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.
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.
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