QUICKBOOKS TIPS
This section provides helpful tips to QuickBooks users. Learn about the different tools and how to handle tricky transactions.Billing for Time and Expenses: How It Works
QuickBooks handles billable expenses capably, but it's critical that you understand the process thoroughly before proceeding.Billing for inventory parts is easy. Pick the items from a list and specify a quantity. Poof. Done.
Billing for costs, time or mileage is a little more complex. QuickBooks has built-in tools to help you do this, but it's a bit of a process.
To simplify your workflow, do this groundwork first:
- Go to Edit | Preferences | Time & Expenses | Company Preferences. Click the Yes button under Time tracking and indicate your choices under Invoicing options. If you plan to mark up some costs and want a default number, enter a percentage and account (these can be changed on individual invoices).
Figure 1: As you do with other QuickBooks processes, make sure that your Preferences are set correctly.
- Add any billing items necessary by clicking Lists | Item List and then Item | New in the lower left corner.
- If you plan to bill for mileage, go to Lists | Customer & Vendor Profile List | Vehicle List and enter information about every business vehicle.
If you're a service-oriented company, you bill for time frequently. This is easy. You're probably already familiar with the Enter Time entry in the Employees menu. Whether you make individual time entries or complete a timesheet, it's critical that you make the correct selections for each Customer: Job, Service Item and Payroll Item field, and check the Billable box.
When you create invoices, this box will open after you select a customer:
Figure 2: QuickBooks lets you know when there are time and costs to be billed for each customer.
You can let QuickBooks enter the time totals now, or add them later by clicking the Add Time/Costs button. Either way, the Choose Billable Time and Costs window opens. Add a checkmark next to each entry that should be billed, and click Options… to indicate whether you want one line for each time entry or would rather combine all similar service item types.
Figure 3: QuickBooks wants to know which entries should be invoiced.
More Complexity
If you're done with billable expenses for this invoice, click OK. If there are other costs that you covered, click the Expenses tab to see all transactions that you earmarked for this client on a bill, check or credit card. You have the option here to mark up the cost by a percentage or amount (even if you established this in Preferences), and to specify an account.
Do the same for Mileage, which you would have entered previously – when it was incurred -- at Company | Enter Vehicle Mileage. Then select any Items that you purchased for the customer. Your records should be correct – assuming that you were conscientious about assigning expenses to customers and jobs.
Figure 4: It's easy to pull billable expenses into invoices if they're documented carefully.
Turning expenses into invoices and then into income can be complicated. Let us know if we can help. We are your partner in building a successful business.
Portable Productivity: Smartphones Do Invoices, Expenses, Time Billing
These three web-based apps – accessible via your smartphone -- provide mobile access to QuickBooks data.Accounting in the cloud is closer than you might think. In fact, it's here, in some cases. QuickBooks Online, of course, is entirely cloud-based, but it does not yet offer all of the features found in Intuit's top-of-the-line products, Premier and Enterprise.
In the meantime, Intuit itself, as well as third-party developers, have built online apps that fill in some of the gaps. These add-on solutions exist on websites, but they can collect data and synchronize it with desktop QuickBooks. So can that iPhone or Android that's sitting on your desk right now.
Many Mobile Applications
To find these apps, go to the Intuit App Center and click on All Apps. There are dozens of them, arranged by category (Billing and Invoicing, Customer Management, Inventory Management, Apps by Intuit, etc.).
Your first stop should be at Intuit's QuickBooks Connect (this is the name of the online application that you'd use on a remote PC or laptop; the name of the smartphone app is QuickBooks Mobile). This app gives you easy access to your customer and sales data when you're away from your office.
Figure 1: QuickBooks Mobile, shown here on the Android operating system, gives you sales tools when you're away from desktop QuickBooks.
Remote Sales Tools
Whether you're working in web-based QuickBooks Connect or on a smartphone, your data and transaction options are similar. QuickBooks Connect has a few more features, like an Item List and Customer Center, but both let you:
- Access multiple company files
- View, add, and edit customers, estimates, invoices, and sales receipts, using QuickBooks' custom templates
- E-mail these forms to customers
Figure 2: You can create and e-mail invoices from QuickBooks Mobile.
Prices start at $9.95/month for one user; a 30-day free trial is available.
Manage Travel Expenses
Concur Breeze grabs the data you need (customers, employees, jobs, etc.) from QuickBooks to record expenses on the road. You can enter charges directly into a form or snap a picture with your phone – it'll be attached to your expense report. These charges are then sent to a report template that thoroughly documents the charge, letting you specify variables like the trip purpose, travel policy type, project and client. The status of your approval and payment are also included here.
You can send travel itineraries from your free TripIt Pro account and credit card charges directly to an existing expense report to accelerate the process. And once an expense report is approved, money can be moved automatically from the designated company bank account to an employee's account. $8 per month per user; free 30-day trial.
Figure 3: Concur Breeze provides mobile expense management.
Mobile Time-Tracking
If your company has employees or contractors who work remotely and submit hours for approval, consider eBillity Time Tracker for Intuit QuickBooks. After it pulls in customers, service items, and employees from QuickBooks, you can invite workers to track their time on their smartphones by either entering it manually or using the timer, and then sync it with the online application.
Mobile workers can use the application in offline mode; entries are uploaded when they reconnect. Prices start at $10/month for Admin and one user.
Figure 4: eBillity Time Tracker for Intuit QuickBooks is a great companion app for remote workers.
The Cloud = Convenience And Accessibility
Synchronization – especially across three or more devices – is a simple concept whose implementation can be not-so-simple. We can help you determine which apps make sense for you and get them up and running.
Integrated, web-based applications accessed by whatever computing device happens to be nearby are the essence of cloud-based accounting. Intuit and its companion mobile apps offer the convenience and accessibility that the Internet is making possible.
If you need help with any of these applications, or questions about “the cloud”, please email or call us. We are your partner in building a successful business.

QuickBooks Income Tax Reports And Filtering Options: Target The Right Output
April 15 is getting uncomfortably close.QuickBooks, of course, can't do your taxes for you. But it helps you lay some of the groundwork. Following up on last month's column on customizing reports, we'll look at the program's tax-related reports and its powerful report-filtering options.
But first, you'll need to make sure that this output will be accurate.
Describe your company accurately
Your tax entity setting should have been established when you first set up QuickBooks, but verify that you've specified the correct one. Go to Company | Company Information. Your Report Information is in the lower left corner. Click the arrow next to Income Tax Form Used to see what's active.
Figure 1: Make sure that QuickBooks is set up for the correct tax entity.
QuickBooks automatically assigns some of your accounts to their matching lines on the 1040 and assorted forms and schedules; this is called tax line mapping. So when you create tax reports, related transactions will be grouped by these designations.
This can be a real time-saver – as long as you've specified the correct entity. If:
- was selected
- This setting is incorrect
- You're starting a business and don't know which to choose… … please contact us. If you switch entities, your existing tax line mapping will disappear and will have to be reassigned.
Many of QuickBooks' general financial reports provide tax-related information. But there are some that specifically relate to the numbers that will go on your return. Go to Reports | Accounting & Taxes | Income Tax Preparation. Here's an excerpt of what you'll see:
Figure 2: QuickBooks automatically assigns many accounts to the appropriate tax form lines, based on your specified tax entity.
Here, QuickBooks shows you which tax lines have been pre-assigned to your accounts. You can specify a tax form line for unassigned accounts, but this is something you should not attempt on your own. This report, though, will give you an idea of how useful your report output will be and where you'll need our assistance.
Other reports provide tax-related data. You can access them by going again to Reports | Accountant & Taxes and clicking:
- Income Tax Summary. This displays totals for each tax line that's relevant to your particular tax entity. Double-click on any number, and the Tax Line By Account report appears, detailing every transaction related to every tax-related account (you could add a column for Tax Line in Display options and make this quite a useful report).
- Income Tax Detail. This lists all individual transactions by tax form/schedule line assignment.
Some tax reports can be very lengthy; you may want to filter them to look at various "slices." Click Customize Report | Filters:
Figure 3: This window displays a powerful set of filtering options.
The options listed under Choose Filter are available on other reports; they help you set up incredibly complex searches using multiple filters.
Let's say you want a report that displays your installation labor costs on new residential construction from the last year (you could also throw other variables in). You'd simply choose the filters from the left pane and then select related options in the next pane (usually a list). You'd want to also click on the Display tab to make sure that the appropriate columns appear.
Figure 4: You can apply multiple filters to your reports.
QuickBooks reports can shave time off of tax preparation, and filtered views help you scrutinize your data in quite creative – and very useful – ways. The program's boilerplate reports have their place in simple examinations of your financial status, but filters are potent tools. They can facilitate the kind of deep analysis that helps you make critical business decisions.
If you have questions on this or any other QuickBooks feature, call or email us. We’re your partner and we’re here to make your business better.

Modifying QuickBooks Reports Gives You Better Insight Into Past, Future: Part 1
If you make one resolution about improving your accounting procedures in 2012, it should be this: Make extensive use of the tools that QuickBooks offers for report modification. Comprehensive, meticulously-shaped reports that flow out of your carefully-constructed records and transactions are your reward for pounding on the keys every day, conscientiously recording income and expenses.QuickBooks supplies you with a wide variety of pre-formatted reports whose modification options can help you do focused, critical analysis of your financial data. The right set of numbers will help you understand your history and plan for the future more effectively.
Note: The reports discussed and pictured here shows only one possible set of customization options. There are many variations. We can answer your questions.
Check your preferences
When you created your company file in QuickBooks, you chose between reporting on a cash (income and expenses are recorded when money changes hands) or accrual (recorded when you invoice or receive a bill) basis. This affects summary reports, but not those that break out individual transactions or are simply lists.
If you want to change this, click Edit | Preferences | Reports & Graphs | Company Preferences and click the desired button:
Figure 1: You can establish a preference for your summary reports' basis here.
You can set other preferences in this window that will affect your report output here, too, as you can see.
Altering the display
Open the Income by Customer Summary report (Reports | Company & Financial). Change the dates to reflect a range you'd like to see. Want the data displayed by different time increments – like week or quarter – instead of just the total? Click the arrow next to Columns and select Four week.
Figure 2: You can do some report display alterations from this toolbar; the options it offers vary by report.
By default, your report rows display alphabetically. If you want to view a column by total in ascending or descending order, select the column by hovering over the top number until the magnifying glass appears, and click on it. Click the arrow next to Sort by and choose Total, then click the AZ [down arrow] icon (in some reports, there will be other options here).
Additional options in this toolbar let you:
- Memorize the report
- Print, email or export it to Excel
- Hide or Show the Header
- Collapse or Expand the columns
- Refresh the report if you've made changes that will alter data
Click Customize Report to open this window:
Figure 3: This window outlines your report's content options.
Some of the options here duplicate what you saw in the toolbar. In addition, you can switch between Accrual and Cash for just this report, and add subcolumns in some. The latter is a complicated operation, one that you must understand well in order to glean any insight from it. We can help you with this.
Sometimes the subcolumns are generic, as shown in the screen above. In other reports, they're very specific to that group of data.
Clicking on Revert takes you back to the default format, and Advanced opens additional options specific to the current report.
More customization = more insightful results = more informed financial choices
Transaction reports have many similarities and two major differences: You can change the column order by hovering your cursor over the column label until a hand appears. Click, hold and drag the column to the desired spot and let go. You can also add or delete columns by clicking Customize Report and checking or unchecking labels.
Figure 4: In transaction – or detail – reports, you can alter the column structure.
Learn the mechanics of report display modification well, and your company's finances will come into much sharper focus, improving the wisdom of future choices. Up next month: filtering your reports for additional clarity.
If you have questions on this or any other QuickBooks feature, call or email us. We’re your partner and we’re here to make your business better.

Customer Refunds: Are You Doing Them Right?
Refunds. You probably wince at the word. Some – like customer refunds for returns – are fairly uncomplicated, thanks to QuickBooks' tools. Others, not so much. You may find yourself unable to balance your accounts receivable.There are numerous scenarios that necessitate the use of credit memos, including overpayment, order cancellations and bad debt write-off. It's critical that these are entered correctly. If they aren't, you may lose a lot of the time that QuickBooks helped you save as you try to chase down a few dollars.
Figure 1: QuickBooks helps you identify refunds quickly.
Sending money back
Let's say a customer pays for an order but cancels before it ships. You could:
- Apply the balance to an existing invoice
- Keep it as an available credit
- Issue a refund
Figure 2: The Available Credit window displays your credit balance options.
You would select Give a refund and click OK. The Issue a Refund window opens and should already be filled in. If everything is correct, click OK. The refund check has now been entered in the checking register, ready to be processed.
WARNING: If the invoice was paid with a credit card, it gets complicated. Your instructions will depend on whether you are using Intuit Merchant Service for QuickBooks or another merchant account service. You'll also have to deal with transaction fees. We can help you deal with this.
Other refund options
If the customer has open invoices, you may want to choose Apply to an invoice in the Available Credit window. A list opens; just select the correct invoice. Or if you want to have those extra funds available for other invoices but don't want to apply them immediately, click Retain as an available credit. When you want to use them, click the Apply Credits button in the lower right corner of the invoice.
Figure 3: When issuing a refund, QuickBooks can hold those funds to be applied to invoices later.
Sometimes, customers overpay an invoice or statement charge, or make a down payment for which there is no invoice. This is easy to fix. Open the Customer Payment screen (Customer Center | Transactions | Received Payments) and double-click the related payment. In the screen's lower left corner, you'll see this:
Figure 4: Click the correct option here.
Click the correct button, then Save & Close. The Issue a Refund window opens; you'd treat it the same way you did when you dispatched a return refund.
Another use
You can also use credit memos to write off bad debt if you are using the accrual method of accounting.
If you don't already have a Bad Debt item in your item list, set up a new item as an Other Charge. Name it “Bad Debt” and match it to the correct account.
Open the Credit Memo window and select the customer, then select Bad Debt as the item. You'll get a message saying that the item is associated with an expense account; click OK. Enter the write-off amount minus sales tax if taxable (be sure the Tax column is correct) and click Save & Close.
WARNING: Enter two lines on the credit memo if it combines both taxable and non-taxable items (both charged to the Bad Debt account), one for each type. Be sure that the Tax Columns are correct.
The Available Credit window opens. Select Apply to an invoice. Put a check mark next to the correct one and click Done.
Make refunds make sense
It seemed easier in the days when you just wrote a check for a refund or made an entry in a paper ledger, didn't it? Using QuickBooks credit memos, though, helps you maintain records that follow standard accounting procedures and simplifies our understanding of your files. We'll be glad to help you make sure that this sometimes-complex task is done right from the start.

QuickBooks Tips And Tricks: Make it Yours
No matter which version of QuickBooks you're using, there are always ways to make your workday easier. As with any software, we tend to learn the features we need and not much more. But small changes in the way you operate can add up to significant time savings and more accurate files. If you jumped into QuickBooks without a thorough introduction, consider these tips.Use the Open Window
list Spend some time in Preferences, and you'll be surprised to learn that you have more flexibility than you knew. QuickBooks is designed to work for a tremendously wide variety of businesses, so it comes with some features activated but many dormant.
The Open Window list is a good example. Do you tire of closing windows to find a screen that you used several tasks ago? Make sure that you're in one-window view (View | One Window), and then click View | Open Window List. Click on any entry to move to that page.
Figure 1: The Open Windows list lets you easily move among active screens.
Make account assignment mandatory
QuickBooks lets you enter transactions without assigning them to accounts. So your Chart of Accounts has two accounts labeled Uncategorized Income and Uncategorized Expenses that serve as repositories for these transactions. This means that when you run reports or prepare for taxes, you may have a hard time remembering the circumstances of those transactions and will find it difficult to assign them to accounts.
Do yourself a favor. Set up QuickBooks so that you must assign an account to every transaction. This will take extra time upfront, but not as much as if you try to recall the transaction three months from now. Go to Edit | Preferences | Accounting | Company Preferences and make sure that Require Accounts is checked. If you have questions on this, please call or email us.
Use the Account Prefill fields
Speaking of accounts, here's a little time-saving tip. If you have vendors that are always assigned to the same account(s), you can establish this constant in the vendor record. Simply open the Edit Vendor window for a client and click the Account Prefill tab. Select the appropriate selection(s) from the drop-down lists. If a payment is sometimes split between multiple accounts, you'll handle this division when you add transactions.
Figure 2: Designate vendor accounts to save time when creating transactions.
Use "Pending Sales"
Invoices, sales receipts and credit memos can be earmarked as "pending." These sales do not show up in registers or reports (except for the Pending Sales report) and can't be used for transactions where payment has already been applied. Create the transaction and click Edit | Mark [form name] As Pending. To finalize it, open the form and click Edit | Mark [form name] As Final.
This action can be useful in multiple situations, including:
- Backordered items
- Draft approvals
- Estimates
- Time-tracking for jobs
- Profit and loss reports that show the impact of pending sales (choose Either as the posting status [Non-posting or Posting] under Filters)
Figure 3: You can mark a payment as "pending" in several situations.
Be kind to your accountant: Set a closing date
Once we've worked with your QuickBooks file up to a certain date, entering, editing or deleting transactions prior to that date wreaks havoc with the balance of your books. To be safe, your administrator should password-protect the ability to do this, so that no one does this intentionally or unintentionally. Go to Edit | Preferences | Accounting | Company Preferences and enter a closing date and password. We will change the date each time we complete our work.
Figure 4: Password-protect closed periods to preserve the accuracy of your books.
These are just a few examples of ways you can customize QuickBooks to make your workdays more productive and your record-keeping safer and more reflective of your business. We can help you further tailor the software to make it a better fit.
If you have questions on this or any other QuickBooks feature, call or email us. We’re your partner and we’re here to make your business better.

QuickBooks 2012: New Paths to Better, Faster Financial Management
As it usually does this time of year, Intuit has introduced new versions of its Pro and Premier products. QuickBooks 2012 promises to help you get better organized, save steps, and acquire more in-depth financial insights.The new Express Start is designed for businesses that want to blast through setup and start entering customers and invoices. You have two other options, though: Advanced Setup is the old EasyStep interview that solicits more details. You can also open an existing file or convert data from Quicken or other accounting software.
Express Start requires minimal input: company name, industry, company type, tax ID, and contact information. After you save your company file, it lets you start adding or importing customers/vendors/employees, products/services, and bank accounts.
Figure 1: Express Start simplifies company setup.
An Activity-Driven Calendar
QuickBooks' Reminders keep you apprised of each day's tasks, but they don't provide any information about the past or future. QuickBooks 2012 solves this problem with its new Calendar. When you enter an appointment, to-do, or key business task (invoices, bills, purchase orders, etc.), it appears in the calendar. You can display a graphical view of the month that tallies activities for each day and lists them below. Daily and weekly views are in list form. And links open the original documents.
Figure 2: The new Calendar displays daily, weekly, and monthly views of your financial transactions.
Save Excel Formatting
Once you've formatted a QuickBooks report in Excel, it's frustrating to have to reformat it each time you run it for different time periods and/or with your ever-changing content. Excel Integration Refresh simplifies this process. You can now export a report to Excel, make formatting changes and save them, and then reapply them later to the same type of report using different date ranges and your updated QuickBooks data. Acceptable alterations include:
- Row and column header font formatting
- New formulas
- Renamed column and row headers, and report titles
- Resized columns
- Inserted columns and rows
- Inserted formula text
Figure 3: This window opens when you click Update Report in Excel.
A New Report Community
There's always room for more report formats. QuickBooks 2012 offers a library of Contributed Reports, variations created either by Intuit or your fellow users. You can select one of these, like Customer Sales By Quantity By Item Detail and instantly populate it with your own data.
You can sort these templates by industry and rating, and view them as a list, in a grid, or in the Report Center's Carousel view.
Centralized Operations
QuickBooks 2012 also saves you time with its new Centers. The Inventory Center works similarly to those available for customers, vendors, and employees. It's a clearinghouse of item records and transactions that can be viewed and sorted. You can also do inventory housekeeping tasks here, like adding items and launching transactions.
The Lead Center helps you carefully track new leads that you either paste in from Excel or enter manually. You can add to-dos and notes to contact records, and convert them into customers.
Upgrading Can Be Tricky
Intuit has included other, smaller time-saving organizational and reporting tools in QuickBooks 2012, like One-Click Transactions, which lets you create related transactions from existing ones (i.e., invoice to credit memo) with one click.
There's nothing especially difficult about using most of QuickBooks 2012's new features. But upgrading and setup are sometimes quirky, and the Excel Integration Refresh tool has a learning curve. We're happy to help you start your company file on the right foot or get acclimated to this latest version.
Figure 4; Track your leads and convert them into customers in the new Lead Center.

Classes or Types? When To Use Them
QuickBooks' standard reports are critical to understanding your company's past, present, and future. But the program also offers innovative tools that can make them significantly more insightful and comprehensive.QuickBooks offers two simple conventions that let you identify related data: classes and types. Classes are used in transactions. Types are assigned to individual customers, vendors, and jobs.
You might use classes to, for example, separate transactions that relate to different departments or locations or types of business. A construction company might want to track classes using New Construction, Remodel, and Overhead. Your customer types might help you isolate groups by characteristics like Industry or Geographical Location.
Creating Classes
First, make sure that QuickBooks is set up to use classes. Go to Edit | Preferences | Accounting | Company Preferences. Make sure that Use class tracking is checked. If you want to be prompted for a class designation in transactions, check that box, too. QuickBooks already contains a Type field in customer, vendor, and job records.
It's easy to build lists of options for both. To define classes, go to Lists | Class List. In the bottom left corner of the screen, click on Class, then select New from the menu. You'll see this:
Let's say that you're a contractor and you want to separate remodeling jobs into room types, like Bathroom or Kitchen. Go through the above steps again. Enter "Bathroom" in the Class Name field and click the box next to Subclass of. Open the list and choose "Remodel." Click OK.
Tip: If your class list grows lengthy and you want to tidy it up, you can make classes that you're not currently using inactive by checking the box in this window. It will remain in your QuickBooks records and can be reactivated again.
Putting Classes to Work
Now you can use classes in transactions. Open a blank invoice and select a customer. The Class field will be next to the customer name. If the entire invoice will be assigned to the same class, click the drop-down list and select it. You can also assign separate classes to individual line items:
Not all invoice templates include a column for classes. You can add this by selecting the invoice form you want to modify and clicking Customize in the toolbar.
QuickBooks comes with two reports specially designed for tracking class-based transactions: Profit & Loss by Class and Balance Sheet by Class (both can be found in the Reports menu, under Company & Financial). Of course, you can filter other reports to include a class column. You can also create a QuickReport for individual classes. Go to Lists | Class List and select a report or graph.
Warning! The Balance Sheet by Class report is complicated and may produce unexpected results. Let your ProAdvisor help you work with this one. They can also help you set up a solid class structure.
A Simpler Assignment
Customer, vendor, and job types are a bit less complicated. Job types are especially useful; you can track, for example, profitability and time spent on individual projects. Customer and vendor types can produce output for things like targeted mailings and reports.
Creating types is very similar to creating classes. Go to Lists | Customer & Vendor Profile Lists, and select the type you want to work with. You'll follow the same instructions here as you did for classes. Types do not appear on transactions; they're designed for your own internal use, and they're stored in records.
Classes and types can be used very effectively in your bookkeeping, but they require a good deal of thought and planning upfront to get accurate, meaningful reports. Let your ProAdvisor know if he/she can assist as you attempt to use these powerful forms of classification.

Tracking Bills in QuickBooks, Worth the Effort
If you're still operating this way, though, you're missing out on the numerous tools that QuickBooks offers to track your accounts payable, including the ability to:
- Enter bills as they come in
- Set reminders for bills due
- Pay bills easily • Locate a bill or payment quickly
- Enter bills as (or after) you receive items
- Link bills to purchase orders
- Have instant access to a bill's status
When an expense bill comes in (from a utility company, for example), click the Enter Bills icon on the home page, or Vendors | Enter Bills. A window like the one displayed above opens. Select the vendor and fill in the blanks. Make sure that the Expenses tab below is selected and the appropriate account number and amount fields are completed. If it's a bill for an item that already has a related Item Receipt (the shipment preceded the bill), QuickBooks instructs you to use Vendor | Enter Bill for Received Items. Follow the prompts.
Note: Dealing with incoming inventory is complex. Consult with us if you plan to use this feature.
If the bill came simultaneously with items, click Vendors | Receive Items and Enter Bill. When you select the vendor from the list, this box opens (if you have sent a purchase order):
Click Yes. The Open Purchase Orders box opens, containing a list of open POs. Select the one(s) you want and click OK. The bill form opens, containing the details of that purchase order. Change quantities if they don't match the shipment, and edit other fields as necessary. Save the bill.
Settling your debts
It's good to set reminders for bills. Go to Edit | Preferences and click Reminders. Make sure that that Show Reminders List… box is checked, then click Company Preferences. Find the Bills to Pay row and enter the advance notice you'd like. Indicate whether you want to see a list or a summary, then click OK.
When bills are due, click the Pay Bills icon or select Vendors | Pay Bills. A window opens displaying all outstanding bills. You can pare this down by selecting a date in the Due on or beforefield and filtering by vendors. The screen will look something like this:
Enter a check mark next to the bills you're paying, and change the amount in the Amt. To Pay field at the end of the row if necessary. At the bottom of the screen, you can set the payment date and type, use any discounts or credits, and make sure the correct payment account is selected. When you're done, click Pay Selected Bills.
Tip: You can have credits and discounts automatically applied by going to Edit | Preferences | Bills.
After You've Paid Up
There are a number of places where your bills appear in QuickBooks, including:
- The Unpaid Bills Detail report
- The A/P Aging Detail report
- The Vendor Center
- QuickReports
- In the Recent Transactions pane of some forms
- On the bills themselves
Figure 4: QuickBooks displays the Paid status of bills.
QuickBooks also lets you void and delete bills, and copy and memorize them. Check with us before voiding and deleting, as this can make some complicated changes in your accounts.
You can just pay bills by using Banking | Write Checks or Enter Credit Card Charges. But the payoff for tracking bills is instant access to your accounts payable status, better relations with vendors, and a more insightful accounting of your company's cash flow.
Add/Edit Multiple List Entries Simplifies Record Changes
Data entry and modifications in QuickBooks can be tedious. Beginning with QuickBooks 2010 Pro Edition and above, that job got a lot easier. The Add/Edit Multiple List Entries tool does just what its name implies: It lets you add entries to your lists of customers, vendors, services, inventory parts, and non-inventory parts. It also makes changing one or several of them quick and easy.Using this feature, you can:
- See customized views of your list data
- Enter missing information
- Create new entries from duplicates of existing ones
- Do a mass change of a whole column
- Copy and paste records from Excel
Building the perfect view
To get started, click Lists | Add/Edit Multiple List Entries. In the screen that opens, click the arrow next to the List box and select the type of data you want to see, like Customers. Then select the group that you want displayed by dropping the View list down. Click the Customize Columns button. This window opens:
Figure 1: Make sure your columns are correct and in the right order.
The list on the left represents all possible column labels. To make the list on the right reflect what you want to see in your table, highlight the correct item and use the Add or Remove buttons and the Move Up or Move Down buttons. When you're satisfied, click OK. The table will change to display those columns in that order.
TIP: You may have a lot of empty space between columns. To close those gaps, put your cursor on the faint vertical line that separates two column names. A cross-like symbol will appear. Drag it left or right until the columns are positioned well.
Let's say that a customer commissions a new job. Since so much information will remain the same as in previous jobs, you can duplicate her record. Highlight the last entry in her list of jobs and right-click. Select Duplicate Row. The new entry will contain her default information, except the name will change to DUP (NAME OF PREVIOUS JOB). Change that phrase to the name of the new job and click Save Changes if you're done.
Figure 2: It's easy to duplicate an entry's information.
Mass changes
You may occasionally want to make the same change to a subset of records. Say a city's zip code changed and you want to find the customers affected. You'd open the Customers list, click on the View arrow and select Custom Filter. Then:
- In the Search list, choose from All, Active, etc.
- In the For box, enter the common attribute, like the zip code.
- Click on the arrow next to the in box, and tell QuickBooks where you want to search (address fields, all common fields, etc.).
Figure 3: You can search for a group of entries that share a common characteristic.
- Click Go. QuickBooks will display a list of all of the matching entries.
- Make your change to the entry at the top of the list, then right-click on it. You'll see this menu:
Figure 4: The Copy Down command changes all entries in a column to match the top one.
When you select Copy Down, all of the entries duplicate the first one in the list.
Some housekeeping
Anything you change in these views – as long as you click Save Changes – will be reflected throughout QuickBooks, wherever that record appears. If you've made an error, like using a dollar sign, you'll get a message telling you to fix it.
You can use Add/Edit Multiple List Entries in other ways. For example, it's a good way to see how thorough your recordkeeping is. Take a look at your lists occasionally to spot missing data. Or say you were at a trade show and signed up new customers, but you didn't have QuickBooks on your laptop so you entered them in Excel. Once you've made sure that your column names and order in Excel match those displayed in Add/Edit Multiple List Entries, you can just copy and paste the new customers in.
This feature is easy to use, but be cautious. We can help with complex modifications. Add/Edit Multiple List Entries is one of the ten best features QuickBooks has incorporated in recent years. It's an easy way to get a birds' eye view of your lists, and a great time-saver.
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