Rustler’s Quickbooks Tips

So I am wandering around the help file (yea I was bored) and I find that QB can print a deposit slip. The top one third goes to the bank, and the bottom is a concise list of each item. Pretty neat! Then I keep reading and it says that QB can only print the deposit slip on QB supplied deposit slips.

So I check and Intuit wants a pretty penny, and I think “Google is your best friend” and sure enough I find the same thing for almost half what Intuit wants.

But wait a minute, how in the hell does the program know that I have inserted a QB formatted deposit slip? Well obviously it doesn’t. So for giggles I print one anyway. Hmmmmm.

Back to the site I go and I find out that you have to give them your company name, bank name, routing number and account number which they pre-print on the forms. That hmmmm awhile ago was me wondering where the bank and account information was.

Now color me paranoid, but having hacked and phreked some back when I was less of a citizen than I am now, I have this phobia about giving that kind of information out. And if you don’t understand the words then you are more of a citizen than I will ever be - ROFL.

So off to QB I go. Long and short of it I have designed a deposit slip that works without having to buy any.

Well there is an extra step or two. I haven’t figured out how to automatically transfer the deposit list and data to the form (yet), so what I have done is make the template. You print the blank template, put it back in your printer, and print the deposit. Sounds complicated but it isn’t, and I avoid buying deposit slips that sit around as just one more file to keep. You do have to cut it since plain paper is not perforated, but hey no big deal.

If you want the deposit slip … it is free for all, but please also get the instructions that are a seperate file. The instructions tell you how to get the template into QB, how to put your business information in it, put your bank information in it, and how to use it.

Click the links below, click each one of them please! When you get asked if you want to open or save, save it to your hard drive (remember where you saved it, you will need that information to get it into QB). If the Adobe PDF document just opens, select the menu File>Save As and save it.

deposit template
template instructions

So I see this all the time, someone wants to use QB while on the road and yet still allow the office to use QB, and then merge the changes when they get back.

For 2008 Premier or higher, same process should work for previous years

First you have to have QB installed on both machines, BUT and here is the key, on the portable machine that you will take on the road, when you install QB select “Accountants” version.

Just before you leave on your road trip, using the file on the office computer bring up QB, select the menu File>Accountant’s Copy>Save File. Go through the wizard and select the date. I would use the current day or the most recent of the canned choices in the drop down list. Select the location to save the file, a USB drive is handy since you can then move it to the laptop.

When you create the accountants copy, QB locks your books (at the office) so you cannot make changes to the past, but you can work on current and future transactions. This is done so that the base of information is the same between the accountants copy and the copy the office works on. With the base of information the same it is easy to see what changes are made in each copy and merge them when the time comes.

There are somethings you cannot do when using the accountants copy on the road so it they are critical then this may not work for you. You CANNOT:

- make estimates or sales orders (but before leaving you could print blank ones and enter the info when you return)
- mark invoices as pending
- use the vehicle mileage applet (would be really nice if you could)
- pay Sales Tax
- do payroll

For most all other activities you can add, but not edit or delete. But to me it seems as though what you would be doing is creating invoices or sales receipts most of the time anyway.

Plug the USB drive in the laptop, open QB, and select the menu File>Accountants Copy>Open & Convert. That opens the company file you created as an accountants copy. Accept the default file name and proceed.

Now when you are on the road, process your transactions.

When you get back to the office. On your laptop, assuming you have finished entering everything, use the Menu File>Accountants Copy>view/export changes. That will bring up a report of the changes (think transactions) that you made while on the road. There is a button at the bottom that says “Create Change File for Client” - click that and accept the file name QB picks, save the file to your USB drive.

On the office computer, bring up QB, put your USB drive in the slot for it, use the menu File>Accountants Copy>Import Accountants Changes. Click yes if QB wants to close all windows. Select the file on the USB drive in the open dialog box, QB will open a report of the changes. I suggest at this point you print it out as a safe guard. Click the import button at the bottom and QB will first back up your company file, and then merge the changes. When the window says the changes were made click close.

QB will open the company file, with the changes (the transactions you made while on the road) as well as the transactions that were made in the office while you were away.

Charlie in his comment make a good point, so good I thought I would copy it here rather than you having to click to find it, but to read the full comment just click on the comments link.

—–snip from Charlie ——

Prior to creating the accountant’s copy I would recommend that you check the starting file for any errors, and perhaps do a rebuild. Clean up any errors that show in the error log (which can be a bit cryptic, unfortunately). Some of us believe that these kinds of errors are what might be causing the merge problem later on.

And don’t let the office staff delete records or rename things while you are on the road, because if they delete something that you make a reference to in your “road” copy, this could possibly be a source of the error.

Personally, when I’m on the road, I usually have an Internet connection available, so I use a product like LogMeIn to access my office computer to do the updates there. Which isn’t as convenient, but works.

——end snip—-

Suppose you sell 8 items and want to discount the sale. The sales tax collected should be on the total of the items less the amount of the discount.

Enter all your items that are being sold, then enter a subtotal item. Then on the next line enter your discount item. Insure that all items are marked as taxable. QB will calculate the new total (subtracting the discount amount) and calculate the sales tax based upon the new total.

The discount item is interesting (other charge item), when you set it up it asks for an amount or a percentage and that is what shows on the invoice when you use it. but you can click in the rate column on the invoice and change it to a dollar amount or any other percentage, just make sure you use the negative sign. When you set up the discount item make sure you use the negative sign in the rate column or QB will think it is a charge, since the item being used is an “Other Charge” item.

I am not in any way familiar with this process, but Charlie is the resident expert. He has a how to, nice write up Charlie - well done, in his blog. Click the link (opens a new window)
How to use excel

QB only allows you to use markup. Markup is where you tell QB to increase the cost of an item by x-percent to determine the selling price.

Margin is just adding x-amount of dollars to the cost to determine the selling price.

When you create an invoice for taxable items QB prints the sales tax on the invoice, but when the invoice is non-taxable QB prints nothing to show that the invoice is non-taxable. I guess the omission of the sales tax entry is enough in Intuits opinion.

If you need or want the invoice to show the non-taxable status there is two ways to go about it.

When you bring up the invoice, click the button customize, then click the tab “Footer” there is a sales tax entry there that you can check mark to show on the footer when the invoice is printed. For non-taxable sales it will show zero percent.

If that isn’t good enough, create a customized invoice, call it non-tax, and insert a text field that says Non-Taxable, make it as large as you want and in the color you want. Then use that invoice when creating a non-taxable sale.

Sometimes you use inventory in the running of the business, you consume it.

Use inventory adjust, select the appropriate expense account as the adjusting account and lower the number of the item on hand.  That will send the cost of the item used to the expense account.

And don’t forget that when you use the item in the business you owe “use tax” on that item to the state.  There is an entry here on how to track use tax if you need it.

Sometimes when you make something there is raw material that is used up, but is wasted so the number of items made is not what you thought.  In QB you design a BOM that is cut and dried, you tell QB to build 5 and it does, but if in the actual building process you actually got 4, there is a problem.

You need to bring up inventory adjust, set the adjusting account to the spoilage COGS account, and mark it as a value adjustment.  Write down the present value of the 5 assemblies, then change the count to 4, and enter the old value that you wrote down as the new total value.  Then QB will recalculate the cost of the 4 assemblies you actually made.  The items in the build that were taken out of inventory will not be effected - they  are already used up.

Negative inventory seems to be something all programs allow. Even the POS system I am demoing (not QB’s) allows you to sell something you don’t have. For the life of me I can not understand why you would allow that, but it is what it is.

When you sell inventory into a negative balance on hand what happens behind the scenes in QB?

Well everything seems to work normally:

- the average cost of the item sold is deducted from the value in inventory asset
- that average cost is sent to COGS
- and the quantity on hand is reduced.

So what is the problem? Pretty simple. That value of the item sold was never there, but it was removed from an asset account.

Then when you buy more of the item QB does some behind the scenes adjusting. The purchase is posted to:

- inventory asset
- the item cost is recalculated
- and a payable is entered.

Then QB looks back and sees the negative sales entry and compares the cost it used to the new cost based upon the purchase. And if the cost is different, it reduces inventory asset by the amount of the difference and increases COGS by the same amount. That is why you will see an entry called Bill in the COGS listing, it is the adjustment QB makes for negative sales.

OF course if the new cost is less than before, then the adjusting entries are opposite, COGS is reduced and inventory asset is increased.

This all works fine and things balance out - unless this happens over the end of year. That will cause you problems, so don’t sell anything to a negative if you cannot get it back in stock before the year ends.

Inbound shipping should be included in the cost of items held for resale.

When shipping is part of the purchase invoice, I “guesstimate” the shipping per item and change the total for each item on the invoice, when you do that QB will recalculate the per item price.  As long as the total on the bill in QB equals the total on the invoice (bill) you receive all is good.

When shipping charges come in separately it gets a little more involved.  Pay the shipping and use a clearing expense account.  Then bring up inventory adjust, mark it as a value adjustment, set the adjusting account to the clearing expense account, find the item(s) and increase the item value by the amount of shipping expense, do not change the quantity on hand.  That takes the amount of shipping out of the clearing expense account and adds it to the items in inventory and QB recalculates the average cost.  The clearing expense account should be zero balance when you are done, check it and if it is not, find the error.

Adding a partner involves some preparation.

Assuming you’ve done all the legal work, you know how much the new partner (let’s call him Bill) is contributing.

First you have to create the owner equity accounts (Bill’s equity, Bill’s drawing, Bill’s investment at the minimum IMO).

If Bill is buying in for cash that makes it easy, deposit the money to the bank and credit Bill’s equity-investment account and you are done.  At the new year when you do the roll up of the equity accounts the amount in Bill’s equity-investment account will be moved to Bill’s equity.  I prefer to do it this way so that the investment is tied to a fiscal year and easy to see, but you could just credit the investment directly to owner equity if you want.

If Bill is buying in with cash plus inventory it gets a little more complicated.  Deposit the cash and credit Bill’s equity-investment as before.  Then bring up inventory adjust, mark it as a value adjustment, and as the adjusting account select Bill’s equity investment account.  Increase the number of items on hand and the total value of the items.  If Bill is bringing inventory to the business that you did not have, then I suggest setting up the new inventory items first, do NOT enter a quantity or a value,  that gets done when you use inventory adjust.

You could enter the quantity and value when setting up the inventory item, but then the total value will go to “Opening Balance Equity” and you will have to do a journal entry to move it to Bill’s equity investment, seems easier to me to let QB move the value around using inventory adjust.

The process is the same if Bill is bringing assets to the business, and depending on what they are and how you track them will determine how you bring them on the books.  But what ever value is placed on the asset, becomes the cost to the business and should be shown in Bill’s equity investment account.

Don’t do it.

When you change a non-inventory part to inventory QB goes back in history and changes every transaction that used that part. It is as if the part was always an inventory part. And that means that prior years financial reports also change, since this changes inventory asset totals and COGS.

Keep in mind that COGS is handled differently for the two parts, when you bought and sold the non-inventory part the actual cost was expensed (hopefully to COGS) immediately, when it becomes an inventory part the cost to purchase is averaged and that average cost is what is sent to COGS. In addition the cost of an inventory item is held in inventory asset, so your inventory value changes.

I will admit that sometimes is works just fine, but sometimes it doesn’t, and since I don’t know the ins and outs of your transactions, I think it is better to play it safe, since once the change is made - it cannot be undone.

Instead of changing the item, rename it (add the -old suffix to the part name), mark it as being inactive, and then create a new inventory part with the old name and use that item from that day forward.

With the exception of the high dollar enterprise version QB has a name limit, the dreaded 14,500 number.

Bring up QB and hit F2 (the function key) this screen tells you a world about your installation, but some of it is not to be trusted. As an example my screen says

Date First Used - 2/18/2006

Integrated applications last accessed - 7/27/2007 (I don’t have or use integrated applications- pretty good though huh? Accessed an application I do not have before I ever got the program installed)  Well Charlie pointed out the error of my ways in his comment, when I looked at preferences>integrated applications there sits my DYMO label maker - I forgot I had added it, but the date is still screwy, I added it in 2008.

Mine also has something called an on-line billing token and a shopping source token - both of which I have no idea what they are, and when I asked QB they said they weren’t used anymore and shouldn’t be there.

But anyway, right side, toward the bottom is a window, that tells you total accounts and total names. If the number seems high to you, that is because QB counts inactive items too. As I understand it, everything in that window is a name, and counts toward the magic number.

But you can delete items that have not been used in a transaction and it lowers the number.

You can merge items and it lowers the number.