new file ends up with duplicates. And a chart of accounts copied from another business, which gives you accounts you cannot explain.
If you genuinely need prior months in QuickBooks, that is catch-up work with its own order. Do it after the new file is clean, not instead of setting it up.
Source: Enter and manage opening balances in QuickBooks Online ↗