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While running a business, you may run into the issue of one of your vendors not receiving your payment, although you sent it and it was deducted from your bank account. Regardless, where the money went, your vendor wants to be paid. Here’s how to make this work in your books so they don’t turn into a disaster. 

Let’s say your vendor is Ashley’s Apples. Pull up their information via the Vendors tab in QuickBooks. You’ll see in your records that the $500 payment you made ACH (Automated Clearing House - basically, they take care of transferring mass amounts of money for vendor payments, payroll, and direct deposit) and that Ashley’s Apples never received it. Your bank register says the money was cleared from your account, so voiding the check isn’t an option. 

Cut Ashley’s Apples a check for the $500 in the current month. In the memo section, explain the reason for the payment. Try to make your check identical to your first payment by using the same account and paying their same account. Now, Ashley’s Apples will finally be paid, and we can deal with fixing our books. 

When you look at your Check Register, you’ll see two payments for Ashley’s Apples - the original payment via ACH and the check you just cut. Once the bank confirms that the first check (the one Ashley’s Apples did not receive) has not been cashed, you’ll get your money back after X number of days, according to the bank’s terms and agreements. Knowing you’ll get this money back, you need to make a deposit in your books using the same date as

Let’s go through how to run a report for your vendors using the checks that have been issued to them, whether they be bill payment checks or regular checks. You can also run this kind of report on customers to see the invoices that have been created or payments, but let’s focus specifically on vendors today. You may run this report to see how much you’ve been spending or to compare costs from month to month. 

To begin , click on “Vendor Center.” On the left, select the vendor you would like a report on. Next, you’ll click “Quick Report” toward the upper right. A box will pop up to set the logistics of your report, you’ll choose your date range, and a generated report will appear. It will likely give you more results than you’d like to see, but you have the option to choose what you see. Click “Customize Report” in the upper left and customize your filters by choosing the “Filters” tab. You can search for the filter you’re looking for. 

In this case, we want to filter by “Transaction Type” and we’re going to assume there are bill payment checks and regular checks, so you’ll choose both options in the filter settings. Once you’ve finished, confirm your choices, and there you have it - all of the checks that have been issued to the chosen vendor will appear. 

To watch us do this, watch our video tutorial. Happy quick reporting!
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How long should you keep important papers?! Some of us hold onto every little document for far longer than needed, while others regret not saving theirs longer. So, the pressing question is, how long should you hang onto papers for before shredding them? Let’s break it down.

Keeping track of stray receipts is messy, and logging them come tax season is time consuming. QuickBooks Online had previously allowed you to add attachments of receipts, but now it completely captures them for you with their latest feature.

New to QBO this month is a feature called Receipt Capture, and it does basically what it sounds like - it captures screenshots of your receipt. You simply snap a photo of your receipt and upload it to QBO where it will be stored digitally. Beyond that, QBO will sort your receipts into categories.

As your business grows, collecting receipts in a folder and logging expenses in a notebook just doesn’t cut it anymore. You’ll have to create the general ledger for your company, which is a financial tool that’s essentially a master list of every financial action made within your business. Your general ledger should include your assets, liabilities, and equity accounts, and any changes to these accounts should be listed as they happen. It includes every transaction throughout your company’s lifetime.

How do I format my general ledger?

We’ve discussed cash flow before - what it is, what it means for your business - but now let’s discuss what causes cash flow problems. There is a difference between making money and managing cash flow. Managing your cash flow wisely is a combination of being informed, prepared, and making smart decisions. Cash flow problems stem from one of these factors faltering along the way.  

One of the obvious causes of cash flow problems are profit issues. This could be lack of profit or sporadic profit. If your company has down months where you make very little money and then shoots up during peak times of the year, you have sporadic profit, and this causes issues for your business. It’s hard to do virtually anything if your business has no money - pay bills, complete payroll, or stay afloat.

Neglecting your bookkeeping is another cause of cash flow issues. Not having up-to-date records on the ins and outs of your business means you’re conducting business blindly. How can you make informed and financially safe decisions for your business if you have no records? This goes hand-in-hand with another cause of cash flow problems, and that’s not scheduling your payments productively. Let’s say you give your clients 30 days to pay, but you need to pay your suppliers in 14 days. Working out the scheduling can help to ensure you aren’t taking money out of a low account or possibly overdrafting, which leads to fees. It’s best to make sure there’s money added to the bank before it’s tak

If you’re just starting to navigate your books, you may be unsure of some of the lingo. It’s like a different language for those outside of the accounting world, but the more you work with your books, the quicker you’ll catch on. What’s important is to think of everything in terms of your business; these terms provide you with vital information about your company’s standing. Let’s go over some common terms you’ll frequently hear and need to use in order to discuss and understand your books.

If you do your own bookkeeping, it’s important to double-check your records to make sure everything is correct. Here are five easy and important ways to make sure your books are in order.

1. Do your deposits match?

Your bank account and your books should have the same number. If not, check QuickBooks to make sure your deposits weren’t added on multiple lines. This can happen even if the deposit hasn’t reached the bank yet.

2. Is any income double-recorded?

Obviously we don’t want income recorded twice. Sometimes we have clients mark invoices as paid and move them to Undeposited Funds. After they go to the bank, they record an additional entry for depositing the money, but this is wrong. This double records your income - once in Undeposited Funds and once as a deposit. After you deposit money in the bank from Undeposited Funds, you need to make an entry in QuickBooks moving the money from Undeposited Funds to the bank. This will move the money, not double-record it.

3. Are any credit card transactions double-recorded?

You never want to be charged twice! Mistakes can happen when you allow automatic downloads to record all transactions. That’s why you need to check in. We’ve seen clients record two different transactions when they use their credit card - one payment from the bank to the credit card AND one payment from the credit card to the bank. In result, the money is taken out of the bank twice and the credit card is paid

If your books aren’t up to snuff, it’s time to outsource. To make accurate and informed decisions on your business, it’s important to reference your bookkeeping. If they’re a mess, it means you don’t have the full story on your business. Making blind decisions is always a risk (one never worth taking!). Let’s talk about three signs it’s time to outsource.

You have a pile of receipts and papers left unrecorded, going back months.

If you have one or many folders stacked with receipts and papers from past months that haven’t been logged, it’s time to outsource. If you don’t put the time into your books, you’re neglecting your company as a result. As a business owner, it’s important to know where you stand financially, and this can’t happen if your unlogged receipts are collecting dust on your desk.

We always say you should be paying constant attention to your books, so we decided to break it down based on what you should be doing daily, weekly, and monthly. What you do in these short periods of time can impact the overall state of your books and your knowledge of your company’s financial standing. The more often you work in your books, the less time you’ll have to spend on them come the year’s end. You’ll thank yourself come December! If not, we’re here to help.

Let’s talk about the difference between accounts payable (A/P) and accounts receivable (A/R). It’s easy to get these two confused, but they’re important components to your books. They’re the primary indicators of the financial health of your company, which means they’re constantly changing to keep up with all the moving pieces. Let’s focus on the basics.

Account Payable is a company’s liability account where they record the amounts they owe to vendors or suppliers for their goods or services the company received on credit.  

Accounts Receivable is a company’s current asset account where they record the amounts they have a right to collect from customers who have purchased their goods or services on credit.

In a previous blog, we discussed the five types of accounts every business should have in their books. If you missed it, circle back and check it out before continuing with this one. As a reminder, the five types of accounts are assets, equity, expenses, liabilities, and revenue. Now, let’s talk about transactions. A financial transaction is the activity that impacts your company’s assets, liabilities, and equity.

There are four categories that a transaction can be categorized as: sales, purchases, receipts, and payments. Each of them involves money in some way and is recorded in your books in two locations. To make things simpler for you, we will break down what each of the transactions are and the two places it should be recorded in your books. Now, let’s dive in! We’ll talk each of the four transactions and the two places they should be recorded in your books.