Today, success is measured by how quickly things get done in business. With QuickBooks as one of the most widely used accounting software solutions, handling financial data and tasks is not so much of a challenge anymore for small businesses and professionals. However, if you're handling multiple tasks simultaneously or if you need to keep track of various reports, that's when having QuickBooks on multiple monitors or multiple screens can really make the difference.

If you ever wanted more screen space to manage your financial data, invoices, reports, or even keep tabs on customer communication, multi-monitor mode can significantly boost your productivity. Here's how you can set up QuickBooks on multiple screens to maximize efficiency.

How to Set Up QuickBooks on Multiple Screens?

Setting up QuickBooks to operate on multiple monitors is not a particularly complicated process, but it requires the right hardware and software setup. Here's how you get started.

1. Make sure your computer supports multiple monitors

Ensure your computer can support multiple screens before setting up QuickBooks on multiple screens. For this:

• Check your graphics card; it should have multiple outputs to connect multiple monitors like HDMI, VGA, and DisplayPort.
• Confirm the OS: Both Windows and macOS supported the multi-monitor setup, but you had to confirm that your OS was properly updated and supported multiple monitors.

2. Physically Connect the Monitors

Now, if you have confirmed that your computer supports multiple monitors, it's time to connect them in the physical world.

• If you are using Windows: Connect each monitor into an appropriate port on your computer. If you're working with a laptop, you will probably need to employ docking stations or adapters for the additional monitors.
• For macOS: Just connect each monitor through either Thunderbolt, HDMI, or DisplayPort connectors.

Ensure that all monitors are powered on and set up in a preferred orientation. It can be landscape or portrait mode.

3. Adjust Display Settings

Connect your monitors, then configure your display settings to extend the desktop across all of them.

For Windows:

• Right-click on your desktop and select Display settings.
• Under the "Multiple displays" section, use the dropdown to select "Extend these displays".
• You can arrange monitors in the settings in accordance with your physical setup by dragging them to align as desired.

For macOS,

• Open System Preferences and select Displays.
• Go to the Arrangement tab and arrange your displays according to how you want them to be.
• Ensure Mirror Displays is not checked for the displays to be extended.

4. Open Multiple Monitors in QuickBooks

Now that your monitors are set up, it's time to use QuickBooks across multiple screens. QuickBooks does not really have a feature for using the multi-screen mode, though it does allow you to open multiple windows at once. This is how you take advantage of multiple monitors:

• Open up QuickBooks on your computer like you normally would.
• Open multiple windows in QuickBooks: You can open several windows such as the Dashboard, Customer List, Vendor List, Reports, or Invoices. For this, go to File > New Window. This opens a new QuickBooks window that can be moved to another screen.
• Drag the windows to different monitors: Once you have opened all of the different QuickBooks windows, simply drag each window to a different monitor. For example, you might put the Dashboard on one screen and Financial Reports on another.

Users can use multiple windows to keep their key tasks alive on separate monitors for easy access.

5. Organize Your Workflow

Once you have QuickBooks spread across multiple monitors, consider how you want to create your workflow to ensure you have the most efficiency. Below are some ideas for your monitor layout with QuickBooks:

• Monitor 1: Keep your Dashboard open - here you can view the bottom line of your business like income, expenses, or profit.
• Monitor 2: Open your customer list or invoices to handle transactions and communicate with customers as you work on other tasks.
• Monitor 3: Be used for reports, which include Profit and Loss as well as Balance Sheets, where you can evaluate business performance and make rapid decisions.
• Monitor 4: Leave this to other tasks, maybe payroll, bank reconciliations, or simply reading through a help article or tutorial as needed.

6. Keyboard Shortcuts for Faster Navigation

In addition to using multiple screens, QuickBooks offers several keyboard shortcuts that can further enhance your multi-monitor experience. Here are a few:

• Ctrl + 1: Open the Dashboard
• Ctrl + 2: Open the Customer List
• Ctrl + I: Open Invoices
• Ctrl + R: Open Reports

Using these shortcuts can help you quickly jump between windows and monitor tasks without using the mouse.

7. Enhanced Multi-Monitor Experience with QuickBooks Online

It's essentially the same process if you are using QuickBooks Online. You can have multiple tabs in your web browser open up, drag them across different monitors, and you could organize windows in the same way you would have if you had the desktop version of QuickBooks. Because QuickBooks Online is cloud-based, you'll even be able to access your business data on the go, accessing it on multiple devices.

Conclusion

Using QuickBooks on multiple screens is one of the best ways to boost your productivity and make financial management tasks easier to manage. Hopefully, these steps might have helped you in some way to make the most of your QuickBooks multi-monitor mode. If you fail to do so, do not hesitate in contacting our QuickBooks desktop support team at 1-800-761-1787, and we will provide you with immediate support and guidance.