QBO Keyboard Shortcuts That Save Hours
By Markie Antle, CPB — Go Fig Bookz
We spend most of every working day inside QuickBooks Online, and the difference between clicking through menus and using shortcuts adds up to real hours over a month. These are the ones we actually use — not the exhaustive list, the daily ones.
The master key
Press Ctrl + Alt + / (Windows) or ⌘ + Option + / (Mac) anywhere in QBO to pop up the shortcuts panel for the page you’re on, along with your company ID. If you remember one shortcut, make it this one.
All the shortcuts below use the same modifier: Ctrl + Alt on Windows, ⌘ + Option on Mac, plus the letter.
Creating transactions without touching the menu
| Shortcut | Opens |
|---|---|
+ i |
Invoice |
+ x |
Expense |
+ w |
Cheque (write) |
+ e |
Estimate |
+ r |
Receive payment |
If you enter transactions in batches — say, a stack of expenses — the save buttons have keyboard equivalents too: look at the shortcuts panel on the transaction screen for save and new, so your hands never leave the keyboard between entries.
Getting around
| Shortcut | Goes to |
|---|---|
+ a |
Chart of accounts |
+ c |
Customers |
+ v |
Vendors/Suppliers |
+ f |
Search |
+ l |
Lists |
+ h |
Help |
Search (+ f) deserves a special mention: it accepts amounts, names, and reference numbers, so “find that $482 charge from March” is a three-second job instead of a scroll through the register.
The date-field tricks nobody teaches
Click into any date field in QBO and skip the calendar picker entirely:
- t — today
- w / k — first / last day of the week
- m / h — first / last day of the month
- y / r — first / last day of the year
- + / − — forward / back one day at a time
Entering a batch of month-end entries? Type h and you’re on the last day of the month, every time. This one trick pays for the whole article at year-end.
Duplicate anything
Open an existing invoice, estimate, or expense and use More → Copy at the bottom. For recurring near-identical transactions that don’t quite justify a recurring-transaction template, copying last month’s entry and touching up two fields is the fastest path.
Shortcuts make a fast bookkeeper faster — they don’t fix a file that’s set up wrong underneath. If QBO itself feels like it’s fighting you (a cluttered chart of accounts, bank feeds that never match, reports you don’t trust), that’s a setup problem, not a speed problem. Our QuickBooks Online setup, cleanup, and one-on-one training fixes the foundation — from an Advanced Certified ProAdvisor. Get in touch.