How to Make QuickBooks Online Look Like Desktop

Switching from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online can feel like learning a new language. You know the underlying accounting principles are identical, but the interface, the workflow, and the muscle memory you’ve built over years are suddenly gone. The most common frustration we hear from seasoned accountants is a simple one: "How can I just make it look and work like the Desktop version I know?"

While you can’t transform QuickBooks Online (QBO) into a perfect clone of its Desktop predecessor, you can make a series of strategic adjustments to the interface and your workflow that will make it feel remarkably familiar and efficient. This guide will walk you through the exact steps to customize your QBO experience to closely mimic the speed and layout of QuickBooks Desktop.

First, Address the Fundamental Difference

Before we dive into settings, it's important to understand the core difference in design philosophy. QuickBooks Desktop was built around a main "Home Page" with flowcharts and an extensive top menu bar (File, Edit, View, Lists, etc.). It’s a classic, software-first design. QBO, being a web application, is designed around a persistent left-hand navigation menu and a central, customizable dashboard. The key isn't to fight this design but to bend it to your will.

Our goal is to recreate the direct-access feel of the Desktop version, minimizing clicks and bringing your most-used functions to the forefront.

The Single Most Important Change: Switch to Accountant View

If you only make one change, make it this one. By default, many QBO versions are set to "Business view," which simplifies the terminology and hides some of the more advanced accounting features to be more approachable for non-accountants. This view simplifies navigation labels (e.g., "Bookkeeping" instead of "Accounting") and tucks core features away. For a professional, it’s inefficient.

The Accountant view is denser, uses standard accounting terminology, and provides a much more direct path to the functions you use every day, like the Chart of Accounts and banking registers. It more closely resembles the data-rich environment of Desktop.

Here’s how to switch:

• Click the Gear icon (Settings) in the top-right corner of your screen.
• At the very bottom of the menu that appears, look for the link that says "Switch to Accountant view." Click it.

Instantly, your left navigation bar will change. Menu items like "Cash flow" will be replaced by "Banking," and you’ll see direct links to "Accounting" which contains your Chart of Accounts and Reconcile tools. This is the foundation for making QBO work for a power user.

Recreate Your Icon Bar with Bookmarks

One of the best features of Desktop was the customizable icon bar at the top, giving you one-click access to Invoices, Bills, Chart of Accounts, or any report you frequently run. QBO has a direct equivalent, but it's often overlooked: the Bookmarks Bar.

Anything that can be bookmarked will have a small bookmark icon next to its name in the navigation panel. You can use this to build your own custom, top-level menu that stays put, no matter where you are in QBO.

Steps to build your custom QBO "icon bar":

1. Make sure you are in Accountant view.
2. Hover over the menu items in the left navigation panel. For example, hover over Sales > Invoices. Instead of clicking it, find the small bookmark outline that appears to the right and click that. A filled-in bookmark will appear.
3. Now look at the very top of your left navigation bar. Under the company name, you will see a new "Bookmarks" section with a direct link to a "New invoice."
4. Repeat this process for all your most-used features.

Here’s a recommended list to bookmark for a Desktop-like feel:

• Customers & Sales: New Invoice, Receive Payment, Customers
• Vendors & Expenses: New Bill, Pay Bills, Vendors
• Banking: Banking (the main bank feed center), Rules
• Core Accounting: Chart of Accounts, Reconcile
• Reports: Your three most-viewed reports (e.g., Profit & Loss, A/R Aging, Balance Sheet). You can bookmark reports directly from the Reports center.

Once you’ve set this up, you can minimize the other sections in the left-hand navigation. Your custom Bookmarks Bar now serves as your primary navigation hub, just like the old icon bar.

Mastering Workflow Speed and Keyboard Shortcuts

QuickBooks Desktop pros are often masters of keyboard shortcuts and efficient multi-window workflows. You can replicate—and even improve upon—this in QBO.

Embrace Multiple Browser Tabs

This is where QBO has a distinct advantage over Desktop. You can open multiple parts of the program simultaneously in different browser tabs. Want to look at a Profit & Loss report while entering a bill? In Desktop, you’d have to toggle back and forth. In QBO, you can simply open each in a new tab.

• How to do it: Instead of left-clicking a menu item, right-click on it and select "Open link in new tab."

Get into the habit of opening your P&L, your A/R Aging, and your Bank Feed in separate, pinned tabs at the start of your session. This gives you an immediate, at-a-glance view of your key reports without ever leaving the screen you're working on.

Your New "Create" Button: The "+ New" Menu

In Desktop, creating a new transaction often meant going to the Customers or Vendors menu. In QBO, your central hub for creating anything is the "+ New" button in the top left corner. Clicking it gives you a clean, organized list of every possible transaction, neatly sorted into columns for Customers, Vendors, Employees, and Other.

Instead of hunting through menus, train your brain to go straight to "+ New." This one button replaces nearly a dozen different menu paths from the Desktop version, making new transaction entry much faster once you build the habit.

Learn the Core Keyboard Shortcuts

QBO has a great set of keyboard shortcuts that can save you countless clicks. To see all of them at once, press Ctrl + Alt + ? (or Ctrl + Option + ? on a Mac) anywhere within QBO. A pop-up will show you a full list.

Here are a few essential shortcuts to feel like a Desktop power user:

• Create Invoice: Ctrl + Alt + I
• Create Expense: Ctrl + Alt + X
• Create Check: Ctrl + Alt + C
• Create Bill: Ctrl + Alt + B
• Global Search: Ctrl + Alt + F
• Save transaction: Ctrl + Alt + S

Memorizing just these five or six can dramatically speed up your data entry, bringing it closer to the heads-down efficiency many users feel in the Desktop environment.

Finding Your Familiar Centers and Registers

Two of the most-used areas in QuickBooks Desktop are the registers (especially for the bank and credit card accounts) and the customer/vendor centers. Here’s where to find their direct equivalents in QBO's Accountant view.

Accessing Your Bank Account Registers

Nothing feels more like classic accounting than a bank register. In QBO, getting there is just two clicks away once it's bookmarked.

1. Navigate to Accounting > Chart of Accounts from the left menu.
2. Find the bank or credit card account you want to see.
3. In that account's row, click on the "View register" link in the Action column.

The screen that opens up is a near-perfect replica of the Desktop register view. It allows you to see all transactions in chronological order, make quick edits, and reconcile directly from the register. For many users, finding this familiar view is a huge comfort.

The Customer and Vendor Centers

In QBO, these are organized under their respective workflow tabs, which makes sense contextually:

• For the Customer Center: Navigate to Sales > Customers
• For the Vendor Center: Navigate to Expenses > Vendors

From these screens, you can click on any customer or vendor name to see their full transaction history, contact information, and account details, just as you would in the Desktop version's centers. Again, bookmarking these pages is the fastest way to get back to them with a single click.

Customizing Reports for an "Old School" Feel

The final piece of the puzzle is recreating your go-to reports. QBO's reporting engine is powerful but can feel foreign. The key is to customize them once and save them for repeat use.

1. Go to the Reports center.
2. Find and run a standard report, like the Profit & Loss.
3. At the top of the report, use the options to set the date range, display columns, set cash or accrual basis, and apply any filters you need.
4. Once the report looks exactly how you want it, click the green "Save customization" button in the top right.
5. Give your report a memorable name (e.g., "P&L - Monthly Mgmt View") and add it to a group if you like.

From now on, your custom-built report will be waiting for you under the "Custom reports" tab in the Reports center. Build out a handful of these custom reports, and you’ll effectively have your own "memorized reports" list, just like in Desktop.

Final Thoughts

You can’t make QuickBooks Online a pixel-perfect copy of the Desktop version, but you’re not trying to. The goal is to restore the professional-grade efficiency you’re accustomed to. By switching to Accountant View, building a custom Bookmarks Bar, embracing browser tabs, and learning the new command centers like the "+ New" button, you can create a QBO experience that is just as fast—and in some ways, more flexible—than what you had before.

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