Modifying QuickBooks Reports Gives You Better Insight Into Past, Future

If you make one resolution about improving your accounting procedures in 2012, it should be this: Make extensive use of the tools that QuickBooks offers for report modification. Comprehensive, meticulously-shaped reports that flow out of your carefully-constructed records and transactions are your reward for pounding on the keys every day, conscientiously recording income and expenses.

QuickBooks supplies you with a wide variety of pre-formatted reports whose modification options can help you do focused, critical analysis of your financial data. The right set of numbers will help you understand your history and plan for the future more effectively.

Check your preferences

When you created your company file in QuickBooks, you chose between reporting on a cash (income and expenses are recorded when money changes hands) or accrual (recorded when you invoice or receive a bill) basis. This affects summary reports, but not those that break out individual transactions or are simply lists.

If you want to change this, click Edit | Preferences | Reports & Graphs | Company Preferences and click the desired button:

You can set other preferences in this window that will affect your report output here.

Altering the display

Open the Income by Customer Summary report (Reports | Company & Financial). Change the dates to reflect a range you'd like to see. Want the data displayed by different time increments – like week or quarter – instead of just the total? Click the arrow next to Columns and select Four week. 

By default, your report rows display alphabetically. If you want to view a column by total in ascending or descending order, select the column by hovering over the top number until the magnifying glass appears, and click on it. Click the arrow next to Sort by and choose Total, then click the AZ [down arrow] icon (in some reports, there will be other options here).

Additional options in this toolbar let you:

·         Memorize the report

·         Print, email or export it to Excel

·         Hide or Show the Header

·         Collapse or Expand the columns

·         Refresh the report if you've made changes that will alter data

More display options

Click Customize Report:

Some of the options here duplicate what you saw in the toolbar. In addition, you can switch between Accrual and Cash for just this report, and add sub columns in some. The latter is a complicated operation, one that you must understand well in order to glean any insight from it. We can help you with this.

Sometimes the sub columns are generic, as shown in the screen above. In other reports, they're very specific to that group of data.

Clicking on Revert takes you back to the default format, and Advanced opens additional options specific to the current report.

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More customization = more insightful results = more informed financial choices

Transaction reports have many similarities and two major differences: You can change the column order by hovering your cursor over the column label until a hand appears. Click, hold and drag the column to the desired spot and let go. You can also add or delete columns by clicking Customize Report and checking or unchecking labels.

Learn the mechanics of report display modification well, and your company's finances will come into much sharper focus, improving the wisdom of future choices. 

If you have questions on this or any other QuickBooks feature, call or email us. We’re here to make your business better.

How do you charge sales tax to multiple general ledger accounts, since I have more than one state that I owe sales tax to?

All sales tax items default to the Sales Tax Liabilty account on the G/L, this cannot be changed. If you have them set-up properly, you should see the different vendors and the amounts payable on the Sales Tax Liability report. To run this report:

1.    Click on Reports (across the top)

2.    Click on Vendors & Payables

3.    Click on Sales Tax Liability

Make sure to select the date range you are reporting on.

Set up item codes for each state sales taxes,  and for some states, you will need multiple item codes for each county/city.    New York as example, has different rates for each county.    Orange County, Dutchess County, Westchester County each have its own rate, and Sales to each county are required to be reported.
As far as the liability - you might need to set up sub-accounts under Sales Tax Payable, and do a journal entry to move the liability on a daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. 

Customer Refunds: Are You Doing Them Right?

Refunds. You probably wince at the word. Some – like customer refunds for returns – are fairly uncomplicated, thanks to QuickBooks' tools. Others, not so much. You may find yourself unable to balance your accounts receivable.

There are numerous scenarios that necessitate the use of credit memos, including overpayment, order cancellations and bad debt write-off. It's critical that these are entered correctly. If they aren't, you may lose a lot of the time that QuickBooks helped you save as you try to chase down a few dollars.

Sending money back

Let's say a customer pays for an order but cancels before it ships. You could:

·         Apply the balance to an existing invoice

·         Keep it as an available credit

·         Issue a refund

 Click Customers | Create Credit Memos/Refunds. Select the correct customer and job (and A/R account, if you have more than one). Enter the items just as they appear on the invoice. When you're finished, click Save & New.  The Available Credit window opens, displaying your options.

You would select Give a refund and click OK. The Issue a Refund window opens and should already be filled in. If everything is correct, click OK. The refund check has now been entered in the checking register, ready to be processed.

WARNING: If the invoice was paid with a credit card, it gets complicated. Your instructions will depend on whether you are using Intuit Merchant Service for QuickBooks or another merchant account service. You'll also have to deal with transaction fees. We can help you deal with this.

Other refund options

If the customer has open invoices, you may want to choose Apply to an invoice in the Available Credit window. A list opens;  just select the correct invoice. Or if you want to have those extra funds available for other invoices but don't want to apply them immediately, click Retain as an available credit.  When you want to use them, click the Apply Credits button in the lower right corner of the invoice.

Sometimes, customers overpay an invoice or statement charge, or make a down payment for which there is no invoice. This is easy to fix. Open the Customer Payment screen (Customer Center | Transactions | Received Payments) and double-click the related payment.  In the screen's lower left corner, you'll see your options.

Click the correct button, then Save & Close. The Issue a Refund window opens; you'd treat it the same way you did when you dispatched a return refund.

Another use

You can also use credit memos to write off bad debt if you are using the accrual method of accounting.

If you don't already have a Bad Debt item in your item list, set up a new item as an Other Charge. Name it “Bad Debt” and match it to the correct account.

Open the Credit Memo window and select the customer, then select Bad Debt as the item. You'll get a message saying that the item is associated with an expense account; click OK. Enter the write-off amount minus sales tax if taxable (be sure the Tax column is correct) and click Save & Close.

WARNING: Enter two lines on the credit memo if it combines both taxable and non-taxable items (both charged to the Bad Debt account), one for each type. Be sure that the Tax Columns are correct.

The Available Credit window opens. Select Apply to an invoice. Put a check mark next to the correct one and click Done.

Make refunds make sense

It seemed easier in the days when you just wrote a check for a refund or made an entry in a paper ledger, didn't it? Using QuickBooks credit memos, though, helps you maintain records that follow standard accounting procedures and simplifies our understanding of your files. We'll be glad to help you make sure that this sometimes-complex task is done right from the start.

Accounts Receivable Payment Incorrect

I recorded a payment from a customer through Accounts Recievable but it wasnt for Invoices it was for something else, how do I get it out of AR?

1) Go to Receive Payment screen for the payment that is incorrect
2) Uncheck the checkmark next to the statement charge it was applied to (unapply pymt)
3) Click on History and see date of when the Deposit was actually made
4) Go to bank register and find the deposit on that date
5) Open up the Deposit- Find the check that is incorrect- Take notice of total deposit amount
6) Click on the line of the incorrect check and hit edit- Delete Line
7) Click Edit and insert a line (if needed)
8) Enter Account Name for whichever revenue account it should have been and deposit amount
9) The deposit amount should be the same prior to any adjustments
10) Go back to customer center and the payment that is being corrected
11) Edit- Delete Payment
12) As long as deposit amount is the same you should not have to clear the deposit again in the bank rec module