Using Financial Statement Designer.

Question:

It appears that the new Financial Statement Designer program (QuickBooks 2005 Accountant Edition) does not allow you to prepare Budget vs. Actual or Budget Performance reports. These reports are available only in the Reports menu. Is this correct? Are there templates that can be downloaded from the website? Perhaps this can be customized in the FSD program but I am not seeing it?

Ps. Thanks so much for your Blog! You have been such a help in the past!

Answer:

You are right...best I can tell, budget amounts can't be included in the financial statement designer. My best searches didn't yield any results for templates that can be loaded into financial statement designer.

Frankly, I have not been overly impressed with the capabilities of the financial statement designer. It seems that all it does is improve the aesthetics of the reports that are already available.

If as an accounting firm you are using QuickBooks for write-up, you should look into some of the more robust write-up accounting software packages.

Creative Solutions write-up will allow you to format reports in any way you want. It also will interface with QuickBooks for your clients that do their own basic accounting. I know that some of these packages can get expensive, but they can pay for themselves many times over in improved staff efficiency and the billable value of the finished product.

Help Needed! QuickBooks Problem on Tiger OS

Question:

I operate on a Powerbook G4 and recently installed Tiger. Since then,
when entering a transaction in QuickBooks, I am not allowed to
record, but have to scroll across the top to edit then click and
click again before I am allowed to record the transaction. I am using
QuickBooks Pro 6.0. Do you have any suggestions?

Thank you,

Jack

Answer:

Sorry, I am not much of a Mac expert. I must confess that I haven't used one since college. I am told that I am really missing out. My friend has a Powerbook also, and I couldn't believe it when the keys lit up when the lights were dimmed. That would be great on a plane.

If only Michael Dell were half as cool as Steve Jobs...that would be something.

Sorry for rambling. Hopefully, some of our Mac user will have some insight.

Setting up Your Beginning Balance Sheet.

Question:

1. What is the proper way to record fixed assets (our building and land) that we already own when setting up QuickBooks?
2. Is there anyway to show appreciation of fixed assets?

Bill

Answer:

When you set up quickbooks for a business that is alraedy in operation, it is important to get all the opening balances in correctly. This is why I usually advise clients to begin using quickbooks at the beginning of the year, then after I finish their tax return, I will set up the opening balances.

Having said that, on to your specific problem. Depending on which tax form you file (Sch. C, 1065, 1120, 1120-S, etc.) you may already have your opening balances. Look on your 2004 tax return (if you are anything besides a Schedule C) and look for a balance sheet. For smaller companies this is optional...so it may not be there. If it is there your set. You have your 12/31/2004 balance sheet. Make a general journal entry (Company - Make Journal Entry)DEBITING the assets and CREDITING the liabilities and equity (assuming none of the balances show up as negative) The tax returns balance sheet should include buildings and land, so this would take care of the problem.

Now if you don't have your a working balance sheet on your tax return, you can record your buildings and land by journal entry at COST. To make the journal entry, you would DEBIT Buildings or Land and CREDIT Opening Balance Equity.

As an aside, let me explain why I said put it in Opening Balance Equity instead of retained earnings where most would put it. See the first thing that your accountant is going to do when he gets your file, is to ensure that retained earnings balances (Previous years retained earnings +/- prior year profit/loss). I had you put it in opening balance equity so that he doesn't experiance additional confusion in performing this task.

The answer to your second question is simply don't do it. Fixed assets are recorded at cost and they remain on your books at cost until you sell them or dispose of them. It iswhen you sell them that you effectivly write down or appreciate those assets by recording a gain/loss on the sale of assets. This gain is a taxable item. Fortunatly, the government hasn't figured out how to tax us on unrealized gains...so let's not help them by quantifying the gain on our books.

Inventory Aging Report.

Question:

I’m getting the feeling that this one’s beyond the scope of what QB is designed to do, but I’ll give it a shot.

Is there any way to get QB (either internally or by a 3rd party app) to create an inventory aging report? I’ve been told by one 3rd party vendor that it can be done as long as we track things by lot or serial #, which (as far as I know) we haven’t done to date. It seems to me that all the necessary information is in there regardless, & it’s just a matter of how to get it out in the format we need.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Matt

Answer:

You are correct. This is beyond the scope of what QuickBooks can do. I looked through the third party solutions marketplace and didn't see anything that offered this report specifically. I also noticed that some of these add-ons were incredibly expensive. You may find one that is in your price range and nail them down as to whether what you want will be included.

Manufacturing Inventory.

Question:

Do you know anything about manufacturing with QuickBooks for Mac? Currently, I convert raw material inventory to finished product inventory via inventory adjusts and “zero” bills. But is there any add-on program or tricks I haven’t thought of to create BOM and/or inventory/manufacturing projection?

Answer:

QuickBooks does not have a very good process for manufacturing inventory. To be quite honest...I handle it the same way that you do. There are several products out there that claim to make the process easier, but I haven't used any of them. Here is a link to the manufacturing add-ons. Some of them are quite pricey. If you use any of them let me know what you think.

If anyone uses a third party add-on and like it...please let me know.

Help Needed!

I am exporting report data to sheet1 of a workbook, and trying to link sheet 1 data to a more comprehensive report in sheet 2.using copy-paste-link. When I change the date range in QB and export to sheet1l sheet 2 has #REF.....

What am I doing wrong????? Thanks for any help...

John


This sounds more like an Excel problem. I can't think of anything that would cause this. Does anyone else have any ideas?

Opening a Mortgage Account.

Question:

What is the proper way to enter a mortgage (initially) and make payments so that it reflects on the Balance Sheet?

Thanks, Bill

Answer:

Well, a mortgage is in most instances a long term liability. So if this is the case, create a new account (Company - Chart of Accounts - Ctrl + N). Enter the account number if you use them. Make the account type Long-Term Liability. Give the account an apporpriate name such as "Citibank - Building Mortgage".

The easiest way to record the opening amount is by journal entry (Company - Make Journal Entry). DEBIT either your "Buildings" fixed asset account if you purchased a new building or the old note payable if you refinanced (if you refinanced you may need an accountant to help you apply the loan proceed correctly per your HUD statement). You will CREDIT the account you created above.

Now when you write the check for the payment each month, make the check out for the total amount of the payment. When you classify it, put the part that went against principal (according to your statement)into the note payable account (created above) and the rest of the payment should be interest (check the statement to be sure there is no escrow).

NOTE: if you have QuickBooks 2005, it has a Note Payable Manager that if the information is entered correctly will keep track of interest vs. principal amounts.

Sorting Bills by Due Date.

Question:

I have QBooks Basic 2004 Windows

I can't sort a unpaid bill report by Due Date ----- nothing happens.

HELP !
Sid

Answer:

You are not the first person to bring this up. This repost I believe is fundamentally flawed in that it breaks the bills down by vendor FIRST. So when you sort by due date it will only sort multiple bills to the same vendor. Unfortunatly the report you are looking for…sorted only by due date isn’t available except by viewing bills in the Pay Bills Screen (Vendors – Pay Bills).

Problem with Customer Balance.

Question:

I recently posted a payment through the Receive payment window. Somehow I got the amount in the system twice because when I go to my receivables report, it is showing up a negative balance due. I have tried repeatedly to change the payment, delete it, etc. I always get an error message that I have to delete it from the deposit before I can delete the payment. I go the deposits and delete it and it takes it out of my check register, where it is only recorded once. Then I go back to receivables and it is still showing up a negative….HELP!

Answer:

This sounds strange. The only possibility that I can think of is that the payment was applied to the invoice and not deposited in the bank. While at the same time an additional deposit, or maybe the same deposit was applied to the customer and deposited in the bank. If this were the case, the customer would show a credit balance…which your customer does. When you go to “Make Deposits” is the amount still waiting to be deposited…or is that amount in undeposited funds?

You will need to search through the “Receive Payment” transactions to see where the amount was applied twice.

Balance Sheet Problems.

Question:

I have having problems creating an accurate balance sheet. I have used QB for several years but, I have not needed to create balance sheets with it. Unfortunately, now I do.

Under current assets, all of the amounts showing up with the exception of National City Bank should be zero. How do I eliminate these amounts?

The accounts payable should be zero. How do I eliminate this balance?

Total current Liabilities should also be zero. How do I eliminate this entry?

Opening balance equity is $16,000. How do I make the report show $16,000

Retained earnings should also be zero. How do I eliminate the retained earnings amount?

This company is an LLC which I purposely keep to a minimum of assets for liability reasons

Thanks for your help.

Don

Answer:

Your question is difficult, without knowing your situation. I would urge you to talk to your accountant.

Assuming that all current assets should in fact be zero, you will need to find out what is in those accounts.

To do this open a "Balance Sheet Standard" report, and click modify report. In the window that appears, change the dates to beginning of your company’s existence or some date way in the past such as 01/01/1975 to today's date.

Now look at the current asset accounts that are on the balance sheet. Double click on the ones that should be zero. You will be given a list of transactions that make up your balance. You can either reclassify them at the transaction level by double clicking them again or make a journal entry to reclassify them.

Again, I can't recommend any of this...especially if the transactions in the current asset account are from prior years. (This could create a current year tax problem if they were assets on your prior years returns). But this is how you would do it from a QuickBooks operations standpoint.

As for opening balance equity, this is an account created by QuickBooks when you open an account that has an existing balance. Generally this account should be zero. Many times it is capital or retained earnings.

Retained earnings should in fact have a balance if you have been in operation for more than a year and have either a collective profit or loss.

As you can see there are many issue involved, however it shouldn't take a CPA long to correct it to your specifications and within the constraints of the law. This would be money well spent.