quickbooks

[Frue]

Just trying to get organized. How do you get acurate exspense reports when first, you pay something with cash and if you use your credit card to say buy a weed wacker. How do you enter these into the software w/out messing up your bank account? Thank you for your help in advance.

[Ruben Rocha]

There are probably a dozen ways to handle this.
The best answer is ask your accountant.

What I did is for cash I added a bank account called petty cash. So I accumulate several cash receipts then enter them in the cash account and transfer funds from my checking account every few months to at least keep a balance in it.

But to be honest I usually use a debit card on my business account anymore.

As far as using a credit card. Depends on if it is a personal or business card.
For me again I use a equity account when needed to show a capital investment in the business. Usually this means a journal entry in Quickbooks.
Or you could add a loan in quickbooks and make payments to the loan.

Any way you go you really should ask your accountant.

[Roger]

I think the above post covers the matter pretty well. I have a bank account, petty cash account, and credit card account (rarely use this one, rather just use the debit card off the bank account).

Expenses that are done on debit card are entered directly into the bank account. I have a breakdown on expenses at several levels (e.g. Repairs & Maintenance -- then a separate line for each primary piece of equipment). Having several levels allows tracking of expenses at a low and higher level.

The petty cash account is used to pay cash for expenses. It is replenished with cash payments from customers -- make a Deposit, using the Petty Cash account as the recipient. So it keeps its own balance of whatever petty cash I have on hand. If the account gets too big (e.g. too much cash received from customers, over against cash payments I need to make for products/services), then some of that cash gets Deposited into the bank account -- make the deposit at the bank like other check deposits.

The credit purchases are paid against the credit card account, and when it is paid off out of the bank account, the credit card account is reconciled just like a bank account.

The debit card purchases are registered in the Bank Account, just like a check. Rather than a check number, I use DEBIT as the number. Also, when I pay my PA Sales Tax, which is an electronic transfer from the checking account (Bank Account), I enter EFT (electronic funds transfer) as the number.

Is this what you are seeking?

[Frue]

Yes and it sounds like a mess.

[Ruben Rocha]

It is not really that bad.
It may seem so to transition to Quickbooks.
But if your accountant supports it it is very simple.

[Roger]

Yes and it sounds like a mess.

Sorry if I made it sound complex. It is really simple, ... ONCE you get it set up properly. This is the key, in my estimation. If you are working with an accountant, 99% chance that somebody in the office will know QB well, and give you pointers. If not, there are a fleet of QB consultants available. When you bought the package, you get a few months of service without added cost. But, part of the access to help is a listing of QB consultants in your area. Yes, they will charge you an hourly rate for their services. You have to make a decision on whether to spend $$ or your time.

My suggestion is to work with a dummy company at first. Go through the setup, make your lists of vendors and customers, your income sources and expense categories. Then work through some typical situations. Soon you will know if your setup has the infrastructure to support what you need. Perhaps you wish to return to make a second dummy company, set up slightly differently. See how it works. Unless you are really keen on this stuff, when you finally set up your live company, and use the structure for a few months, you will find some things you wished you had done differently. In some cases, whether you choose one path or another might not make much difference. Also, you may wish to refine how you want to track income and expenses.

NOW is the time to do the dummy company setups. When April 1 rolls around, you will not be wanting to spend time in learning, rather just in using QB. Use these few weeks to do the learning.

Just my thoughts ...

[Frue]

Sorry if I made it sound complex. It is really simple, ... ONCE you get it set up properly. This is the key, in my estimation. If you are working with an accountant, 99% chance that somebody in the office will know QB well, and give you pointers. If not, there are a fleet of QB consultants available. When you bought the package, you get a few months of service without added cost. But, part of the access to help is a listing of QB consultants in your area. Yes, they will charge you an hourly rate for their services. You have to make a decision on whether to spend $$ or your time.

My suggestion is to work with a dummy company at first. Go through the setup, make your lists of vendors and customers, your income sources and expense categories. Then work through some typical situations. Soon you will know if your setup has the infrastructure to support what you need. Perhaps you wish to return to make a second dummy company, set up slightly differently. See how it works. Unless you are really keen on this stuff, when you finally set up your live company, and use the structure for a few months, you will find some things you wished you had done differently. In some cases, whether you choose one path or another might not make much difference. Also, you may wish to refine how you want to track income and expenses.

NOW is the time to do the dummy company setups. When April 1 rolls around, you will not be wanting to spend time in learning, rather just in using QB. Use these few weeks to do the learning.

Just my thoughts ...

I have been told that this is the program I need. My accountant actually hates it but alot of guys run it. I have been using lawnpro for 3 years but I run excell for my receipts. The problem is It takes a while to do bookwork when you average out your yearly hours spent. Now I have attempted this program 4 times now. Finally unistalled it after a 2:30 in the morning battle trying to delete a fake deposit.

I also did not like the way invoices look. See with lawnpro invoicing in practically done for you just point and click. I know in quickbooks there has to be a way I can just enter them into my register and they are automatically filed for me, instead of reporting them into excell at the end of the month. I think the problem is I use my business account like a personal account sometimes and its this action that messes up quickbooks. just have to get more disciplined.

[mattfromNY]

The thing I like about QB invoicing, I can set up different invoices for different customers- I have set up residential, commercial, special terms, and tax exempt organization invoices. This is nice, b/c I can have different messages, different tax rates, different terms, etc. for each category on the different invoices. It takes some time to set up, but once you have it there, it saves SO much time each month.
Deleting deposits was something I got hung up on too, I can remember my wife practically throwing the computer off the desk she was so frustrated. With a call to the acct., she had it figured out. I'm not 100% sure, but I beleive you need to Void the deposit first, then delete it. I dont think there is much in QB that you can just delete, usually have to clear or void your action before deleting it.
Hope it helps,
Matt.

[Fred B]

Set yourself up as a vendor. So when you purchase things by cash or your own credit card (Keep all receipts) then at the end of the month reimburse yourself and as you enter your expences as a vendor you put all your receipts in the appropriate catagory.