The QuickBooks Specialists
For QuickBooks 2011, Intuit improved the Paid stamp to reflect the date the customer invoice was paid, as shown in the screenshot below.
Unfortunately, a Paid stamp is also applied to vendor bills, and that stamp does not reflect the date the bill was paid.
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For QuickBooks 2011 and Enterprise Solutions 11.0, Intuit added a History tab to several key windows in QuickBooks:
Unfortunately, it’s not included on the Receive Payments window.
The History tab can be quickly opened and closed, and shows a Summary, Recent Transactions, and Notes for the vendor or customer.
Here’s the History tab in its closed state. To open it, just click on the left-pointing arrow.
With the tab open, you can close it by clicking on the right-pointing arrow.
Each History tab contains intelligent links to functions that allow you to edit the displayed entity, edit notes, and prepare pre-filtered reports. For example, the Open Balance link in the Enter Bills window opens a pre-filtered Vendor Open Balance report, which is a modified Unpaid Bills Detail report for the currently displayed vendor.
By providing an easy way to display recent activity during transaction entry, the History tab will help to reduce the chance of erroneously recording a duplicate transaction.
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Yes, there are a few restrictions on making General Journal Entries to Accounts Receivable (A/R) and Accounts Payable (A/P) accounts.
Normally, the preferred way to change the balance in an A/R or A/P account is by recording transactions, such as customer invoices or vendor bills. However, sometimes it’s more convenient to make a General Journal Entry. A common use of General Journal Entries to A/R or A/P accounts is to set up customer or vendor balances in a new QuickBooks company file.
If you opt to make a General Journal Entry to an A/R or A/P account, such entries are subject to these restrictions:
Here are some of the warnings you’ll see if you attempt to violate these restrictions:
Here’s an example of a General Journal Entry to 1 A/P account that meets the restrictions:
While not an absolute requirement, QuickBooks prefers that transactions involving A/R or A/P accounts have that account on the first line of the General Journal Entry. The first line of a General Journal Entry is the source of the transaction. Sources and targets are an important concept in QuickBooks. For more information, see our article on sources and targets.
When you record a General Journal Entry to an A/R or A/P account, the General Journal Entry will appear in the transaction list for the customer or vendor specified in either the Customer Center or Vendor Center – provided that the A/R or A/P account is on the first line of the general journal entry and is therefore the transaction source. General Journal Entries that debit (increase) A/R will be similar to a customer invoice and can be paid in a similar fashion. General Journal Entries that credit (increase) A/P will be similar to a vendor bill and likewise can be paid just like other vendor bills. However, some data fields are not filled in when recording transactions for a customer or vendor via a General Journal Entry. For example, the Terms and Due Date fields on a General Journal Entry for a vendor are left blank, as shown below. (Note: The single screenshot below shows a customized Vendor Center with the separate Pay Bills window placed on top of it to illustrate several of the points discussed in this article.)
Beyond restrictions on making General Journal Entries to an A/R or A/P account, there are other restrictions that apply to making General Journal Entries, such as currency restrictions in multicurrency environments.
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Making changes to the windows of QuickBooks is easy.
Let’s use the Create Invoices window as an example. By default, this window shows just 2 invoice lines. In this article, we’ll change the default look. An important point to keep in mind is that you should not close the Create Invoices window until you’ve completed all the steps in this article. Otherwise, you’ll lose your work and need to start over.
Here’s the Create Invoices window in its smallest form. Pay close attention to the right border. We’ve positioned our mouse pointer directly on the border, and it’s now turned into a left-right arrow. It only provides this functionality when your mouse is positioned directly on the border; if you move it off the border, your pointer shape and function will change.
With your mouse pointer positioned directly on the border, make the Create Invoices window bigger by dragging this border to the right. To drag something in Windows, hold down your primary mouse button while moving it to the desired position. Since we started with the smallest form, we can’t drag it to the left. Next, drag the bottom border down and watch more invoice line items immediately appear. Re-size the window to fit your needs.
Let’s carry our customization 1 step further. Position your mouse directly on the fine line between any 2 columns, such as the one between U/M and Rate. Your mouse pointer will change to another type of left-right arrow.
To change the width of a column, drag the pointer when it’s positioned directly on the line between 2 columns and is in the shape shown above. Again, it only provides this functionality when your mouse is positioned directly between 2 columns; if you move it away from this position, your pointer shape and function will change. One common need in re-sizing a window such as the Create Invoices window is to increase the width of the description field. With this knowledge, that’s now an easy task. Re-size any column to suit your needs.
Once you’ve completed customizing the look of your Create Invoices window, you need to save your work. To do that, do not close the Create Invoices window. Instead, go to the Edit->Preferences menu, and choose Desktop View from the submenu shown. Since QuickBooks can store different desktop settings for individual users, be sure you’re on the My Preferences tab.
Click the radio button Save current desktop and click OK. Your changes to the Create Invoices window are now saved. To confirm that, close the Create Invoices window and re-open it. It should now open to your customized size and layout. Since you’ve just saved your desktop with the Create Invoices window open, that window will open the next time you start QuickBooks. If you want different windows to open by default, simply open them and save the desktop in that state.
This same technique can be applied to most, if not all, data entry screens in QuickBooks.
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A Sales Tax Group is a type of Item that is maintained on the Item List. It’s used to combine multiple Sales Tax Items (which are themselves another type of Item) into a single sales tax charge on a customer invoice.
See our article on all of the Item types supported by QuickBooks for more information.
Since QuickBooks only supports 1 sales tax code (item or group) on an invoice, a Sales Tax Group is a way to reduce the number of codes needed to invoice a customer. In turn, that reduces the chance of data entry error while at the same time calculating all required sales taxes.
Before you can set up a Sales Tax Group, make sure that you have:
With those steps completed, you can create a Sales Tax Group by completing these steps:
Note:
You may observe a minor display bug in early releases of QuickBooks 2009. Here’s a screenshot from QuickBooks 2009 Premier Accountant Edition R3P. Instead of displaying the Sales Tax Group as a percentage similar to a Sales Tax Item, the Sales Tax Group is displayed as a rounded decimal. In this example, the Sales Tax Group is shown as 0.08 even though it is a combination of East Bayshore and San Domingo, for a total of 0.078, or 7.8%. However, although the Sales Tax Group is displayed incorrectly, QuickBooks calculates the tax total for the Sales Tax Group correctly.
Here’s a similar display from QuickBooks Premier Accountant 2008 R6P, where the Sales Tax Group is shown as a percentage accurate to 2 decimal places:
This display bug was fixed in later releases of QuickBooks 2009 and doesn’t affect QuickBooks 2010. If you’re running an old release of QuickBooks 2009, update your QuickBooks to the latest release.
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