[Nfb-krafters-korner] Quick Books

[Becky Frankeberger via Nfb-krafters-korner]

This article came from Access Worl.

Product Evaluations and Guides

An Introduction to Accessible QuickBooks by Intuit and My Blind Spot

Aaron Preece

Recently, My Blind Spot, Inc., has been working closely with Intuit, the
makers of

the popular QuickBooks accounting software for small businesses, to make the
program

accessible to people with vision loss and other print disabilities. In the
past,

screen reader users could use the software with version-dependent
work-arounds. With

recent versions, the program became unmanageable with a screen reader.
Albert Rizzi,

founder of My Blind Spot, began working with Intuit to bring accessibility
to QuickBooks.

My Blind Spot and Intuit have made amazing strides in QuickBooks
accessibility through

a blend of accessibility fixes applied directly to QuickBooks code as well
as screen-reader

specific scripts developed by John Martyn and Steven Clark.

In this evaluation, I look at select aspects of QuickBooks Pro Version 2014.
Note

also that QuickBooks accessibility is still a work in progress; the My Blind
Spot

and Intuit teams have focused their efforts on the aspects of the program
that are

used on a regular basis. Infrequently required aspects--such as installation
and

company setup--remain challenging. For this evaluation, I review some of the
more

commonly used facets of the program. My Blind Spot supplements internal
QuickBooks

accessibility by working with screen readers to add accessibility through
scripting.

JAWS is the screen reader used in this evaluation; currently, it offers the
most

advanced QuickBooks scripts and provides the best access to the program.

Documentation and Tutorials

My Blind Spot is in the process of producing documentation and tutorials
developed

by Vita Zavoli and Richard Kelly to assist users of Accessible QuickBooks. I
was

able to review a chapter of the documentation as well as the initial
tutorials. The

chapter concerned reports. This was useful as reports are slightly more
advanced

than other screens with better native accessibility. The chapter briefly
described

the relevant screen, followed by lists of instructions for accomplishing
various

tasks when working with reports. The instructions were clear and easily
understood

and the list structure makes it easy for a user to find a specific task. The
chapter

was also rendered in Microsoft word format making it easily navigable with a
screen

reader.

My Blind Spot is also producing video tutorials that provide extensive
overviews

of various tasks that can be accomplished in QuickBooks. At the moment of
writing,

two tutorials are available on YouTube:

Selecting Chart of Accounts as Home Screen and Recommended Basic Settings

and

QB Check Writing

. For these tutorials, each action is described and the JAWS screen reader
is used

so that a screen reader user can follow along with the tutorial. Each
keystroke is

described to add further clarity for viewers with visual impairments. It is
extremely

easy to follow the lesson and accomplish the tasks described, and the
instructor,

Richard Kelly, is excellent, clearly describing the program.

Initial Setup and Menu Bar

Once you have installed the QuickBooks program and created your company
profile,

you can open your company's profile when the program launches. QuickBooks
opens to

a list of QuickBooks company files on your computer. You can navigate this
list using

your up and down arrow keys. Once you have selected the QuickBooks file you
want

to work with, you can tab to the "Open Company" button and activate it with
the spacebar

key. If you have set a password on your account, you will be prompted to
enter it

here. When the file loads with the default home screen. This screen is very
inaccessible

but luckily, it is not needed; close it with Ctrl + F4. The items on the
home screen

can be accessed from the menu bar, which is presented as a Windows standard
menu

bar, so it's accessible to screen readers. After this, you should set some
recommended

settings to make QuickBooks easier to navigate with a screen reader. The
first setting

to deactivate the What's New setting in the Help menu. To do this, press Alt
+ H

to open the Help menu. The What's New item is the second item in the list.
If it

is checked, press Enter to uncheck it. It is also recommended that you
change some

items in the View menu. You can open this menu by pressing the Alt + V keys.
The

first item you should check in this menu is the Hide Icon Bar item, listed
fourth

in the menu. Next, have QuickBooks only display one window at a time (this
is the

second to last item on the menu).

Creating a Bank Account

To create a bank account, first open the Chart of Accounts screen by
pressing Ctrl

+ A. The screen displays the list of your current accounts. To create a new
account,

you can activate the "Account" button and select New or you can press Ctrl +
N. When

the new account screen appears, you first must select the account type via a
list

of radio buttons. The possible choices are: Income, Expense, Fixed Asset
Major Purchases,

Bank, Loan, Credit Card, Equity, and Other Account Types. For this
evaluation, I

created a standard Bank account. Below the list of radio buttons, there is a
combo

box for selecting the type of account for the Other Account Types. Below
this is

a "Continue" button that you must press to continue account creation. Note
that there

appears to be a second combo box after the combo box for selecting the Other
Account

Type, but it is not used. Once you select the account type and activate the
"Continue"

button, you move to a screen where you can enter your account information,
starting

with the Account Name field. Below this is a check box that allows you to
make the

account that you are creating a sub-account of another account. If you check
this

box, you are presented with a combo box just below the check box in order to
choose

the parent account. Next is a Description field, followed by a field labeled
"Bank

Act. No.," where you enter the bank account number. The following field is
for the

routing number, followed by a combo box for selecting the tax line for this
account.

The field is simply labeled "Select From Examples." To discover what this
field referred

to, I used Manual Navigation (described later). Following this combo box,
you can

enter an opening balance for your account. Instead of a field, this option
is a button

that launches a dialogue where you can enter the opening balance
information. Note

that the fields in this dialogue are not automatically read and some,
including the

field where you can enter the opening balance, are not read at all. Using
Manual

Navigation, it is possible to read these fields and enter information. After
this

button, there is a field where you can enter the check number that will
alert you

to order new checks. Below this is a check box that allows you to choose to
order

checks that can be printed with QuickBooks. After this box you can save the
account

by using the "Save and Close" or "Save and New" (Alt + A and Alt + S,
respectively)

buttons. You can also cancel the account by using the "Cancel" button, which
is located

after the "Save and New" button.

Writing Checks

Press Ctrl + W to launch the check writing screen. This screen is like all
other

data input screens; you can navigate by either using the arrow keys or the
Tab key.

The first field is the Bank Account field, which is automatically populated
with

your bank account. Following this field is the date field, also
automatically populated,

then the Pay to the Order Of field, where you can enter the payee. As is
true for

most fields of this nature, you can begin to type the name of the vendor and
the

list will populate with names of vendors matching the letters you have
typed. Note

that if you have purchase orders for vendors, you can have that information
automatically

entered into the form. Below the vendor name is the Amount field. This may
be populated

with data, depending on your settings and the decisions you made in the
previous

field (such as using a purchase order to populate the check). Next is the
Address

field, which should be populated with the address of your selected vendor.
Below

this is the Memo field, followed by the Account field for selecting the
account from

which you would like to expense this check. Next is the amount to be
expensed followed

by another Memo field, which is followed by additional fields for entering
other

transactions. The fields include those for customer job, account, amount,
and memo.

Once you have completed entering your transactions, you can print the check
by pressing

Alt + T, or save it by either using Alt + A or Alt + S to save and close or
save

and begin a new check, respectively.

Navigating a Report with Manual Navigation

For several screens, QuickBooks currently requires the use of a scripted
feature

called Manual Navigation. This feature allows a user to navigate a screen's
visual

layout by using keystrokes. Here I describe using Manual Navigation to
access a Profit

and Loss report (which otherwise would not be accessible). To launch a
Profit and

Loss report, press Alt + R to open the Reports menu. From here, press the F
key to

open the Company and Financial submenu. The first item is labeled "Profit
and Loss

Standard." Activate this item to launch the report. From here, you need to
use Manual

Navigation to read the report. In the current iteration of the scripts used
during

this evaluation (R46), you must first toggle Manual Navigation by pressing
Ctrl +

Shift + M. Once Manual Navigation has been activated, you can press Ctrl +
Shift

+ an arrow key to move in that direction. For example, the down and up
arrows move

vertically along the page and read each line completely; the left and right
arrows

move left and right across the screen, element by element. Note that when
you reach

the end of a line while moving left and right, you are moved to either the
proceeding

or succeeding line. When you navigate vertically, you are always placed at
the beginning

of the line of elements for the row to which you just navigated. When Manual
Navigation

is first activated, it begins at the top of the screen. The first item is a
title

bar followed by Minimize, Restore, and Close icons. One row below contains
the Menu

bar. A row below this is the text "Account Quick Report" and a Close icon.
Following

this is a list of action buttons for manipulating the report. These are as
follows

from left to right: "Customize Report," "Share Template," "Memorize,"
"Print," "E-mail,"

"Excel," "Hide Header," and "Refresh." Below this row is a listing of your
current

display settings including the range of time that the report covers and the
method

used to sort the data. You can use the Right Arrow while using Manual
Navigation

to edit these settings from this row of controls. The "Customize" button
will display

a more complete list of settings. Below this list is the time the report was
generated,

followed by the name of the QuickBooks user. On a row below this is the rest
of the

date the report was generated and the name of the report. The next row
states accrual

basis and the dates that the report spans. The following row restates the
report

dates followed by the report itself. You can navigate the report using
Manual Navigation

and the report may include items such as the following depending on the data
you

have chosen to display. My report displays income and expenses. The word
"Income"

is in a row by itself followed by accounts from which I gained income and
their values.

The total income is also displayed. The same is true for expenses. At the
bottom

of the report, my net income and net ordinary income are displayed. The
information

is easily read using the Manual Navigation cursor and it is also useful that
you

can directly interact with buttons using this cursor; it makes navigating
such screens

much easier than using the JAWS cursor.

The Bottom Line

My Blind Spot and Intuit should be commended for their efforts to improve
accessibility.

Not only have they made great strides towards developing an accessible
product, they

have also produced a product that is very usable. I am a QuickBooks novice
yet I

was able to learn to operate the program quickly including performing such
additional

tasks as making a deposit, creating an invoice and adding a customer. A
long-time

QuickBooks user should find using the accessible aspects of the program
effortless.

The inclusion of tutorials and extensive documentation also should make the
program

easy to learn for those accountants with visual impairments who are new to
the QuickBooks

program. If you have experience with QuickBooks and screen readers
(JAWS/NVDA/Window

Eyes) and would like to take part in QuickBooks testing for accessibility,
send an

email to

Info at myblindspot.org

.

Product Information

Product:

QuickBooks Pro 2014

Price: $249.95

Manufacturer:

Intuit

 

 

Becky Frankeberger

Butterfly Knitting

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