Customer Center

What Does the New Collections Center In QuickBooks 2011 Do?

Chief Mechanic · September 18, 2010 ·

QuickBooks 2011 and Enterprise Solutions 11.0 include a new Collections Center that enables you to quickly and selectively send bulk emails to customers with overdue or almost due invoices.

To access the Collections Center, start by opening the Customer Center, then click on the Collections Center link at the top of the window.

The Collections Center has 2 tabs: one showing Overdue invoices, and the other showing Almost Due invoices. You can selectively send emails to customers with invoices appearing on either list, and the techniques for doing so are the same. We’ll focus on sending emails to customers with overdue invoices.

Invoices are grouped by Customer Name, and you can sort the list by either Customer Name, the total customer Balance, or the Days Overdue. To sort by a particular column, simply click on the column header.

The Contact column contains the customer’s phone number, so the Collections Center could serve as a great tool for a call list. You can document a phone conversation with the customer or any other internal information (such as the reasoning for a decision not to call or send an email) by clicking on the icon in the Notes/Warnings column. This will bring up an editor that is positioned at the top of the note and has already added a date/time stamp. Previously recorded notes are saved and appear below.

QuickBooks 2011 Collections Center Notes

When you’re ready to select which customers (and for which invoices) should be sent emails, click the Select and Send Email link at the top of the Collections Center. If you want to return to reviewing the list, click the Back button.

QuickBooks 2011 Collections Center Send Mass Email

You can select which customers will receive emails by clicking the checkbox to the left of the invoice number. By default, all overdue invoices for all customers on the Overdue tab are selected, but you can easily deselect one or more invoices from any customer. If you remove the checkbox on all invoices for a given customer, that customer won’t receive an email. Selected invoices are attached as PDF files to your email and are sent using your selection of email client. To make sending forms easier, QuickBooks 2011 includes updated options for sending forms.

In the email form to the right of the list, you can change the default email message. Only 1 message will be sent to all customers currently selected, so be sure to craft a generic message that applies to all of your selections. If you want to send different email messages to different customer groups, you’ll have to select each customer group and complete the sending process before selecting another customer group.

When you’re satisfied with both your selections and email message, click the Send button. QuickBooks will notify you that the process is complete, but you can choose to block this message after the first appearance.

To manage the default messages for overdue and almost due invoices, QuickBooks 2011 has added 2 new message options. You can manage the default message for any form, including these 2 new options, by clicking on the Company Preferences tab of the Send Forms sub-menu on the Edit->Preferences menu selection.

The Collections Center is a valuable addition for businesses that want a unified tool to review customer invoices, document any discussions with customers or internal decisions, and easily send selected invoices to customers in bulk.

(+1 rating, 3 votes)

How Can I Close Transactions With a Customer Who Is Also a Vendor Who Only Paid the Net Balance On an Invoice?

Chief Mechanic · September 13, 2010 ·

For some businesses, another firm is both a customer and a vendor. If you’ve invoiced that firm (as a customer) while they have billed your company as a vendor, they may opt to pay the net amount owed for simplicity and to preserve their own cash balance. In that case, you’ll need to find a way to process the net payment and at the same time close both the customer invoice and the vendor bill.

In QuickBooks, there are 2 methods to accomplish this:

Use a clearing Bank account
Use General Journal entries

We favor the second method because it’s more consistent with normal workflow and it more fully documents the transactions recorded. To mirror Intuit’s own discussion of these methods in their knowledge base article on this topic, we’ll follow their example transaction, where your firm has invoiced a customer/vendor for $100, and that customer/vendor has billed your company $75. We’ve given this customer/vendor a name, Newco Llc. QuickBooks doesn’t permit identical names in lists. For that reason and to better distinguish between the customer account and the vendor account, we’ve appended “(customer)” and “(vendor)” to the company’s name.

Method 1 – Use a Clearing Bank Account

This method involves creation of a clearing account (if you don’t already have one set up) and recording the vendor credit through the Make Deposits function. Screen shots that illustrate what takes place in important steps follow the description of the steps.

Create a new Bank type account, which in our example is named Clearing Bank Account
Receive the payment from your customer/vendor to pay the customer/vendor’s outstanding invoice in full, which in our example is a payment of $100, and select Undeposited Funds as the Deposit To account if it’s not already set to that by default
Click on the Banking->Make Deposits menu selection and select the payment you recorded in Step 2 in the Payments to Deposit window and click Ok
In the Make Deposits window, add a new line item and enter the customer/vendor’s vendor account in the Received From field, your Accounts Payable account in the From Account field, and the amount of the vendor bill that the customer/vendor deducted from his payment as a negative number, which in our example is -75
Add a second new line item and enter the customer/vendor’s customer account in the Received From field, the bank account to which you’ll deposit the customer/vendor’s net payment, and the amount of the net payment as a negative number, which in our example is -25
Set the Deposit To account to the clearing account created in Step 1, which in our example is the Clearing Bank Account and click Save & Close or Save & New to record the net deposit
Click the Vendors->Pay Bills menu selection and select the customer/vendor’s bill to be paid
Once the bill is selected, click the Set Credits button, choose the vendor credit that you created in Step 4, and click Done to return to the Pay Bills window
Set the Account from which to issue the payment to the clearing account, which in our example is the Clearing Bank Account, and click the Pay Selected Bills button
QuickBooks will display the Payment Summary window, advising you that the bill was paid by a credit only, so it won’t be associated with a bill payment check; click Done to complete paying the vendor bill

In a typical use of the Make Deposits function where there is 1 entry for the deposit amount from Undeposited Funds as a positive number, QuickBooks credits (reduces) Undeposited Funds and debits (increases) the bank account selected in the Deposit To field. Positive amounts on the Make Deposits window represent credits; negative amounts represent debits. Thus, Accounts Payable is debited (reduced) by the amount of the vendor bill that the customer/vendor deducted from his payment, and the regular bank account is debited (increased) by the amount of the net payment received from the customer/vendor. Intuit incorrectly describes the entry made in Step 5 as a credit; it’s not – it’s a negative amount, so it’s a debit.

After completing Step 6 above, you’ve recorded the net amount of the deposit to your regular bank account. Note that the Deposit Subtotal made to the clearing account is 0.00, reflecting its purpose to serve purely as a clearing account to close transactions. QuickBooks will not allow setting the From Account to your Undeposited Funds account when recording the net amount being deposited in Step 5. If you combine this deposit item with others, you’ll complicate reconciling your regular bank account. That’s why it’s a good idea to make each customer/vendor transaction processed through the clearing account a separate deposit. The need to separate deposits is one limitation of the clearing account method.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Clearing Bank Account Make Deposit

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Clearing Bank Account Checking

After selecting the vendor bill in Step 7, you’ll be able to apply the credit that you created in Step 4 by clicking the Set Credits button.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Clearing Bank Account Pay Bills 1

In the Discounts and Credits window, select the credit.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Clearing Bank Account Discounts

After selecting the credit, there are no other credits available. The total of the bills to be paid is 0.00.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Clearing Bank Account Pay Bills 2

As described in Step 10, QuickBooks will display the Payment Summary window. However, because the bill was paid entirely by a credit, it won’t be associated with a bill payment check, even one with a zero amount. The vendor’s balance will be reduced by the amount of the payment and the bill will be marked Paid, but there won’t be a transaction recording the payment in the vendor’s transaction list in Vendor Center. The fact that the transaction list in Vendor Center presents an incomplete record of what was recorded is another limitation of the clearing account method.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Clearing Bank Account Payment Summary

Because there’s no bill payment check to delete or void, if you want to undo this process, you’ll need to start by deleting the deposit from the clearing account. That will leave funds in the Undeposited Funds account and return the vendor bill to an unpaid or open status.

Method 2 – Use General Journal Entries

This method involves making 2 General Journal entries and then processing the customer/vendor’s net payment in your normal workflow. Screen shots that illustrate what takes place in important steps follow the description of the steps.

Click on the Company->Make General Journal Entries… menu selection and record a debit (decrease) to Accounts Payable for the amount of the vendor bill that the vendor/customer deducted from his payment, which in our case is $75; in the Name field for the debit, enter the vendor account name
On the same General Journal entry, enter a credit for an equal amount to another account, such as the expense account used on the vendor bill, and click the Save & New button
Enter a second General Journal entry with a credit for $75 to Accounts Receivable, and in the Name field for the credit, enter the customer account name
On the same General Journal entry, enter a debit for $75 to the same account you used in Step 2 and click the Save & Close button
Click on the Customers->Receive Payments menu selection and enter the customer account name in the Received From field; after doing so, you’ll see the message that this customer has available credits
Click the Discounts & Credits… button to apply these credits
In the Discounts & Credits window that appears, select the credit for $75 that you recorded in Step 3 and click the Done button to return to the Receive Payments window
Select the customer invoice being paid and enter the net amount paid by the customer/vendor, along with other payment information such as the Pmt. Method and Check #
Click Save & Close or Save & New to record the customer payment

The account you enter in Steps 2 and 4 doesn’t matter as long as it’s the same account, because the debits and credits reverse each other. In fact, if you already have a clearing account set up, you can simply use that clearing account in these steps. These 2 General Journal entries are an effort to post a debit to Accounts Payable and a credit to Accounts Receivable. Because QuickBooks imposes a restriction that only 1 Accounts Payable or Accounts Receivable account can appear on a General Journal entry, it’s necessary to make 2 entries.

Here are the 2 General Journal entries:

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Vendor Customer 1

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Vendor Customer 2

Here’s the process at Step 5:

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Vendor Customer 3

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Vendor Customer 4

And finally, here’s our completed Receive Payments screen just before saving the transaction:

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Vendor Customer 5

We favor the second method – using General Journal entries – for 2 reasons. First, after completing these steps, you can process the customer/vendor’s check with other checks in your Undeposited Funds account as you normally would. You won’t need to make a separate deposit for each payment from a customer/vendor in order to maintain your bank reconciliation process as you would if you used the clearing account method. Second, because General Journal entries appear on the transaction list in both the Customer Center and Vendor Center, you’ll have a well-documented trail of what took place. On the vendor account, you’ll see a bill for $75 and a General Journal debit for $75 that pays the bill; on the customer account, you’ll see the $100 invoice, the $75 General Journal credit that reduced the amount owed, and the $25 payment. In contrast, in the clearing account method, you’ll only see the vendor bill marked Paid. You won’t see the transaction that actually paid the vendor bill, which can lead to confusion after the details of how the transaction was recorded are forgotten.

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Are There Restrictions On Making General Journal Entries To A/R and A/P Accounts?

Chief Mechanic · September 13, 2010 ·

Yes, there are a few restrictions on making General Journal Entries to Accounts Receivable (A/R) and Accounts Payable (A/P) accounts.

Normally, the preferred way to change the balance in an A/R or A/P account is by recording transactions, such as customer invoices or vendor bills. However, sometimes it’s more convenient to make a General Journal Entry. A common use of General Journal Entries to A/R or A/P accounts is to set up customer or vendor balances in a new QuickBooks company file.

If you opt to make a General Journal Entry to an A/R or A/P account, such entries are subject to these restrictions:

You can’t use more than 1 A/R or A/P account in a single journal entry
You must enter a customer name for a General Journal Entry to an A/R account and a vendor name for a entry to a A/P account

Here are some of the warnings you’ll see if you attempt to violate these restrictions:

QuickBooks Premier 2009 General Ledger Warning 1

QuickBooks Premier 2009 General Ledger Warning 2

QuickBooks Premier 2009 General Ledger Warning 3

Here’s an example of a General Journal Entry to 1 A/P account that meets the restrictions:

QuickBooks Premier 2009 GL Make General Journal Entries Accounts Payable

While not an absolute requirement, QuickBooks prefers that transactions involving A/R or A/P accounts have that account on the first line of the General Journal Entry. The first line of a General Journal Entry is the source of the transaction. Sources and targets are an important concept in QuickBooks. For more information, see our article on sources and targets.

When you record a General Journal Entry to an A/R or A/P account, the General Journal Entry will appear in the transaction list for the customer or vendor specified in either the Customer Center or Vendor Center – provided that the A/R or A/P account is on the first line of the general journal entry and is therefore the transaction source. General Journal Entries that debit (increase) A/R will be similar to a customer invoice and can be paid in a similar fashion. General Journal Entries that credit (increase) A/P will be similar to a vendor bill and likewise can be paid just like other vendor bills. However, some data fields are not filled in when recording transactions for a customer or vendor via a General Journal Entry. For example, the Terms and Due Date fields on a General Journal Entry for a vendor are left blank, as shown below. (Note: The single screenshot below shows a customized Vendor Center with the separate Pay Bills window placed on top of it to illustrate several of the points discussed in this article.)

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Vendor Center Plus Pay Bills

Beyond restrictions on making General Journal Entries to an A/R or A/P account, there are other restrictions that apply to making General Journal Entries, such as currency restrictions in multicurrency environments.

(-1 rating, 3 votes)

Do Deposits Appear In a Center, Such As the Customer Center?

Chief Mechanic · September 11, 2010 ·

Deposits don’t appear in a Center, such as the Customer Center under normal circumstances.

The 3 Centers (Customer, Vendor, and Employee) only include transactions where the transaction source matches the Name shown in the Center. For a Deposit, a customer is not considered the transaction source. Instead, it’s the target.

Sources and targets are an important concept in QuickBooks. For more information, see our article on sources and targets.

If you record a Deposit via the Make Deposits window, the source is the bank account. Even if you enter a Name in the Received From field, that Name is associated only with targets, not the source. There’s no way to assign a source Name in the Make Deposits window.

However, if you open the Register for the bank account to which the funds were deposited, you can edit the Name assigned to a Deposit. Under normal circumstances, a Deposit could be made up of funds from multiple Names, so QuickBooks doesn’t assign a Name to the Deposit.

The first 2 entries on the screenshot below are typical deposits where no Name was assigned. The third entry is a Deposit made via the Make Deposits window but where we’ve edited the Name in the bank account register to include a Customer:Job name. This edited Deposit does appear in the Customer Center for that Customer:Job, as shown below.

While it’s technically possible to make a Deposit appear in a Center, we don’t recommend it. A Deposit made up of funds from multiple Names can never be made to appear in a Center for more than 1 Name, since only 1 Name can be assigned to the source. That makes expecting Deposits in a Center very unreliable – something that is never a good idea for an accounting system.

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 10 Deposit In Center

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 10 Deposit In Center 2

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How Do I Resort Lists?

Chief Mechanic · September 11, 2010 ·

Lists are one of the foundations of QuickBooks, and from time to time they can become out of order. That’s when they need to be resorted. Some common indicators that it’s time to resort your lists include:

the list itself is out of order
an element is missing
new entries in a list appear at the top of the list instead of in their sorted order
you can’t turn on the account number preference
selecting a Customer:Job, Vendor, or Employee in a Center fails to display existing transactions for that name
Names don’t properly auto-fill when entering a Name filter on the Advanced tab of the Edit->Find… function

Resorting any list will undo any special order you’ve applied to the list, and this activity can’t be done in multi-user mode. It’s always a good idea to backup your company file before undertaking an action that can’t be undone.

There are 8 lists that can be resorted. They are:

Customers:Jobs
Vendors
Employees
Other Names
Accounts
Items
Memorized Reports
Memorized Transactions

Since this technique is often used to address possible data corruption, we’ll outline the most efficient technique to resort multiple lists, but you can also choose to resort an individual list by opening up a Center and right clicking on a list element.

The first 4 lists are collectively referred to as Names or Entities, and there’s an easy way to resort these 4 lists:

Open the Write Checks window by clicking on Banking->Write Checks or using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + W
In the Pay to the Order of field, click Ctrl + L
Opt to include inactive list entries by clicking the Include Inactive checkbox
Click the Name button and choose Re-sort List from the menu
Click Ok to resort the lists
Uncheck the Include Inactive checkbox

The screenshot below shows the combined Name list in Step 4:

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 10 Resort Name List

Our related article explains how to provide easy access to this combined list of all Names.

Resorting the Chart of Accounts and Items lists follow similar procedures, except each of these lists will have to be resorted individually. To access the Chart of Accounts, click the Lists->Chart of Accounts menu selection or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + A. To access the Items list, click Lists->Items. Opt to include inactive list entries, resort the list from the button in the lower left of the window, and uncheck the Include Inactive checkbox before proceeding to the next list.

Resorting Memorized Reports and Memorized Transactions are similar to the above steps, except there’s no need to include inactive list entries since they’re not allowed on these lists. To access Memorized Reports, click the Reports->Memorized Reports->Memorized Report List menu selection; to access Memorized Transactions, click Lists->Memorized Transactions or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + T.

After resorting lists, close and reopen your company file (.qbw) to insure that all changes are successfully written to disk.

Resorting lists is discussed in this Intuit knowledge base article.

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