How to show a customer pre-payment on an invoice.

If you accept deposits or prepayment from your customers and wish to reflect those payments and show only the outstanding balance due on your invoices, a simple customized invoice will do the trick.  Read here to find out how you can record these prepayments.

 Once the invoice has been created you can choose the Apply Credits button at the bottom of the invoice screen.

Any available credits for this customer will appear in a pop-up.  Choose the pre-payment that you recorded for this invoice.  Select Done.  In the lower right portion of your invoice screen you will see the payment amount that has been applied and the balance due on the invoice.

Your next step will be to create a customized invoice form to show this same information on your printed or e-mailed invoice.  From the invoice screen choose Customize from the invoice menu bar.  If you have a newer version of Quickbooks a pop-up window will appear asking if you want to create your own form or customize an existing form.  Choose the Customize Data Layout option.

In the customization screen choose the Footer Tab, and click the Print box for Payments/Credits and for Balance Due.

New versions of Quickbooks will automatically adjust the layout to fit these extra fields at the bottom of the invoice.  If you have an older version of Quickbooks you will need to manually adjust the layout so that your lines and boxes do not overlap.  To make the manual adjustments click on the Layout Designer button at the bottom of the customization window.

In the Layout Designer window you can click on various boxes and drag the field indicator buttons to make the box smaller.  You can also click and drag various boxes to relocate them on the invoice.  When you click on a box there will be a message in the lower left corner of the Layout Designer screen telling you what box you have clicked on...whether it is a text box, a data box, etc.  Adjust the main body of the invoice to allow room for your new footers at the bottom of the invoice.

When you are done click OK and you will see a preview window of what your invoice will look like when printed.  You can hop right back into the Layout Designer if you need to make further adjustments.   This is what your customized invoice will look like...

 Another great feature is that once you customize this invoice you don't have to repeat the process.  It remains stored in your Quickbooks.  You can even rename it so it's easier to use later.  From the Additional Customization window choose the Basic Customization tab,

...then select Manage Templates,

 

 The invoice you are customizing will appear highlighted in the Manage Templates window.  Click on the Template name in the upper right and change the name as desired.  The next time you create an invoice you simply click the Template drop down in the upper right corner and choose the invoice you wish to use.   

Again, please post comments so that answers to your questions can be addressed on the blog.  Happy Bookkeeping!

This material is for informational purposes only and not intended and financial, legal or tax advice. Please consult your finance, legal or tax professional to confirm the accuracy of all information. Quickbooks is a registered product of Intuit.

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The Most Common Mistake I See With New Quickbooks Users

It's a cute little commercial...

One thing I try to explain to new Quickbooks users is that the software IS user friendly but you still need basic knowledge of the software to avoid making mistakes, and basic bookkeeping knowledge to be sure your recording entries correctly.

The most common mistake I have seen in my freelance bookkeeping practice is with Customer payments & Bank deposits.  Quite often a new user will use Quickbooks to create an invoice to a customer and then enter a customer's payment to them as a bank deposit without  applying the payment to the outstanding invoice.  This will result in an ever-growing Accounts Receivable balance on the customers Balance Sheet as well as over-stated income on the Profit & Loss Statement.

On the other hand, they may properly record the customers' payment using the "Receive Payment" feature, but again, they record the deposit as income rather than linking the deposit entry to the received payment. The clear indicator of this will be a balance in the Undeposited Funds account on the Balance Sheet, that continues to grow, and a duplication of Income reflected on the Profit and Loss statement.

A simple way to be sure that you are not double posting income is to use the Sales by Customer Summary report and compare the total on this report to the income on the Profit & Loss Statement for the sale time period.  These numbers should be the same.

This assumes that all revenues are posted to customers in the company file either by invoice or sales receipt..  If you "deposit" a portion of your sales (for example small dollar cash sales at an event) directly to an income account without using the invoice or sales receipt option, this double-check will not work.

For basics on how to use Quickbooks software, the classes offered by Intuit are a good investment.  A local Quickbooks Proadvisor can offer individualized training that allows for questions specific to your situation and business.

If you think you have made these errors, DON'T PANIC!.  Quickbooks can be easy to mess-up but it is just as easy to fix.  Your Proadvisor can show you how.

I need to convert a Peachtree PC file on a remote service to a Quickbooks file on my Mac...

Wow!  One of the more complicated conversions I have done for a client came my way the other day.  Not only was my client switching from Peachtree to Quickbooks, not only were they switching from PC to Mac, but they also had their Peachtree files located on a remote server out-of-state.

Intuit offers a free conversion tool that can easily be downloaded onto your pc to convert a Peachtree file into a Quickbooks file.  The client had already purchased Quickbooks for MAC.  (You must have Quickbooks for MAC 2007 or newer)  In addition he had to purchase the Quickbooks PC license and installed it on the Windows 7 platform that was already installed on his MAC.

The big complication in this particular conversion was that the Peachtree and Quickbooks software as well as the conversion tool have to be installed on the same computer and that computer has to be a local computer.  Because his Peachtree files were located out of state on another computer we had to send the file to Intuit tech-support for conversion.  The conversion was completed quickly and we had our new file back in less then 48 business hours.  And, because my client went through a ProAdvisor his conversion was free.


We restored this converted file to Quickbooks using the PC version of the software.  The next step was to open this company file and use the feature in Quickbooks to prepare the file for a MAC conversion.  (This is found under the "File" drop down menu on the top menu bar, and the "Utilties" feature.  Select "Copy company file for Quickbooks MAC".  Save the prepared file to your Desktop if your are already working on your MAC or to a flash drive if you are moving it to another computer.)  Once complete we were able to open the company file in the MAC version and the training commenced.


One thing to NOTE if you are considering using Quickbooks for MAC and you have a Proadvisor or Accountant that regularly accesses you Quickbooks file.  The remote access feature built-in to Quickbooks does not work with the MAC platform.  Therefore, you can either allow access through Remote Desktop Connection, or run your Quickbooks on the Windows 7 parallel platform with your MAC.

The client I worked with in this incident actually used the PC version to create a file for his personal bookkeeping.  He wanted to have a handle on his personal spending and was able to download several years worth of transactions from his bank.  This gave him the opportunity to become more familiar with Quickbooks software before tackling his multiple company files in the Mac version.  I have a feeling he may end up sticking with the PC version now that he has experience with all of the extra features, and consequently the increased ease, that the PC version provides.


With the outside services provided intuit this project took several visits.  Now that everything is complete this client should be making great progress with minimal follow-ups.

Open Purchase Order Report Shows PO's That Are Received In Full

In Quickbooks Pro Manufacturing Edition are you seeing Purchase Orders on your Open PO report in Quickbooks that have been received in full.  Are you seeing the "Received In Full" stamp on these PO's when you open them to try to determine the cause of the error.

Here is a little trick that I have found works well for me.  Open the purchase order that is in question (be sure to keep track of the PO number), change the date of the PO to the year 2030 and save and close it.   Use the "Find" feature with the PO number or locate it in the Customer center if you no longer see it on the report.  Re-open the PO and change the date back to the correct year and save and close it.

Give this a try and please comment on whether or not it has fixed your problem.  It has worked well for me and I am curious to find out if others have the same result.  Yes, I admit, it's just a treatment and doesn't really diagnose why this is happening.

Can I use Quickbooks to do this?

Q.)  Im working in a Multinational Pharmaceutical company that operate in the Gulf as in many other countries, and my Region role is to market the products we don't keep inventory ,we don't sell, we don't collect payments, even we don't prepare balance sheets.  We forward our expenses (allocated by account) to HQ's and they do the rest.  Our expenses are as follows

1 payroll
2 office related  ( rent, courier,telephone,etc)
3 marketing related (meetings,gifts,,, etc)

My role is to prepare expenses formats, make payment to suppliers, control expenditures and prepare a lot of reports shows how much we spend and on which products are alike and prepare expense formats to be sent to HQ's as well.

I dont have a tool to manage all of these , so i use excel which in fact very poor tool to manages all of these tasks. Can Quickbooks help me to prepare monthly statements per account to be sent to HQ's and also help me to prepare internal reports that can help the team to wisly spend on marketing actvites and give me control over spendings against budgets?

A) Even though you don't generate any financial statements you can use Quickbooks to create a budget for your spending, track how your spending compares with your budget, create spending reports by sales rep, location, etc.

Since you are paying vendors you can use Quickbooks to track what you expense and owe. In addition, it sounds like you have a checking account that Quickbooks can assist you in balancing.

I agree, Excel is probably a very time consuming way to track all of this. Even so, Quickbooks allows you to export just about every transaction and report into Excel so you can easily manipulate it, while having accurate numbers. Most of the reports can be modified extensively and run in many different ways to include a lot of different information.

I think with some time, and experimentation you would find it very useful.

Q)  Can I set up cost centers , like for Every Product a seprate cost center where i can charge them for any marketing actvities and generate the reports to show how much each product (cost center) is spending against budgets for its own?

In case this is possible, which edition of QB's i should use, Non profit ,pro?

A) Use the "Class" feature in Quickbooks to create your Cost Centers. Quickbooks Pro should work for you. I don't think the non-profit edition applies but you can use it and make changes to suit your reporting needs.

With the class feature you can create a separate budget and track all of your expenses. Each transaction you enter will give you a "class" column. Remember this one important thing...you have to enter the information correctly to get it reported back to your correctly. You can turn on a "reminder" in Quickbooks that will let you know if you forgot to enter the Class(Cost Center) in a transaction.

Response)  Thank you So Much You were Very hepful. I really appreciate it.

This material is for informational purposes only and not intended and financial, legal or tax advice. Please consult your finance, legal or tax professional to confirm the accuracy of all information. Quickbooks is a registered product of Intuit.

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How Do I Record A Pre-Payment From My Customer In Quickbooks

You have two options depending on how you wish to have the information appear on your balance sheet.

Method #1

The simplest way is to enter the payment in the Customer menu under "Receive Payments".  If there are invoices already entered for this customer and you do not want to apply this prepayment to those invoices, just un-check the invoice that Quickbooks auto-applied the payment to.

After you uncheck this option the Overpayment note at the bottom of the screen will disappear.  Click Save & Close and an option box will pop up on the screen.  Since this is a prepayment will want to the select OK which will save the payment to the Customers account as an un-applied payment.

Entering the pre-payment using this method will have the effect of reducing the accounts receivable balance in the Assets portion of your balance sheet.

If you need to see which customers have un-applied payments posted to their accounts you can run the A/R Aging Detail report under the Customers & Receivables section of the Reports menu.  Any un-applied payments will appear as credits (minus) on the report.

In addition, by using this method you can apply the prepayment to any Job associated with this customer by double clicking on the payment in the Customer Center and selecting the invoice(s) to apply it to.  All Jobs for a Customer will appear for a payment posted just to the Customer and not to a specific job.

Method #2

If you wish to post your Customer's prepayments to a liability account that will appear in the liabilities sections of your Balance Sheet you can do this using a Sales Receipt to record this transaction.

Step one is to create an account on your chart of accounts for the liability such as Customer Deposits.  Use the Other Current Liability account type when setting this up.  Next you will need to create an Item in the Item list to direct to pre-payment to this liability.

From the Item button on the Item list select New.  Choose the "Other Charge" Item type.

Enter the appropriate name and description for the item, choose the non-taxable tax code and select the account the you created in the chart of accounts for this liability.

 Create a sales receipt for the customer using the Sales Receipt form.  Use the Item that you created in the item list and enter the amount of the payment.

  In this way you can record the payment number the payment method, and because you are using a Sales Receipt and not an invoice the funds appear as a balance in the liabilities section of the balance sheet rather than reducing the Accounts Receivable balance on the balance sheet.  Once this Sales Receipt is created you can see the transaction on various Customer reports.  However, it will not appear in any Accounts Receivable reports.

When you are ready to apply this prepayment to a customer invoice you will need to do a journal entry to move this amount into accounts receivable.  Simply debit the Customer Deposits account and credit Accounts Receivable.  Include this Customer name in the Customer/Job column of the journal entry.  If you use Jobs under your Customer register, the journal entry to credit accounts receivable must be attached to the "Job" (in the Customer/Job column) that is being invoiced. 

To apply this prepayment to an invoice, open the invoice by double clicking on it in the Customer Center and click the Apply Credits button.  Once the available credit has been selected choose Done.

This material is for informational purposes only and not intended and financial, legal or tax advice. Please consult your finance, legal or tax professional to confirm the accuracy of all information. Quickbooks is a registered product of Intuit.

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Paying A Bill UsingTwo Separate Forms of Payment

"I have entered a bill that now needs to be paid. The bill however is made up of two payments. One being petty cash and the other from the business bank account. On the pay bills screen I can't seem to see a way to enter the two amounts seperatly, it only has the option to pay the whole bill as one payment. Which will cause problems when I come to reconile."

In Quickbooks you'll have to enter each payment separately. First create the payment from the Pay Bills screen for the check. After you select the bill you are paying you can change the Amount To Pay column to reflect how much the check is for. Either print the check, or assign the check number if you have already written it. Then repeat the process if your Petty Cash is set up in the Chart of Accounts as a "Bank" account, and choose the the PC bank account for your payment method.

Or use a journal entry to debit Accounts Payable (attach this debit to the Vendor name) and credit Petty Cash for the amount of the payment. Once you do this journal entry you will have an available credit to apply to the bill in the Pay Bills window.

 Return to the Pay bills window, select the bill you are applying the payment to and you will see an amount equal to the Petty Cash payment in the Available Credit section of the Pay Bills window.  You will not the this amount until you have actually marked the Bill to pay.

Then simply select the Set Credits button and you can apply the payment in the Apply Credits window.  If there is only one credit available to use, Quickbooks will select it automatically, then check Done.

You will be returned to the Pay Bills window.  Choose Pay Selected Bills then Done in the Payment Summary window.

This material is for informational purposes only and not intended and financial, legal or tax advice. Please consult your finance, legal or tax professional to confirm the accuracy of all information. Quickbooks is a registered product of Intuit.

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My Business Bought a vehicle and we have a loan. How do I record this in Quickbooks?

To record the entry for the purchase of a vehicle you will need two things, your vehicle purchase contract and your loan documents.

Your vehicle purchase statement will reflect the true "cost" of the vehicle including taxes and document fees as well as additional equipment you added to the vehicle.  In addition, if you received any rebate on the vehicle and this was applied to reduce the price of the vehicle this, in effect, reduces your cost.  The total cost, to put the vehicle into service is the cost prior to any cash "down-payment" you make from your personal funds.  If your "down-payment" is the rebate this must be applied to reduce the total cost.

For our example lets assume the vehicle cost $35,000 and the dealer offered a 5,000 rebate.  This puts the "price" of the vehicle at $30,000.  Assuming tax and doc fees of $2750 and no additional equipment, the total cost to put this vehicle into service is $32,750.  You write a company check for a 10% down payment of $3,275 and take out a loan for the balance of 29,475.  Here is how the entry should be recorded in Quickbooks using the Write Checks feature under the Banking tab on the top menu bar.

Enter the check for amount written.  In the Expense portion of the check debit into your Vehicles Fixed Asset account the total true cost to put the vehicle into service.   Create a new Loan account for this loan.  Do not combine loan accounts in Quickbooks.  Your reconciliation will be difficult and this is basically not the proper way to track your loans.   Create a minus entry for the total amount of the loan.  The difference between the two must be the amount of your down payment.  If it is not, then the cost of the vehicle or the balance of the loan entered are incorrect.

When you make a payment on this loan, your expense entry will go against the new loan account.  Reconcile this loan account each month.  If the lender does not provide a statement, we recommend that you request the balance of the loan with the amount of interest applied from the payment in some form that can be printed, such as an email.  You will record the difference between the interest and principle portion of each payment when you reconcile the account against the statement, or lender provided balance.

This material is for informational purposes only and not intended and financial, legal or tax advice. Please consult your finance, legal or tax professional to confirm the accuracy of all information. Quickbooks is a registered product of Intuit.

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We are a church and i was wondering how do we recieve offerings in quick books. we currently recieve them as payments but they dont show on the a/r reports.

You question prompts me to address a problem that I sometimes see.  I do not know if this is what you mean when you say "receive them as payments", but you don't ever want to Receive A Payment if you have not invoiced a "Customer".  Posting payments alone using the "Receive A Payment" in the customer activities will create a negative balance in your Accounts Receivable account.  This may just be a terminology that use chose to use.  Please comment with specifics.

As a non-profit I am assuming you would like to send year end statements to your givers.  This is easy to do with Quickbooks as long as the information is entered per giver.  Of course, some of your gifts will be in cash wiith no indentification of the giver, and those must simply be recorded in the Deposit window to the appropriate income account.


For those contributions you receive by check or in your church's giving envelopes you need to do three things in Quickbooks.  Set your sales tax preference to "No" (see Setting Sales Tax Preference blog posting), add an Item in your Item List (see Adding an Item to Your Item List) to properly record and code the gift and create a separate customer account (see Adding a Customer...) for each single giver or household.  Once you have set these up your can enter your givers contribution as a Sales Receipt.

Create an "Item" in your Item List for "General Giving", using the Other Charge type.  Enter a default description (this description can be changed within a single transaction without changing the default).  Set the income default to the same account you have been posting the deposits to.  In the sample below, I have used a General Contributions Income account.  If you receive dedicated gifts, such as for a building fund or youth program you should create separate Items and Income Accounts for those contributions, so that they can be tracked on you financial reports in the proper manner.

To create the entry to record a contribution from an individual giver, enter the gift through the Sales Receipt transaction under the Customer tab in the top menu bar.  In the Non-profit version of Quickbooks you can find the "Intuit Standard Donation" sales receipt.  Click on the drop down menu in the upper right corner of the Sales Receipt screen to choose this form.  If you do not have the Non-profit version of QB you can create your own customized Sales Receipt.  This will be addressed in another blog.

Choose the Giver from the drop down list in the Customer:Job field.  Enter the date of the donation.  Quickbooks will automatically assign a sequential Donation No. or you can enter your own.  Enter the payment information including a check number if applicable.

In the Item field choose the General Giving item and press tab.  The default description will be entered into the Description field.  You can leave this as is, change it or add to it without changing the default.

Enter the amount of this particular donation.

If you wish, you can enter a message to your giver.  Use that you have already set-up or create a new one.

Once your sales receipt is complete you can select a send option.  Choose To Be Printed or To Be Emailed at the bottom of the Sales Receipt screen to send at a later time with a group of receipts, or choose Email or Print at the top of the screen to send immediately.

By creating these receipts in Quickbooks you will also be able to generate a Customer Statement at the end of the year to send to your donors for their tax records.  This How-to will be addressed in another blog.

With regards to A/R reports these are generally completed in order to track invoices that are created and then payments that are made at a later date.  By recording the donations as Sales Receipts you can create "Sales" reports to provide information.  For example, you can create the Sales by Customer report to see who made donations in a specific period.  Using the Item feature you can also generate Sales reports by Item.  Create separate items for your various fund raising programs and see who gave for each program.

Please post additional comments if further information or clarification is required.

This material is for informational purposes only and not intended and financial, legal or tax advice. Please consult your finance, legal or tax professional to confirm the accuracy of all information. Quickbooks is a registered product of Intuit.

Adding an Item to Your Item list in Quickbooks

The "Item" feature in Quickbooks sets up default income and expense accounts for transactions that your regularly do.  Items can be Inventory, Service Charges, Sales Tax codes, and more.  Each item will always default to the same income and/or expense account that you set as the default. 

To add an item to your item list chose "Lists" on the top menu bar in Quickbooks, and "Item List" in the drop down menu.

From the Item List window select the "Item" tab on the bottom menu bar, then select "New" from the pop-up list.

In your New Item entry screen you will be able to create your entire Item list.  We will address specifics about what types and coding should be used in other blogs.

This is the basic step for creating your Items.  Please submit a comment for more details, or to see a post with the solution for your specific situation.

This material is for informational purposes only and not intended and financial, legal or tax advice. Please consult your finance, legal or tax professional to confirm the accuracy of all information. Quickbooks is a registered product of Intuit.

My customer paid me but I am not sure how to record it because it's the end of the year.

Again, another great teaching opportunity.  A payment from a customer should always be recorded when it is received.

As a business owner, whether you are going to record your income for tax purposes on an accrual basis (when it is earned) or a cash basis (when it is received), you simply record the payment when it was received.  If you are using Quickbooks you will be able to generate your year-end Profit Loss report for either method.   If the payment was for an invoice already billed or entered as a Sales Receipt at the time the service was provided QB will know how and where to include it on either report.

You can review both versions of your P&L in Quickbooks and then review the information with your tax accountant to determine which method you should use.  Keep in mind that if you have been filing based on the accrual method for prior years, you should not switch to the cash method now.  Do not assume that you should simply pick the method that shows the least reported income each year.  Doing so will under report your income from year to year, and could result in some very nasty tax penalties. 

To view your P&L choose Reports from the top menu bar, then Company & Financial, then Profit & Loss Standard.  You can view this report in either cash or accrual without closing the report.  Simply click on the Modify Report button on the menu at the top of the report window.  From here you can select either the Accrual or Cash method of reporting.

When you are viewing this report, be sure to change the dates to the fiscal year that you will be reporting.  The report automatically defaults to the current month in Quickbooks.  You will be able to read the dates and which method is currently displayed.

The date that you deposit the payment into your bank account is immaterial with either method.  Uncle Sam does not care if you hold that check for 6 months, he wants the taxes on it right away.  Honesty is always the best policy.  If you don't try to fudge any numbers or information, you won't ever have to worry about an audit.

This material is for informational purposes only and not intended and financial, legal or tax advice. Please consult your finance, legal or tax professional to confirm the accuracy of all information. Quickbooks is a registered product of Intuit.

How can I streamline Quickbooks?

Great Question.  I found this one on Twitter.

There are several things that will make the software work much better for you, if you are not already doing them.

The first thing you can do is use Quickbooks compatible checks and bank deposit forms.  These can be ordered directly from Intuit or with various online companies that guarantee QB compatibility.  Once you print a check in QB it is automatically recorded.  After you enter customer payments you can select the payments by check or cash that you are going to deposit and print a bank-coded deposit slip and take it to your bank with the checks.  Once printed the deposit is recorded in QB.

These both work in direct conjunction with the automatic bank download application.  Most banks and credit unions offer a Quickbooks download option free of charge.  Many credit card companies also offer this download option as well.  The download will match any transactions such as checks written and deposits made once they have cleared.  If you use a debit card with your checking account, these transactions will download into Quickbooks quickly so you don't have to enter each one as a manual check, and you will still be able to track where you spend your money.  The software will also recognize repeating transactions and recall the vendor and expense account from prior transactions.  All you will have to do is confirm the information.  The longer you use this application, the more transactions are recognized and the quicker the posting becomes.

Using this application also makes your monthly reconciliation a breeze.  If you use this application regularly, all applicable transactions are recorded.  Completing the bank reconciliation can be done in a matter of a few minutes, when you are regularly recording the transactions.

If you use Paypal or an a merchant services to receive payments by credit card, consider switching to a Quickbooks Merchant account.  The rates are usually very competitive.  I've had credit card companies try to solicit my clients and then tell me they can't even compete when they find out the merchant account is through Quickbooks.  You can process your payments directly through the QB software and your credit card payments deposit into your bank automatically.  There are no buttons to push on a machine or batches to send at the end of the day.  They also offer a very reasonably priced card reader that plugs into your computer via USB and reads the card information directly into your Quickbooks file when your customers are on site.

Here is another cool feature.  You can print form letters, envelopes and more, directly through Quickbooks in your Customer or Vendor Center.  Microsoft Word is required for this feature.  Highlight a customer or vendor, click on the Word button on the Customer or Vendor Center menu bar, choose prepare letter for XYZ customer and choose the letter or envelope.  You can create your own letters and forms to add to this feature.

These few features will do a lot to make your Quickbooks software work more for you.  Try them out and you may find that you want to learn more about what it can do for you.

This material is for informational purposes only and not intended and financial, legal or tax advice. Please consult your finance, legal or tax professional to confirm the accuracy of all information. Quickbooks is a registered product of Intuit.

Quickboooks Entreprise 2010 - Add Docs

I've just started playing around with the Document Manager feature in Quickbooks Enterprise.  This can be a great way to make you look really good to your customers. 

If the feature works they way I assume it will I can attach documents that I have completed for my clients, such as salestax returns, to the invoice for their services. 

After I have had an opportunity to work with this application further I will post a blog on what I have been able to accomplish.

American Express Changes Deposit Method for Some Merchants-Quickbooks affected.

If your credit card merchant account is through Quickbooks Merchant Services their is an issue you should be aware of.  American Express is now batching with Visa and Matercard transactions in a single deposit for some of it's merchants.  As a result of this change, Quickbooks Merchant services has started submitting joint Visa, Mastercard and American Express transactions as a single bank deposit to the Quickbooks software when you use the automatic "Make Merchant Deposit" feature.

This AMEX change does not apply across the board for all merchants, so the Merchant service processing that is submitted to Quickbooks may not apply to you, as a QB merchant.  If your bank deposits for AMEX transactions still deposit to your bank separately from your VISA/MC transactions you will not be able to use the "Make Merchant Deposit" feature to record your funded batches.  Quickbooks merchant services is aware of this problem and they are working on a fix to be made sometime in 2010.

Use the Online Banking receive to download your bank transactions from your bank and then group your recorded credit card transactions based on the totals of the deposits.

Again, the problem only applies if Quickbooks Merchant Services is your credit card processing service.

This material is for informational purposes only and not intended and financial, legal or tax advice. Please consult your finance, legal or tax professional to confirm the accuracy of all information. Quickbooks is a registered product of Intuit.

Hints for your Quickbooks Item List

Here are a few quick hints for creating your Item List in Quickbooks.

1) Be consistent.  Be sure to use the same type of spacing and spelling.  Quickbooks sorts using a very basic alphabetic system.  The number of spaces between words can affect the alpha order of your Item List as well as hyphens and other marks.  In other words, item HPP 626 will not appear alphabetically next to HPP - 627 which will not appear next to HPP-628.  Use the same alpha method for all your items.  Either use equal spaces and hyphens in all or none at all.  You can resort your item list by clicking on the title of the column you want to sort by: Name, Description, Type, Price, etc.  

To return the Quickbooks item list to it's default order, click on the item button in the lower left corner of the item screen and  chose Re-sort list.

2) If you have a large item list consider using headers.  Let's say you are an Air Conditioning parts company.  You may want to create a header for Filters, Belts, Tools, etc., then enter all corresponding parts under the appropriate header as a sub-item.  Here is an example.

       FILTERS
            CARBON
                 12X12X1
                 12X12X2
            FIBERGLASS
                 10X16X1
                 10X20X1

Create Headers the same way you create items.  Use the same expense and income defaults for all sub-items under a header to keep your financial reporting consistent as well.  One thing you will want to do with the "Header" system is to be sure you don't record any transactions to the Header.  This can create quantity issues with Inventory Parts and complicate your reports.

If your item list in already in place you can edit a description or make it a sub-account of a header without affecting any prior recorded transactions.  Sort your list by Name to find and items that are not consistent with the rest of your alphabetic method.  Highlight the item you need to correct and click the "Item" button in the  corner of the Item screen and chose "Edit Item".  

If you have a large item list, you can use the "Look For" feature in the upper left corner of the item list screen to search by keyword for a specific item in your list.   This feature is not available on some older versions of Quickbooks.  If you carry a large inventory but don't have this feature in your version, it is probable worth updating your Quickbooks.

Need more information, post a comment here.

This material is for informational purposes only and not intended and financial, legal or tax advice. Please consult your finance, legal or tax professional to confirm the accuracy of all information. Quickbooks is a registered product of Intuit.

How do I record cash expenses for my business?

First, lets preface this posting by recommending that all business and personal transactions should be processed separately.  If you are operating a legitimate business be sure to use a separate checking account.  Do not mix and mingle personal and business transactions.

To record business expenses paid with personal cash or with a personal debit or credit card record a journal entry.  No matter what software you use, or if by some remote chance you are still doing things on paper, record a debit (left) entry to the appropriate expense and record the total credit (right) entry to Owner Investment, which is an equity account.  In Quickbooks the entry would look like this...

Your debit and credit side of the entry must be equal.  If you are using Quickbooks or other software the entry will automatically balance in order for it to be recorded.

More and keeping business and personal transactions separate.

This material is for informational purposes only and not intended and financial, legal or tax advice. Please consult your finance, legal or tax professional to confirm the accuracy of all information. Quickbooks is a registered product of Intuit.

Adding payments and balance due to a customer invoice

How do you include partial payments made and balance due on a customer's invoice?  Use the Customize feature in the customer invoice.  Choice the Intuit invoice that best suits the service or product you are invoicing for then select "Cutomize".  Quickbooks will prompt you to make a copy of this invoice.

Click on the "Additional Customization" tab that appears in the lower section of the Customize window, then chose the "Footer" tab.

 

Check the "Payments/Credit" box and the "Balance Due" box.  Quickbooks will tell you that you are creating fields that will overlap.  Chose the "Continue" button on this warning.  The preview screen will show you the new boxes overlapping the body of the invoice.  From here chose the "Layout Designer" button.  With the Layout Designer you can move and re-size the data and title boxes in the invoice form as desired.

In the Layout Designer click on the part of the invoice you want to modify.  You will see it highlited with the central boxes to make the box smaller or larger.  Resize the body of the invoice to fit above the Payments/Credits box.

When you click on any box on the invoice form the lower left corner of the Layout Designer will tell you what box you are modifying.  When adding the Balance Due to an invoice be sure to delete the "Total" label and data field.  If you forget to do this your customer will see a Balance Due and a Total that may not be the same.

Once you have re-sized all the fields and nothing overlaps, click "ok".  You will be returned to the Customize window.  Review what your invoice will look like in the preview box.  If you wish to modify it further, simply chose the Layout Designer button again and continue with your  modifications.  From here chose the "Manage Templates" button at the top of the Basic Customization window.  Click on the Template Name and rename the copy invoice as desired, then click "ok".

 

Once the preview in the Customize window meets with your satisfaction click "ok".

Now you can use this same customized invoice when ever you want to show the payments applied and the balance due on an invoice.

This material is for informational purposes only and not intended and financial, legal or tax advice. Please consult your finance, legal or tax professional to confirm the accuracy of all information. Quickbooks is a registered product of Intuit.

"How do I show my customer the history of their payments?"

 To show your customer a history of their payments in Quickbooks use the Create Statements activity. You will find this listed under "Customers" on the top menu bar in Quickbooks.

Choose your statement date and the From and To and dates of transactions that you want to show on the statement. Any transactions occurring before your From date will show as a "Balance Forward". It's always a good idea to have your statement date and To date the same. If you want to show each individual transactions, and thus list each by date and amount be sure that the "all open transactions as of statement date" button in UNCHECKED. Choosing this option will only show the open/unpaid balance of the customers invoices and will not show any payment detail.

There are several options you can chose from on the right side to include in the generation of your customer statement. This is where you can also customize your statement form to include the information in the format that you desire. You can then generate a statement for all your customers, some of your customers or only one of your customers.

You have the option to print and/or email the customer their statement. If you chose the Preview option prior to printing you will be able to review that you have selected the correct dates and format before you print. You can then print the statement(s) directly from the preview screen.

Just remember the Quickbooks Golden Rule...What you put in is what you get back out.  The information generated on your statement is a copy of the individual transactions that you have created.

Happy Bookkeeping!

This material is for informational purposes only and not intended and financial, legal or tax advice. Please consult your finance, legal or tax professional to confirm the accuracy of all information. Quickbooks is a registered product of Intuit.

Quickbooks Inventory Feature

Tricky, tricky, tricky. There is so much to know about how to use Quickbooks for inventory tracking and there are so many ways that you can easily end up with an incorrect inventory count and value.

First and foremost, you only need to use the Quickbooks inventory feature if you keep items in stock that you buy and hold. If you sell product to your customers but buy it only at the time you sell it and only at the exact quantities that you sell it at, use the "non inventory part" classification in your item list.

Second, DO NOT adjust the value of your inventory until you have corrected your physical count first. Need to know how to do that? just post a comment and I'll respond.

Third, record your inventory purchases exactly the way you sell them. In other words, if you buy you inventory stock in bulk such as 1 case, or 1 pack, be sure you invoice your customers in the same way. Do not record that you have received 1 case (of 12 pieces) and then invoice you customer by the piece. If you sell the item by individual piece that is how you must record that you have purchased it. If your supplier only sells in multiple packs, but bills you by single such as case, box, pack etc., be sure you put the entry into your Quickbooks based on your sale method.

Whenever possible be sure to record the receipt of your inventory prior to recording the sale to your client. The goal is not to sell product if your inventory quantities show that you don't have enough stock to fill a sales order or invoice. You can use the purchase order and item receipt features in the Vendor transactions to add this inventory prior to receiving the bill from your supplier.

Fourth, the Quickbooks inventory feature works when you are buying and selling the same product over and over. Quickbooks Premier and Enterprise allow for recording inventory parts that can be assembled into another sellable product.

Be sure to understand this feature before you begin using it. Start with a few items that you can work with to fully understand how to do all of your entries before you create a large inventory list.

In some cases, the Quickbooks inventory feature is simply not the best choice. There are several choices in add-on compatible software that might be more suitable to certain types of businesses carrying inventory in stock.

This material is for informational purposes only and not intended and financial, legal or tax advice. Please consult your finance, legal or tax professional to confirm the accuracy of all information. Quickbooks is a registered product of Intuit.

Not sure what to do?

As a professional bookkeeper I have been using Quickbooks software for over 10 years, and have been certified by Intuit as a "Proadvisor".

Email me if you have a question on using Quickbooks for a particular entry or function. I will be happy to respond via email with an answer.

Here is an important piece of Quickbooks information...

Quickbooks software is called "real-time" software. What that means, in my own lay-men's terms is that what ever the record is at any given point that you look at it, that is what it has always been. In other words, if you wrote a check and dated it 10/15/09 that's what the date of the check would be. If you go back to that same check and change the date to 11/15/09 then that is what it is, and the 10/15/09 date will not show up anywhere. There are ways to look at things that have been changed but that can get confusing and complicated if you don't know what specifics to use.

To be safe just think of it as being a permanent change that wipes out whatever you did before. One of the ways this really comes into play is in the bank reconciliation feature. Once you have completed the monthly bank reconciliation process in Quickbooks, if you change the date, delete or change the amount of a reconciled transaction you will find the following month that your balance will no longer match the bank statement.

If it is important to have a record of the change that you can see in Quickbooks use the "Make Journal Entry" feature to make your correction. This way you will be able to see the original transaction as well as the correction you made.

The positive think about the real-time feature in Quickbooks is that most items can be corrected as easily as they may have been "messed up".

Email me if you have a question about something that you might think is "messed up" in your quickbooks file.

This material is for informational purposes only and not intended and financial, legal or tax advice. Please consult your finance, legal or tax professional to confirm the accuracy of all information.