Configuration & Preferences

What Is a Sales Tax Code and How Should I Use One?

Chief Mechanic · September 12, 2010 ·

A sales tax code is a list item that is used to set the overall taxable or non-taxable status of both customers and items (goods or services).

You should use sales tax codes to identify a customer, such as a reseller, from which you don’t collect sales taxes, or to identify goods and services that aren’t taxable even to customers who are otherwise taxable.

Sales tax codes are maintained on the Lists->Sales Tax Codes menu. There is a secondary method to maintain sales tax codes by visiting the the Edit->Preferences menu and choosing the Company Preferences tab on the Sales Tax submenu.

Primary Method to Maintain Sales Tax Codes

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Sales Tax Code List

Secondary Method to Maintain Sales Tax Codes

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Preferences Sales Tax Codes

There are only 2 types of sales tax codes: taxable and non-taxable.

If a customer is marked with a non-taxable code, all invoices for that customer are non-taxable. If an item is marked as non-taxable, no sales taxes will be charged for that item even for a customer who otherwise pays sales taxes.

When you add or edit a customer, you can use a sales tax code to specify that customer’s overall taxable status. The sales tax code is on the Additional Info tab in the New and Edit Customer windows.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 New Customer Sales Tax Code

When an invoice is created in the Create Invoices window, the sales tax code can be entered for each line item on the invoice and for the overall invoice. These values default to the sales tax codes for the item and customer, but they can be changed for this invoice only. For example, this capability could be used to eliminate sales taxes on a single invoice for an out-of-state shipment to an otherwise taxable customer.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Create Invoices Sales Tax Code

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How Do I Collect and Track Sales Tax?

Chief Mechanic · September 12, 2010 ·

The first step to collect and track sales tax in QuickBooks is to enable the preference to do so.

On the Edit->Preferences menu, select the Company Preferences tab on the Sales Tax submenu.

Click Yes on the Do you charge sales tax? preference.

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 10 Preferences Sales Tax

Once the preference is set, you use:

sales tax codes to specify whether a customer or item is or is not taxable
sales tax items to specify the sales tax applicable to a customer or invoice
sales tax groups to combine multiple sales tax items into a combined rate for a customer or invoice

To collect and track sales tax, you’ll need to create at least 1 sales tax item, which you can do directly from the Preferences window.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Preferences Sales Tax Items

If you are changing your sales tax preference after you’ve already created customers, inventory, or non-inventory parts, you’ll be given the opportunity to change the tax status of those existing customers and items. When the Updating Sales Tax window appears, choose what you’d like to update and click Ok.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Updating Sales Tax

This update process will update all customers and all items that are either an inventory part or non-inventory part, so make your decision to update carefully. Decide based on the characteristics for the bulk of your customers or inventory items, because the exceptions will have to be reviewed and changed individually.

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How Do I Enable Sales Orders?

Chief Mechanic · September 11, 2010 ·

In QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise Solutions, in order to use Sales Orders, you first have to enable them in Preferences.

To do that, choose Preferences from the Edit menu. Next, choose Sales & Customers from the Preferences menu and check Enable Sales Orders. Once this preference is selected, you can configure how QuickBooks handles sales orders. A screen shot from QuickBooks Premier 2009 appears below.

Note that QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks Online Edition (both Basic and Plus) do not support sales orders or back orders. If you need support for sales orders, you’ll need to upgrade to QuickBooks Premier or Enterprise Solutions. To review the features of QuickBooks products, see our related article on the feature differences between QuickBooks Pro and Premier or the product descriptions at our Buy QuickBooks page.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Preferences Sales and Customers

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Can I Use My Own Email Client To Send Reports And Forms Via Email?

Chief Mechanic · September 10, 2010 ·

Beginning with the 2008 series of products, you can use your own email client to send reports and forms via email – provided that you have a preference set correctly, and provided that your email client is one of:

Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft Outlook Express
Microsoft Windows Mail

To use any of the above email clients, choose the Outlook setting on the Send Forms sub-menu on the My Preferences tab on the Edit->Preferences menu selection.

Whether you send a report or form via your email client or QuickBooks E-mail, QuickBooks will send the report or form as a PDF attachment.

Users of 2007 series and older are limited to using QuickBooks E-mail, which is an online service provided by Intuit. Access to this service will no longer be available to QuickBooks 2007 users after May 31, 2010.

Online services are only available to users of a current QuickBooks version, so it’s important to monitor Intuit’s service discontinuation policy regarding the availability of online services for your version to avoid unexpected disruption to certain program features.

If you need to upgrade your QuickBooks software to continue to be able to send important forms and reports via email, see the links on our Buy QuickBooks page.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Preferences Send Forms Email

The principal advantage of using your own email client is that you can automatically preserve a copy of the emails you send in a folder in your email program. With QuickBooks E-mail, you need to be sure to send a copy to yourself.

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What Is the Unit of Measure Preference and How Does It Work?

Chief Mechanic · September 8, 2010 ·

The Unit of Measure preference is a way to specify the basis for quantities, prices or rates, and costs for an Item. It’s only available in Premier and Enterprise Solutions, and support for it varies by product and edition.

QuickBooks supports 2 modes for assigning a unit of measure: Single (Single U/M Per Item) and Multiple (Multiple U/M Per Item). In Single mode, each item can only have 1 unit of measure; in Multiple mode, an item can be converted from a base unit, such as each, to another, such as case or dozen, that contains a specified number of the base unit.

These QuickBooks products support only a Single unit of measure per item:

Premier
Premier Nonprofit Edition
Premier Professional Services Edition

These QuickBooks products support both Single & Multiple units of measure per item:

Premier Accountant Edition
Premier Contractor Edition
Premier Manufacturing & Wholesale Edition
Enterprise Solutions
Enterprise Solutions: Contractor Edition
Enterprise Solutions: Manufacturing & Wholesale Edition
Enterprise Solutions: Nonprofit Edition
Enterprise Solutions: Professional Services Edition

The Unit of Measure preference is set by clicking on the Edit->Preferences menu selection and selecting the Company tab on the Items & Inventory submenu. If you've never enabled this functionality in this company file (.qbw), you can enable it by clicking the Enable… button.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Preferences Unit of Measure Enable

You’ll then need to specify the unit of measure mode: either Single U/M Per Item or Multiple U/M Per Item. Click Finish to complete the process and return to the Items & Inventory preferences.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Preferences Unit of Measure Mode

If the unit of measure has previously been enabled, you can change the unit of measure mode or disable it using the pulldown selector.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Preferences Unit of Measure

You can disable or change the Unit of Measure preference after you’ve previously enabled it, but doing so will impact how item quantities, prices, and costs are displayed. For example, if you previously had the Multiple U/M Per Item Unit of Measure preference enabled, disabling it will cause all item quantities, prices, and costs to be displayed in base units only, even if the transaction was recorded in a related unit of measure.

See our articles on using a unit of measure for a single unit and multiple units per item.

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Configuration & Preferences

Accounting

Developer

Intuit