Online Banking with QuickBooks



“Quicklet” - A Podcast for QuickBooks Pro, Premier, Enterprise Solutions, Point of Sale and Peachtree users featuring helpful information, tips, tricks and suggestions for bookkeepers, business owners, and consultants.

Ask the QuickBooksGal!

Hi, I'm Jayne Miller, The QuickBooks Gal. Welcome to another in my series of “Quicklets” – informational podcasts about QuickBooks, Peachtree and related bookkeeping topics.

Today, I want to discuss a process that many folks have trouble with and that I rarely use myself - Using Online Banking with QuickBooks.


My advice –“Don’t!”

Quicken and MS Money do online banking really well and that has many of us spoiled. We’re accustomed to downloading our personal finances with a single click and having it work almost flawlessly.

QuickBooks is nothing like that. While you can, and several of our clients do, use online banking with QuickBooks, it is not always easy and it generally requires more work than it is worth for a variety of reasons.

Here are a few of the issues I've encountered recently.

If you think you would like to take advantage of QuickBooks Online Banking feature, the first thing you need to be aware of is “mapping.” This is the process by which when you download your data from the bank, you will match it up with your existing checks, deposits, & vendors in QuickBooks.

The frustrating issue here is a situation where, for example, your company purchases supplies at 7 different “ABC Marts”. The bank's download treats each location as a different vendor and identifies it as "ABC Mart 1770" for example, until you tell it otherwise.

If you aren’t disciplined to "map" every time you download from your bank, your Vendor list could be filled with “ABC Mart 1770” “ABC Mart 2155” “ABC Mart West Reno” etc.

Another potential problem that can occur when using QuickBooks and online banking is one I recently encountered with a client.

His books were perfect....everything was entered manually and was correctly coded; items were coded correctly, expenses and income were allocated to the proper accounts.

Then, he downloaded data from his bank and “Oh No!” EVERYTHING is coded to “other expenses! Even his PAYROLL LIABILITIES!

So, now you've listened to my horror stories and you are aware of all of the difficulties you may encounter, but you've navigated around them like a pro, and you love using online banking downloads with QuickBooks.

Well, there's one more issue you might encounter.

If you should have to open a second account at your financial institution which has a separate user name or user id – you will find that QuickBooks forbids you from setting up online banking for these two separate accounts at the same bank.

We recently encountered this issue when a client changed his business structure from a Sole Proprietorship to an LLC. He didn't want to create a new, empty QuickBooks file and manually re-enter open activity and he didn't want to lose customer/vendor history, so he created a new company file.

Then he restored a back up of his Sole Prop file to it. He changed the password on the Sole Prop account so he would not use it and then made changes to the new file to reflect the newly created file with the new (LLC) entity type.

He, of course, had to close his Sole Prop bank account and open a new one under the LLC, but because his old Sole Prop bank account still existed in the QuickBooks file (albeit inactive and with a zero balance), he was being blocked from setting up online banking for the new account.

He contacted his bank...no one knew how to work around this problem, so he could not download activity from the new LLC Checking Account into his current QuickBooks file. They suggested that he might want to try creating a new QuickBooks file.

He contacted Intuit...no one knew how to retire the previous checking account and activate online banking to his new account. The best suggestion from them was to create a new QuickBooks file and enter beginning balances and do not enter the retired account.

Fortunately, we were able to help him. If this happens to you, or maybe as one of my clients recently experienced, a check order gets lost in transport, so your bank closes your account and moves your money to a new one in order to assure that anyone getting their hands on those lost checks can't write checks against your account, then here's the fix:

* In the chart of accounts, right-click on the OLD bank account and select Edit

* Click on the Online Banking tab and deactivate online banking for this account

* Save & Close


Simple – if you know what you’re doing!

I hope this is helpful and that you will tune in next time for more tips about QuickBooks and bookkeeping.

If you are using Point of Sale, be sure to get the newest update - R3.

Make sure you are updating your QuickBooks software regularly! Intuit is always working to improve their software and the updates they make available for download make your life easier! You can go to the Help menu inside your program to get updates.

Well, that’s it for now. Please tune in again for another in our Quicklet© series. If there are topics you would like me to cover send me an email at jayne@quickbooksgal.com.

I welcome your ideas, questions and comments.




Got a QuickBooks Mess? Call The QuickBooks Gal!



I’m Jayne Miller, The QuickBooks Gal. Thanks for listening.





Reno - Tahoe - Sacramento 775-348-9200 916-216-4949



Jayne Miller, owner & Senior Consultant
Custom Business Solutions ©2006, 2007, 2007, all rights reserved


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to "Un" Apply Credits In QuickBooks

Image
Got a QuickBooks Mess? Call The QuickBooks Gal! Welcome to the QuickBooks Minute. I’m Jayne Miller, the QuickBooks Gal Recently, one of our Reno QuickBooks customers asked about "unapplying" credits in QuickBooks. While there are nicely labeled apply credits buttons, there are none marked unapply. This is the case for both customers (invoicing) and vendors (paying bills). So here is how it is done: For customers, it is a fairly easy process. Go to the invoice to which the credit was applied. Then click on the "Apply Credits" button. In the lower half of the new window that pops up is a list of Previously Applied Credits. Simply find the one, or ones you wish to unapply and click on the check mark next to it to make the check mark disappear. The credit will no longer be applied or tied to that invoice. For Vendors, i.e. bill payments, it is not as clean and simple. The only way to unapply a credit in such a case is to Delete the credit. You can then
Read more

QuickBooks Password Protection

QuickBooks now requires your employees to enter a password to view their pay stubs when you e-mail them. QuickBooks generates the passwords automatically; each password consists of the first four letters of the employee's last name followed by the last four digits of their Social Security number. Examples Name:                            SSN:                         Pay Stub Password: Ben Narramore              855-56-4545             narr4545 Deb D'Spain                  782-34-3419             dspa3419 Jimmy Wu                     903-88-7465             wu7465 Note that all characters must be entered in lowercase and punctuation characters are not included in the password. When a last name has fewer than four characters, the whole last name is used (like in wu above) but no additional characters are added. You will need to inform each employee of this new password requirement
Read more

Employee Salary/Wage Rate Report

Image
Welcome to another QuickBooks Gal Minute. I'm Jayne Miller, The QuickBooks Gal. Do you need to produce a report by Employee that lists only Employee Name and Wage Rate? In QuickBooks that's easy! Here's how to modify a standard report to include the data you want to report. In the top tool bar, select Reports Select Employees & Payroll Select Employee Contact List from the drop-down list Once inside the report, select Modify Report in the report tool bar In the "column" section, remove the check marks from the information choices you don't need. In the "column" section, place a check mark next to "Employee" In the "column" section, place a check mark next to "Earnings/1 Rate" This will customize the report to include only employee names & salary/wage amounts. As you explore the Modify window, you will find that there are many useful information options you can use to create really great custom reports...by the
Read more