Intuit Enterprise Suite Settings: A Migrator’s Guide

Intuit Enterprise Suite Settings: A Migrator’s Guide

If you’re moving from QuickBooks Desktop to Intuit Enterprise Suite (IES), one of the biggest adjustments is not a new report or missing menu item. It’s how the settings themselves are organized.

QuickBooks Desktop split preferences into My Preferences and Company Preferences across roughly 20 categories. Intuit Enterprise Suite organizes settings by function instead, using 10 tabs with a clear home for each type of configuration. Once that shift clicks, the rest of the setup becomes much easier to navigate. :contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}

This guide walks through every Intuit Enterprise Suite settings tab found under the gear icon in Account and Settings, with a specific focus on what changed, what’s new, and what QuickBooks Desktop users need to know when migrating to IES.

• Intuit Enterprise Suite Settings: Organized by Function
• Company Tab: Entity Identity
• Advanced Tab: The Most Important IES Settings
• Reports Tab: System-Wide Formatting Defaults
• Payments and QuickBooks Checking
• Sales Tab: Customer-Facing Settings
• Expenses Tab: Vendor-Facing Settings
• Time, Projects, and Wallet
• 5 Biggest Differences Between QuickBooks Desktop and IES Settings
• FAQ: Intuit Enterprise Suite Settings

Intuit Enterprise Suite Settings: Organized by Function, Not by User

Intuit Enterprise Suite organizes settings into 10 tabs by function: Company, Reports, Payments, QuickBooks Checking, Sales, Expenses, Time, Projects, Wallet, and Advanced. That’s a significant change from QuickBooks Desktop, which organized many preferences by user.

The structure is straightforward:

• Company: Company information and entity identity
• Reports: System-wide reporting and formatting defaults
• Payments: Payment acceptance and QuickBooks Payments
• QuickBooks Checking: Intuit’s business banking functionality
• Sales: Customer-facing settings and sales forms
• Expenses: Vendor-facing settings, expenses, and billable costs
• Time: Time-entry configuration
• Projects: Project costing defaults
• Wallet: Connected bank accounts and cards used for outgoing payments
• Advanced: Accounting, automation, tracking, multicurrency, and other system-wide settings

Most day-to-day configuration work happens within four tabs: Company, Advanced, Sales, and Expenses.

Company Tab: Entity Identity

The Company tab contains the basic information that identifies the business, including its legal name, address, email, phone number, website, and industry.

Pay particular attention to the industry field during implementation. IES uses the selected industry to seed default accounts and reporting groupings when the company is first configured. Because those accounts can remain even if the industry is changed later, it can be better to leave the field blank during initial setup rather than guess.

Legal information, including the legal name, EIN, and business type, determines what flows to tax filings. Customer-facing information is stored separately from internal company information, allowing a business to maintain an internal mailing address that differs from what customers see.

For multi-entity organizations, the Company tab exists at the child-entity level, while parent-level identity is managed from the parent dashboard.

Advanced Tab: The Most Important IES Settings

The Advanced tab contains many of the settings QuickBooks Desktop users will recognize, but IES consolidates options that Desktop previously scattered across several different preference panels.

Accounting Method and Fiscal Year

The accounting method determines the default reporting basis, either accrual or cash. You can still change the basis on individual reports when needed.

This is similar to the setting previously found under Reports & Graphs in QuickBooks Desktop. The fiscal year and first month of the tax year are also configured here. Most calendar-year businesses will leave both set to January.

Customer Label

IES allows you to replace the word “customers” with terminology that better matches the organization, such as clients, members, donors, or patients.

The selected label appears throughout the system. QuickBooks Desktop did not offer an equivalent setting, making this a useful option for organizations such as law firms, nonprofits, healthcare practices, and agencies.

Close the Books

Close the Books is the IES equivalent of the QuickBooks Desktop closing date password.

Set a closing date and password, and users attempting to post or edit transactions dated on or before that date are stopped and prompted for the password.

IES also adds an audit log that automatically tracks attempted post-close changes, reducing the need to manually run a closing date exception report.

Chart of Accounts Defaults

Enabling account numbers turns on the account number field. A separate setting determines whether those account numbers appear in registers and reports.

IES also groups several default accounts together that QuickBooks Desktop previously distributed across multiple preference panels:

• Shipping account
• Discount account
• Tip account
• Markup income account

Classes, Locations, and Dimensions

Track Classes works similarly to class tracking in QuickBooks Desktop. Businesses can assign one class per transaction or line and optionally receive warnings when a class has not been assigned.

Track Locations gives Desktop migrators another reporting option. Inherited from QuickBooks Online Advanced, it provides a second field for tagging transactions by criteria such as location, department, or region.

Classes and locations can help migrating organizations maintain existing reporting structures. However, one of the more significant reporting capabilities in IES is Dimensions, found under Gear > Lists > Dimensions.

IES supports up to 20 dimensions, each with unlimited values and up to five levels of hierarchy. By comparison, QuickBooks Desktop primarily relied on a single class field, while QuickBooks Online Advanced added class and location tracking.

For organizations that need detailed departmental, entity, project, regional, or operational reporting, developing the right dimensional structure can be an important part of an Intuit Enterprise Suite implementation.

Automation

IES includes several automation settings designed to reduce repetitive data entry. These include:

• Prefilling forms with previously used information
• Automatically applying open customer credits to new invoices
• Automatically applying unapplied bill payments to new bills
• Automatically invoicing unbilled activity

The first three mirror functionality familiar to QuickBooks Desktop users. Automatically invoicing unbilled activity is new for Desktop migrators.

IES also includes an Automated Workflows panel for configuring reminders related to bill payments, invoice sending, and other recurring tasks.

Multiple Currency

The multicurrency setting supports foreign currency transactions by assigning currencies to customers and vendors and handling exchange rates and gain or loss postings.

Important: Enabling multicurrency is a one-way change. Once turned on, it cannot be disabled. Only enable it when you’re certain the organization requires foreign currency transactions.

Other Advanced Settings

The Advanced tab also contains several additional system settings.

Business Network controls whether other Intuit or QuickBooks Online business members can find your company for direct B2B invoicing. This is a cloud-based capability with no direct QuickBooks Desktop equivalent.

Other Preferences includes:

• Date and currency formatting
• Duplicate check number warnings
• Duplicate bill number warnings
• Duplicate journal number warnings
• Automatic sign-out settings

The Backup section provides options that differ significantly from the manual backup processes familiar to Desktop users. IES includes Intuit’s native automatic backup service and a personal cloud backup option that can connect to Google Drive.

Reports Tab: System-Wide Formatting Defaults

The Reports tab provides system-wide report settings that QuickBooks Desktop did not offer in the same way.

Report Settings determines the default visual and formatting standards applied to IES reports, including standard and custom reports.

Visual settings include:

• Header and footer content
• Alignment
• Date and time prepared
• Custom highlights
• Banded rows
• Empty cells
• Gridlines

Formatting settings include:

• Negative number styles
• Thousands separators
• Other number-display preferences

In QuickBooks Desktop, users typically customized an individual report’s header and footer and then saved it as a memorized report. IES allows organizations to establish defaults once so reports, including custom reports, inherit those standards automatically.

Payments and QuickBooks Checking

Payments

The Payments tab is where businesses can enroll in QuickBooks Payments to accept payment methods such as credit cards, ACH, PayPal, and Venmo.

Before enrollment, the tab functions primarily as a sign-up screen. After enrollment, it becomes the area for managing the deposit account and accepted payment methods.

For QuickBooks Desktop users accustomed to separate merchant services and manual reconciliation processes, this represents a more integrated approach to accepting and reconciling customer payments.

QuickBooks Checking

QuickBooks Checking is Intuit’s business bank account offering. It can provide same-day deposits when customers pay through QuickBooks Payments.

This is another cloud-based service without a direct QuickBooks Desktop equivalent.

Sales Tab: Customer-Facing Settings

The Sales tab is one of the clearest examples of how IES consolidates QuickBooks Desktop settings.

Desktop distributed these options across areas such as Sales & Customers, Send Forms, and Finance Charges. IES places customer-facing configuration in one location.

Sales Form Content

Preferred invoice terms, preferred delivery methods, and custom transaction numbers behave similarly to their QuickBooks Desktop counterparts. IES also includes several fields and capabilities that may be new to Desktop users.

Products and Services

This section controls how products and services behave on sales forms and how inventory is tracked.

Unit of measure allows the same item to be sold in different units, such as cases, individual units, or pallets, with built-in conversions. QuickBooks Desktop offered this functionality in Premier and Enterprise.

Price Rules supports customer-specific pricing, promotional discounts, and quantity-based tiered pricing, expanding on the price-level and advanced-pricing functionality familiar to Desktop users.

IES also provides inventory valuation options for FIFO and moving average cost. QuickBooks Desktop generally used average cost, while FIFO required Advanced Inventory.

Revenue Recognition can automate deferred revenue posting for subscriptions, service contracts, and prepaid retainers. These scenarios often required manual journal entries in Desktop.

Late Fees, Progress Invoicing, and Messages

Late Fees is the IES counterpart to QuickBooks Desktop’s finance charges. The account-wide setting enables the feature, while individual customer settings determine the specifics.

Progress Invoicing allows one estimate to generate multiple partial invoices. For example, a project could invoice 30% at signing, 40% at the midpoint, and 30% at completion.

The Messages setting establishes the default email message sent with invoices, estimates, and sales receipts. Configuring it during implementation helps ensure outbound customer communications are consistent instead of requiring employees to manually edit every message.

Expenses Tab: Vendor-Facing Settings

IES consolidates settings that QuickBooks Desktop previously placed across Bills, Time & Expenses, and portions of Checking preferences.

One of the most important settings in this section is Track Expenses and Items by Customer. This setting enables the tracking required for job costing and project-level profit and loss reporting.

If project-level P&L reporting is a requirement, this setting needs to be configured correctly as part of the initial system setup.

Make Expenses and Items Billable adds the billable checkbox to expense lines. It also enables a default markup rate and allows the business to determine how billable expenses are treated for accounting purposes.

Depending on the configuration, billable expenses can be recorded as reduced expense or as income, either through one account or separated by expense type. This accounting decision should be reviewed with an accountant.

Purchase orders, custom fields, and default bill payment terms generally behave similarly to their QuickBooks Desktop counterparts.

Time, Projects, and Wallet

Time

The Time tab contains a relatively short list of configuration options:

• First day of the work week
• Whether the service field appears on time entries
• Whether time can be marked billable
• Whether people entering time can see billing rates

Projects

The Projects tab includes an important choice between Basic Costing and Detailed Costing.

Basic Costing is designed for smaller projects requiring a single-level cost view. Detailed Costing supports larger or more complex projects where budgets need to be divided into phases and cost groups.

The option selected in Account and Settings becomes the default for new projects, but it can be overridden at the individual project level.

QuickBooks Desktop’s Jobs functionality did not provide an equivalent hierarchical costing option.

Wallet

Wallet provides a centralized location for connecting bank accounts and cards used to fund bill payments and other outgoing payments through IES.

QuickBooks Desktop generally handled bill-payment funding within each individual payment rather than through a centralized wallet.

5 Biggest Differences Between QuickBooks Desktop and IES Settings

Across the 10 settings tabs, five changes account for many of the adjustments QuickBooks Desktop users need to make when moving to Intuit Enterprise Suite.

Once you become familiar with the function-based layout, configuring IES becomes less about relearning every preference and more about knowing which tab contains the setting you need.

FAQ: Intuit Enterprise Suite Settings

Where do I find settings in Intuit Enterprise Suite?

Intuit Enterprise Suite settings are located under the gear icon > Account and Settings. The sidebar includes 10 tabs: Company, Reports, Payments, QuickBooks Checking, Sales, Expenses, Time, Projects, Wallet, and Advanced.

What’s the difference between classes and dimensions in IES?

Classes provide a single classification tag per transaction or line and are familiar to QuickBooks Desktop users. IES Dimensions significantly expands that concept, supporting up to 20 dimensions, unlimited values within each dimension, and up to five levels of hierarchy.

Can I turn off multicurrency once it’s enabled in IES?

No. Enabling multicurrency in Intuit Enterprise Suite is a one-way change, similar to QuickBooks Desktop. Only turn it on when the business requires foreign currency transactions.

Which setting enables job costing in Intuit Enterprise Suite?

Track Expenses and Items by Customer, located under the Expenses tab, enables the tracking required for job costing. Without it, project-level profit and loss reporting will not work as intended.

Which IES settings should QuickBooks Desktop users review first?

Start with the Company, Advanced, Sales, and Expenses tabs. These contain many of the core accounting, reporting, customer, vendor, automation, and job-costing settings that affect how the IES environment operates.

How many dimensions can you use in Intuit Enterprise Suite?

Intuit Enterprise Suite supports up to 20 dimensions. Each dimension can contain unlimited values and support up to five levels of hierarchy, allowing organizations to build more detailed reporting structures than traditional class tracking.