Vendor who is also your Customer

So, you have this great relationship with your vendor and they purchase your service.  The vendor calls and says, "Look, I owe you and you owe me, let's call it a wash, since the amount owed equals the amount due".  But you need to record the expense and the income somehow.  Here are the steps to record this type of transaction:

• Create a bank account called "barter".
• Enter your bill and pay your bill using the new "barter" bank acct.
• Now go to your home page and enter your invoice to your vendor.
• Go to receive payments and enter your payment.
• Go to make deposits and select the deposit of the customer payment.
• Deposit this payment to the new "barter" bank acct.
• Your balance in the new "barter" bank account will be zero when the transactions have been entered.

Now,  you realize that these are "paper" transactions only.  No money actually changes hands.  It is just a way to record your expense and income in your records.

Lynda
Check out my website www.artesanibookkeeping.com

QuickBooks deleted some of my work!

I have received a telephone call from a client who have found me through the ProAdvisor site.  They stated that they worked in QuickBooks and then the next day when they went in their program, all the data from the prior two months is missing.  "The program deleted my work!"  

Can this happen?  No.  The program will not delete your work.  This is usually the case of saving the data file in more than one place and then opening an old data file.  

How can you prevent this from happening to you?

First, let's find out if you have more than one data file.   While in windows, do a search for .qbw files:

These are your data files.  Now when you find the most current data file, open it in QuickBooks and keep it open, but shrink or minimize it on the screen.  Now you can delete the duplicate files.  QuickBooks will not allow you to delete the open file. 

Lynda
Check out my website www.artesanibookkeeping.com

Adjusting Sales Tax Payable

While working with a client from New York, he stated, "How do I account for the discount the State of New York gives me for paying my sales tax on time?"  Here are the steps we followed to enter this income:

Go to vendor, sales tax, adjust sales tax (click on picture below to enlarge)

Select to decrease the sales tax and use "other income" or miscellaneous income for the adjusting account since this income is unearned income:

Next, when you go to make the payment, go to vendor; sales tax; pay sales tax and make sure you click on the amount due and the adjustment which will give you the correct net sales tax payment.

Lynda

Check out my website www.artesanibookkeeping.com