Invoices are one way for you, as an owner of small business, to ask for payment from your customers for your sale of goods and/or services performed. In fact, most of businesses use invoices, which tell almost every information you and your customers are engaged in, from how many products/services are sold, how much, when the transaction takes place, and terms of payment, to shipment date and sales representatives responsible for it.
In QuickBooks, there are a few ways to open a blank invoice window:
- Ctrl + I, or
- From the Main Menu, select Customers > Create Invoices, or
- From the Home Page, in the Customers pane, click Create Invoices icon.
You will see the following Create Invoice window:
To manage your expenses, that is, to pay your vendors, QuickBooks give you 2 (two) ways to do it:
- Pay now, by writing a cheque, using cash/debit card, or credit card.
- Pay later, by entering bills first.
Entering bills means using accrual accounting method by incurring expenses and account payable when your bills arrive, not when you actually pay the bills (cash accounting method). For example, when you receive a bill from your vendor for $168,- and you input it in QuickBooks, it will be posted as:
Dr. Expense 168
Cr. Account Payable 168
Enter Bills requires more step, but it also gives you an easy way to pay and more information about your vendor, amount owed, recent transaction, etc.
To enter bills, you can use any of these 3 (three) methods:
1. Select Vendors > Enter Bills from the Main menu, or
2. Click Enter Bills icon from the Home page, or
3. Go to Vendor Centre, click New Transactions bar and select Enter Bills, and a new Enter Bills window will pop up as below:
When you are reconciling your bank’s accounts trying to find what transactions have cleared or uncleared, looking at all uncleared bank transactions will help you a lot. In QuickBooks, you can view this in two ways:
- Go to Reports > Custom Reports > Transaction Detail, the “Modify Report: Custom Transaction Detail Report” will be displayed.
In the “Display” tab, from the Report Date Range pane, select the Dates drop down menu and From field accordingly. The Report Basis pane is accrual by default. From the Columns pane, select the data you want to appear in the report. In Total by, select Total only or Account list if you have more than 1(one) bank account.
Click the Filters tab. In the Filters pane under Choose Filter, Account should be highlighted already. Under Account, choose your bank account accordingly.
Go back to Choose Filter, choose Cleared in its drop-down menu, and tick No button. Your window should look like shown below:
You have definitely used or will use credit cards in your business purchase transactions, whether buying office supplies, furniture, or paying utilities. In QuickBooks, there are 2 (two) ways you can record credit card transactions:
- Create Credit Card Account Type
The first way is by creating a credit card account type in your Chart of Accounts of your balance sheet, as described below:
- Open your Chart of Accounts be selecting List > Chart of Accounts from the Main menu.
- Select Account menu bar on the bottom left corner, then New, or Ctrl+N.
- Enter Account name, Credit Card Acct. No. (if you are using online banking), and save it.
One of the most important monthly tasks in accounting is bank account reconciliation. Both QuickBooks Desktop and Online canhelp you along the way in doing this. It’s quite a straight forward process and once you do it correctly, you will want to do it again next month.
Having said that, ensure to have all your data inputted in your company file before any reconciliation takes place- all your bills, checks, deposits, and transfers.
Let’s start step by step:
1. From the Main menu, select Banking > Reconcile, a “Begin Reconciliation” window will appear as shown below. In the Account field, select the appropriate account that you want to reconcile.
The information on the right of Account field – last reconciled on 31/10/2014, is defaulted by your last reconciliation period.