For this Portfolio Project option, you must review QuickBooks and develop a report based on your review. Your research for this report should be completed using the Lynda.com tutorial videos in the Module 5 Materials folder and research on how companies are using the software. In this module, you will formulate an outline of your review as a milestone toward the completion of this project. Your outline should include your main points/arguments and supporting details for each of the required sections:

Section I: Overview

Provide a general overview of QuickBooks. Make sure the overview provides the reader with a general understanding of the application, including costs, functionality and minimum system requirements.

Section II: Transactional Processing and Data Management

Describe how QuickBooks handles processing the accounting transactions and recording business activities for the revenue, expenditure and financing cycles. You should provide at least one detailed example of how one would record a specific accounting transaction/ business activity for each of the three transaction cycles below. Address the following questions in this section of the report.

Revenue Cycle (Answer the following questions)

How can you formulate and maintain customers?

How can you create customer invoices?

How can you apply customer payments?

What reports can you run to provide you with information regarding your customers and their orders? Describe them.

What reports can you run in order to provide you with information regarding key revenue cycle information - sales, accounts receivable, cash?

Expenditure Cycle (Answer the following questions)

How can you formulate and maintain vendors?

How can you formulate and maintain inventory?

How can you generate payments to vendors?

What reports can you run to provide you with information regarding your vendors and your accounts payable? Describe them.

What reports can you run to provide information regarding key expenditure cycle information - purchases, inventory, and cash?

Financing Cycle (Answer the following questions)

How can you formulate and maintain the chart of accounts?

How can you post journal entries?

What are the key financial statements that are available? Describe them.

What are some key reports one can generate to measure the firm's financial performance?

Section III: Internal Controls

How can Quickbooks enhance internal controls?

How can you secure the system and files?

What potential security weaknesses exist for QuickBooks?

Section IV: Charts and Graphs

How are visualizations formatted and used?

What charts are available and how are charts created?

What is a data diagram in QuickBooks?