The Sunderland Group Professional Business and Tax Services for Small Businesses, Business Owners, Individuals. Certified QuickBooks consultant.

Expense Transactions

Entering Bills:

• Use the "Enter Bills" icon on the Home Page to record all invoices/bills that you have received from your vendors
• Within the Enter Bills screen, select the vendor from which the bill was received – "Add New" if this is a new vendor
  • If it’s a vendor you will do business with in the future, add as much detail to their setup as possible
  • If it’s a one-time vendor/bill, just do a Quick Add
• Select the date of the bill which should be located on the bill
• Ref No. -> use this field to enter the vendor’s invoice #
• Enter the amount of the bill?
  • If the amount of the bill is incorrect, still enter the amount shown on the bill; when the vendor issues a credit memo, you will use the credit memo to offset the amount over billed on the original bill
• Bill Due – Use this to enter the due date if you do not have terms set up for this vendor
• Terms – if you have not setup this vendor with the payment terms that they apply to you, or if this bill differs from the normal payment terms, select the appropriate item
• Memo – use this field to add any notes/comments that will help you understand the transaction better
• Expenses vs. Items – most expenses that are incurred will be assigned to a specific expense account – i.e. Office Supplies. However, you may want to set up Items if the expenses are used in your sales – for example, you may sell miscellaneous products that are related to your core business – fit balls.
  • Select the appropriate expense account (or item)
  • The amount will auto populate with the full amount; if you are splitting the bill among two or more expense account, type in the appropriate amount on each line
  • The memo field can be used to explain the expense in more detail if needed
  • If this expense is related to a particular customer and/or job, select this from the drop down
  • If this expense is going to be billed back to the customer/job selected above, then do NOT click on the little disk-looking box
  • If you are using Class tracking, you can select the applicable class to which this expense applies – i.e. department/location
• Once you’ve entered all expenses/items click on one of the buttons at the bottom right – click "Save & Close" if you are done entering bills; click "Save & New" if you have more bills to enter

Paying Bills:

• When QBs reminds you that you have bills to pay, use the "Pay Bills" icon to pay all bills due
  • To set up the reminders go to the Edit menu and then Preferences; select the Reminders preference and then choose how many days in advance you would like QBs to remind you to do something
• Within the Pay Bills window you can choose which bills are displayed by selecting a due date or all bills
• To pay specific bills, select each bill that will be paid on each check
  • Therefore, you will only select a bill(s) that are for a particular vendor as the next screen will ask you to assign a check number to this payment
• Once a bill has been selected, select the account from which you will be making this payment, the payment method – i.e. check – and select "Assign check no." (unless you are using QBs checks); and then pick the date on which you will be making the payment
• In the bottom right corner, select "Pay & Close" if you are done paying bills or select "Pay & New" to pay more bills
• A new screen will open that allows you to enter the check # you are using to make this payment (if it is an online payment – enter "Debit" or “Auto” in the Check No. field)
• Click OK

Debit Card/Online Payments:

• When you make payments online or utilizing your checking account debit card (or write a check to the vendor at the time of the transaction) you need to enter these transactions into QBs. Most of these transactions are completed immediately. For these, utilize the "Write Checks" icon from the bottom right corner of the Home page
• This screen resembles an actual check – select the appropriate vendor, date, and amount, and then select the expense account(s)/item(s) to which this transaction applies
• For Debit card/auto payments, change the check No. field and type in "Debit" or "Auto" or some other identifiable wording

Credit Card Transactions:

• Credit cards should be treated similar to your checking account. All transactions need to be recorded in QBs and then each month a reconciliation should be performed with the credit card statement to ensure that we have captured all transactions.
• Use the "Enter Credit Card Charges" icon in the bottom right window of the Home page
• Select the vendor in the "Purchased From" drop down
• Ensure the "Charge" button is selected (unless you are recording a credit received on your card)
• Select the date of the charge and then the amount
• Similar to the bills and checks pages, select the appropriate Expense(s) account and/or Item(s)
• Click "Save & Close" if you are done entering charges or "Save & New" to record additional charges
  • Credit card transactions can be entered as you go – after each transaction has been completed – or when your statement is received, you could then enter all the transactions from the statement. However, this would allow for possible errors that the may have occurred and would not be discovered with a normal reconciliation

Sales Transactions

Items:

Items must be created for any line that will be utilized on a sales document – sales receipts, estimates, sales orders, and invoices. For example, if your company sells widgets, you may want to create an item for each size of widget and/or each color. These items will then be linked to a particular income account.

Estimates:

• Estimates can be created and later modified and/or converted to an invoice or several invoices (progress billing)
• Click on the "Estimates" icon on the Home page
• Select the applicable Customer:Job from the drop down and assign a class (if using class tracking)
• Select all of the items that you will be quoting to your client/customer
  • All items will then populate with their description and any cost/markup info that has been created for these items
  • All of the info can be modified within the estimate screen
• Click "Save & Close" if you are done entering Estimates, or "Save & New" if you will enter another estimate

Sales Orders:

• Entering Sales Orders are very similar to entering an Estimate and creating an Invoice; Sales Orders are ideal if you tend to have items on back order from time to time or if the sale will take time to complete as it will help you track open orders
• Click on the "Sales Orders" icon on the Home page (if this is not shown, you must turn this feature on in the Preferences)
• Select the Customer:Job, Class if needed, and then select the Item(s) the customer has ordered
• Click "Save & Close" or "Save & New" if you will be entering additional Sales Orders
• In the bottom left, you can select this invoice "To be printed" and/or "To be e-mailed"

Invoices:

• To create an invoice/bill a client/customer, click on the "Invoices" icon on the Home page
• Select the Customer:Job from the drop down and then pick the appropriate Class if you are using this feature
  • If you have created Estimates for this customer, a window of open estimates will pop up allowing you to select from which estimate you are creating this invoice (if any)
  • This will allow you to pick some/all of the Items on the Estimate to pull into the invoice
  • If any lines pull in from the estimate that you do not want to include, simply click on that line and go to Edit -> Delete Line
• Fill in the necessary fields – P.O. number, Terms if they are not setup in the Customer Setup, Rep (if applicable), etc.
• Select all the Items that are being billed to the client/customer and make any necessary changes to amounts, description, etc.
• In the bottom left, you can select this invoice "To be printed" and/or "To be e-mailed" (emailing documents requires a separate subscription to QBs)
• Select a Customer Message to add to the Invoice; you can create a custom message for this Invoice
• Select "Save & Close" or "Save & New" in the bottom right corner

Sales Receipts:

• Sales Receipts are used when a customer/client pays you for your products/services on the spot – an example is a typical retail establishment where a customer comes in, buys a book, and pays in full
• Just like an Estimate or an Invoice, you select the appropriate Customer:Job, Class, and then the appropriate Items
• In the upper right hand corner, you can select the payment method that was used and enter a reference #/check #
• Again, you can select this Sales Receipt "To be printed" and/or "To be e-mailed" and add a Customer Message if you wish
• Click "Save & Close" if you are done invoicing or "Save & New" if you will be creating more invoices

Receiving Payments:

• When you receive a payment for a specific invoice(s), you must use the "Receive Payments" icon on the Home page to record this transaction
  • Do NOT use the Check Register or the Record Deposits functions!
• Select the appropriate Customer:Job from the drop down list – all open invoices related to this Customer:Job will then be displayed
• Enter the total amount received and the date
• If you track payment methods, select the applicable type from the drop down and use the Ref # field for a check number or other identifier
• If you accept credit cards through QBs, you can enter the card number and expiration date and have QBs process the card when you save this transaction
• Place a check mark next to each invoice for which this payment is related
• Edit the amount they are paying if necessary
• You can utilize any existing credits or discounts by clicking the "Discount & Credits" button in the bottom right
• Click "Save & Close" if you are done receiving payments into QBs or "Save & New" if you have more entries to make<
  • Note: receiving payments closes the invoice to which the payment(s) apply and identifies the cash in the Undeposited Funds account! You must use the "Record Deposits" described below to actually record those funds into your Cash/Checking account

Depositing Funds:

• When you are ready to deposit the payments you have received from customers (or have just returned from the bank from making the deposit), click on the "Record Deposits" icon in the banking section (bottom right) of the Home page
  • Note that this is also the last "step" in the invoicing function process flow as depicted on the Home page (QBs 2006+)
• If you have payment receipts that have not yet been deposited, a window will pop up listing all types of payments
• Select the receipts that you will be depositing by placing a check mark in the far left box
• Once you have selected all of the items you will be/have deposited, click OK
• Now you can select to which account you will be depositing these funds (i.e. Checking or Savings) and the actual date of the deposit
  • If you will be taking cash out of this deposit, use the boxes in the bottom right to identify the amount and to which account this cash will be assigned – i.e. Petty Cash
• Click "Save & Close" if you are done making deposits or "Save & New" if you will be recording more deposits

All contents copyright 2007 The Sunderland Group Inc.