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other charge item

How Can I Record Vehicle Mileage As a Reimbursable Expense?

Chief Mechanic · September 6, 2010 ·

To record vehicle mileage as a reimbursable expense, you first need to set up the vehicle in the Vehicle List and the Service or Other Charge Item that represents the rate at which customers will be invoiced for mileage. 

Once these preliminary steps have been completed, click on the Company->;Enter Vehicle Mileage… menu selection to record the mileage for a trip.

To make this trip a reimbursable expense, be sure to check the Billable checkbox, specify the appropriate Customer:Job, and choose the Item you previously created that is the source for your invoice description and the rate at which you will invoice your customer.  Enter your Notes for the trip – you’ll have the option of incorporating this information into the customer invoice later.

QuickBooks Premier 2009  Enter Vehicle Mileage Billable

Click the Save & Close or Save & New button to save your work.

Next, click on the Customers->Invoice for Time & Expenses menu selection to start a new customer invoice and add mileage expenses to it.  Select the Mileage tab.  Unlike reimbursable expenses that appear on the Expenses or Items tabs, you have more control over how information is transferred to a customer invoice for expenses that appear on the Time or Mileage tabs.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Choose Billable Mileage

Click the Options… button to specify how information will be transferred to a customer invoice.  You can opt to use the Notes you entered when you recorded the mileage (Transfer activity notes), use the description you specified when you created the Item (Transfer item descriptions), or both (Transfer both notes and descriptions).  You can also choose to have each trip appear as a separate line item or to combine trips that use the same service item and rate.  If you opt for the latter, only the item description will appear on the customer invoice.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Options for Transferring Billable Mileage

Click Ok to close the Options for Transferring Billable Mileage window.

Select the mileage expense items that you’d like to include on a customer invoice and click Ok.  The expense items you selected will appear using the options you specified.  Complete the invoice and save your work.

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How Do I Prepare To Charge Customers For Mileage?

Chief Mechanic · September 6, 2010 ·

The first step to charge customers or clients for vehicle mileage is to create a new Item with a type of Service or Other Charge.  The Sales Price that you enter for this Item will be the price charged to the customer for mileage.

QuickBooks maintains a separate list of Mileage Rates, but these rates are not automatically used to invoice customers.  Instead, they’re just a reference for the historical rates allowed by taxing authorities.

Click on Lists->Item List to add a new Item.  Be sure to specify the Type as Service or Other Charge, and to select the This item is used in assemblies or is a reimbursable charge checkbox just below the Item Name/Number field.

Specify both an Expense Account and an Income Account for the Item you create.  Enter the description you’d like to appear on customer invoices and the rate you’d like to charge customers for mileage in the Sales Information block.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 New Item Mileage

Click Ok to save the Item.

You’ll use this item code on customer invoices and to identify those mileage expenses that will be billed to a customer as a reimbursable expense.

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What Are the Procedures and Journal Entries To Record a Customer’s NSF or Bounced Check?

Chief Mechanic · September 4, 2010 ·

If you process enough transactions, sooner or later you’ll have to account for a returned check.  A check that is returned unpaid is given many labels (such as NSF or bounced check) but the accounting treatment is the same.

The procedures outlined below work effectively for POS users in both single stores and chains.  Activities such as receiving bank notices of fees and returned items typically take place at the headquarters rather than the store level, so these tasks are performed in QuickBooks financial software rather than POS.  However, in POS a payment can be accepted by clicking the Take Payment button at the bottom of the New Sales Receipt window.  This allows a customer to replace a returned check at any store in a chain.  When POS exchanges data with QuickBooks, the customer’s account will be updated.

For this example, let’s assume we received a returned check for $50 from a customer named Customer with check returned unpaid.  For handling the returned item, the bank charged a $25 fee, and we’ll only seek to recover from the customer the actual bank charges.  Rather than investigating each fee separately, some firms set a fixed fee to charge customers.  Hopefully, this customer will replace the unpaid check with another one, but we’ll need to record the activity in our cash account before that takes place.

Here are 2 methods to account for the returned check:

  1. create a new invoice to the customer for the amount of the returned check and fees your firm adds and a general journal entry for the expense of the fees the bank charged
  2. use 1 general journal entry for the entire process

Although the second method appears simpler, we recommend the first method because it preserves normal accounting procedures and provides a better paper trail by creating an invoice that can be sent to the customer to assist collecting the bounced check.

Method 1 – Re-invoice the Customer

Before accounting for this specific returned check, set up 2 new Other Charge Items on the Item List.  These Items will only be set up once.

The first other charge will be used to invoice the customer for the amount of the returned check.  At this point, it should be set to a $0.00 amount and have a Tax Code that is non-taxable.  An Item Name of Returned Check will serve as a reminder for how this charge will be used.  The Account must be set to the bank account into which the original returned check was deposited.  Later, the amount of the returned check will be entered when the customer is invoiced for the returned check, along with any applicable bank charges.  If you make deposits into multiple bank accounts, you’ll need a separate item for each bank account; in this case, include a reference to the bank account in the Item Name.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 New Item Returned Check

Next, add a second other charge for possible bank charges.  Like the other charge for the check amount itself, this charge should have a Tax Code that is on-taxable.  The amount can be set to either $0.00 (to indicate it varies depending on the situation) or a fixed fee representing a firm’s standard returned check fee.  An Item Name of Returned Check Bank Charges will be a good reminder of how this charge will be used.  The Account should be set to either an other income account or the expense account used for the original bank charge.  In this example, we created an other income account for reimbursed bank charges.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 New Item Returned Check

With the other charges properly set up, make a general journal entry for just the charge the bank deducted from your bank account.  To do that, click the Company->Make General Journal Entries… menu and enter the actual bank charge as a credit to the bank account and a debit to bank charges expenses as follows:

QuickBooks Premier 2009 GL Make General Journal Entries NSF 1

Next, click on the menu Customers->Create Invoices (or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + I) to invoice the customer for both the amount of the returned check and the fee charged by your firm.  In our example, the returned check was $50, and the bank charges are $25. 

Here’s the Create Invoices window:

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Create Invoices for Customer NSF Check

This invoice will be reflected on the customer’s account and will provide a document to present to the customer to collect payment.  Hopefully, the customer will replace the returned check.  At that point, use the normal procedure for recording a customer payment (Customers->Receive Payments) to record the replaced payment and depositing the funds (Banking->Make Deposits).

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Receive Payment for NSF Check

This approach has some important benefits.  It creates an invoice to help collect both the unpaid amount and the bank charges.  It also preserves the normal work flow for processing payments and making deposits.  It’s also the approach recommended by Intuit in the documentation for QuickBooks.

To review the debits and credits of each step, press the Journal button (or Ctrl + Y).  The general journal entry we first entered accounted for the actual bank charge.  When we recorded the invoice, we produced a debit to AR in the amount of $75, a credit to our bank account for the $50 check, and a credit to an other income account for $25.  The invoice in effect reduced the bank account by the amount of the returned check, so at this point, our bank balance is accurate.

Method 2 – Make 1 General Journal Entry

Some prefer to accomplish all of the above in just a single general journal entry.  To do that, click on the Company->Make General Journal Entries… menu and make these entries:

  1. AR: debit of $75 with the customer’s name entered in the Name field
  2. Bank account: credit of $50 to reduce the bank balance
  3. Bank account: credit of $25 to reduce the bank balance
  4. Bank service charges (expense): debit of $25
  5. Reimbursement income: credit of $25 to record the revenue (optionally enter the customer’s name in the Name field)

Ideally, although it’s not shown in the screen shot below, the debit to AR should be entered on the first line of the general journal entry.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 GL Make General Journal Entries NSF 2

The steps outlined above for recording a customer payment (Customers->Receive Payments) and depositing the funds (Banking->Make Deposits) are then used to complete the accounting when the customer replaces the returned check.

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How Do I Invoice a Customer for Reimbursable Expenses?

Chief Mechanic · September 1, 2010 ·

In order to easily invoice a customer or client for reimbursable expenses, you first need to make sure your QuickBooks installation is properly configured for this task.  Your configuration depends on how you intend to account for reimbursable expenses.

For more information on handling reimbursable expenses, see our related articles on enabling automatically invoicing customers for reimbursable expenses, what distinguishes a reimbursable expense from other expenses, removing expenses from the list of billable expenses to be invoiced to a customer, and finding out which reimbursable expenses haven’t been billed to a customer.

In addition, note that a key preference setting to enable the approaches discussed in this article is not available in QuickBooks Pro. See our article on the feature differences between QuickBooks Pro and Premier for more information. That means QuickBooks Premier is required to use these methods.

There are 2 general approaches to account for reimbursable expenses:

  1. record the amount your vendor bills you in an expense account and the amount you invoice the customer or client in an income account
  2. record the amount your vendor bills you in an expense account and the amount you invoice the customer or client as an offset to this same expense account

The first approach allows you to track both the revenues and the overall level of expenses for that account; it’s the preferred method, especially if you charge customers more than the amount of the corresponding vendor bill.  The second tracks only the net level of expenses for that account.  It’s a simpler method used by some firms that bill a customer the exact amount of a corresponding vendor bill and monitor the balance of a general ledger account to track reimbursable expenses for which a customer has not yet been invoiced.

For either method, the first step is to set a QuickBooks preference to enable you to easily create invoices for reimbursable expenses.  Click on the Edit->Preferences menu selection to open the Preferences window.  On the Company tab, click on the Time & Expenses sub menu.  Be sure that under the Invoicing options block, the preference to Create invoices from a list of time and expenses is checked.  This preference must be set before entering vendor bills for which you plan to seek reimbursement from a customer or client by issuing an invoice.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Preferences Time & Expenses Invoicing

Setting this preference and the role of the other preferences in the Invoicing options block are discussed more fully in our article on enabling automatically invoicing customers for reimbursable expenses.

The remainder of the steps to invoice a customer or client for reimbursable expenses depends on the method you choose to account for such expenses.  The first 2 methods record the expense and revenue separately; the third method records the revenue as an offset to the expense account.

Method 1 – Record Both the Expense and Revenue Separately With An Optional Markup

If you select the preference Track reimbursed expenses as income as shown in the above screenshot and assign a different Income account to each General Ledger Expense account for which you want to track reimbursable expenses, you can record both the expense and revenue associated with reimbursable expenses in different accounts.

To use this method after you’ve enabled the preferences and made your account assignments, record vendor bills on the Expenses tab of the Enter Bills window.  Enter an Expense account for which you’ve matched an Income account and enter a Customer:Job.  The Billable? checkbox will be selected by default once you enter a Customer:Job.  Click the Save & Close or Save & New button to record the bill.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Enter Bill Reimbursable Expense Tab

Click on the Customers->Invoice for Time & Expenses menu selection to display a list of all customers with unbilled reimbursable expenses.  This menu selection only appears if you correctly set the preference described earlier.  To produce an invoice for the reimbursable expenses for a customer, select that customer’s name and click the Create Invoice button.  If you want to selectively invoice for reimbursable expenses, click the Let me select specific billables for the Customer:Job checkbox before clicking the Create Invoice button.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Invoice for Time & Expenses 2

Click on the Expenses tab to select the unbilled expenses for this customer.  On the Choose Billable Time and Costs window, you can change the Markup Amount or % and the Markup Account used for this transaction.  If you enter a % in the Markup Amount or % field, QuickBooks will treat your entry as a percentage; otherwise, it will be treated as a dollar amount to be added to the expense cost as markup.  Click the Ok button to add these expenses (including the markup) to the customer invoice.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Choose Billable Expenses

There are 2 advantages to this method:

  1. The description you record with the vendor bill is the description that will be included on the customer invoice 
  2. You can choose to markup billable expenses by a default percentage or override that default with a different percentage or a fixed dollar amount

If you expect that the description you enter with the vendor bill will appear on a customer invoice, it will be easier to record an accurate description for the reimbursable expense while you’re recording the vendor bill.  The limitation to this method is that you have to create a matching Income account for each Expense account for which you will record reimbursable expenses.  If you have a large number of Expense accounts that require matching Income accounts, expect to add a large number of accounts to your Chart of Accounts.  In addition, by recording reimbursable expenses on the Expenses tab, there is no Item associated with the expense, so they won’t be included on Item-based sales reports, such as the Sales by Item Summary or Sales by Customer Detail reports.  On balance, though, the combination of connecting the expense description to the customer invoice and the flexibility to manage the markup for reimbursable expenses makes this method the preferred approach to record and invoice for these expenses.

Method 2 – Record Both the Expense and Revenue Separately Using Items

You can also record both the expense and revenue from reimbursable expenses separately using the Items tab of the Enter Bills window.

First, make sure you have created a General Ledger Income account to track reimbursable expenses.  In this example, our account has an Account Type of Income.  It’s for Reimbursed Freight & Delivery and, since it’s for just 1 type of reimbursement income,  it’s is a Subaccount of our more comprehensive Reimbursement Income account.  Likewise, create a corresponding expense account that you want to associate with this other income.  You should have a general ledger income and expense account for each type of reimbursement income you want to track at the financial statement level.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 GL Edit Account Reimbursed

Create an Item with a Type of Other Charge for each reimbursable item type for which you’ll invoice your customers.  Check the box to indicate This item is used in assemblies or is a reimbursable charge.  Doing so will allow you to record both the Income Account and Expense Account for this Other Charge Item.  Otherwise, you’d only be able to enter an Income Account.  The Income Account should be set to the Income account you created to track for your revenue from this type of reimbursable expense; the Expense Account should be set to the corresponding expense account.  In this example, we’ll use the Freight Reimbursement item.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Edit Item Other Charge Reimbursable

That completes the preliminary steps to invoice a customer for reimbursable expenses.  Now, we need to record the vendor bill.  In order to track both the revenue and expense for reimbursable expenses, you need to enter vendor bills on the Items tab, as shown below.  Enter the standard vendor bill information, but keep in mind that the Memo or Description will not make their way to your customer invoice.  Instead, the description on the customer invoice will come from the definition of the Item, which in our example is Freight and Delivery Reimbursement.

Click the Items tab.  Enter the Other Charge Item you previously created for this type of expense, which in our example was Freight Reimbursement.  To associate this bill with a customer or job, update the Customer:Job field.  When you do, the Billable? column will be checked by default.  Click either Save & Close or Save & New to record this transaction and save your work.  In this example, we’ll record a $100 expense for overnight delivery and associate it with a specific customer, Balak.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Enter Bill Reimbursable Item

Click on the Customers->Invoice for Time & Expenses menu selection to display a list of all customers with unbilled reimbursable expenses.  This menu selection only appears if you correctly set the preference described earlier.  To produce an invoice for the reimbursable expenses for a customer, select that customer’s name and click the Create Invoice button.  If you want to selectively invoice for reimbursable expenses, click the Let me select specific billables for the Customer:Job checkbox before clicking the Create Invoice button.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Invoice for Time & Expenses 1

The Create Invoices window will appear with the reimbursable expenses you selected already filled in.  On that screen, click Save & Close or Save & New to record the invoice for those reimbursable expenses.  If you need to change what reimbursable expenses are being invoiced, you can click the Add Time/Costs… button to change which reimbursable expenses are included.

Another approach to billing for reimbursable expenses is to simply to start customer invoicing from the usual menu selection, Customers->Create Invoices, and enter the Customer:Job.  If that Customer:Job has outstanding billable time or costs, you’ll this window:

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Billable Time

If you make the Select the outstanding billable time and costs to add to this invoice? selection, you’ll see the Choose Billable Time and Costs window, where you can choose which costs you’d like to include on this invoice.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Choose Billable Expenses

Unfortunately, you’ll need to check each of the 4 tabs to see under which tab the expenses appear, because until you actually select an expense (as we’ve done in the screenshot above), QuickBooks displays zero dollar amounts.  The dollar amounts displayed are the selected dollar amounts – not the available amounts.

With this method, the description of the actual expense is not connected to the description that appears on a customer’s invoice.  For some businesses that want to control the information that appears on a customer’s invoice, this is the preferred method because it insures that a consistent expense description appears on every customer invoice.  However, this approach does not automatically calculate a markup.  The customer invoice will automatically be completed with the actual expense cost, not the actual cost plus a markup.  Adding a markup or changing the expense description would require manually changing the invoice line item after completing the steps described above.

Method 3 – Record the Revenue as an Offset to the Expense Account

Some firms that don’t markup reimbursable expenses opt for a simpler approach of sending both the debit from the vendor bill and the credit from the customer invoice to the same account.  This approach enables a firm to monitor the balance in that account to verify that all reimbursable expenses have been invoiced to a customer.  If the account has a debit balance, some customer invoices haven’t been recorded.  If you don’t match an Income account to the Expense account for which you invoice reimbursable expenses as described in the first method, you’ll end up with the result of this approach – except that your markup will be sent to a different General Ledger account.

Under this method, after setting the preference discussed above, record vendor bills normally from the Vendors->Enter Bills menu selection.  On the Enter Bills window, record required vendor bill information, but be sure to record a Memo for the transaction.  Like the first method, the Memo you record will become the description on your customer invoice.  On the Expenses tab, choose your general ledger account number for this expense.  To make this expense a reimbursable expense, associate it with a Customer:Job by updating that field.  After doing so, the Billable? field will be checked by default.  Click Save & Close or Save & New to record the transaction.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Enter Bill Reimbursable Expense

As discussed above, click on the Customers->Invoice for Time & Expenses menu selection to display a list of all customers with unbilled reimbursable expenses.  Choose the customer you are invoicing for reimbursable expenses, and click the Create Invoice button.  QuickBooks will display the Create Invoices screen for that customer, pre-filled with the Memo and amount recorded with the original vendor bill.

Under this method, the vendor bill recorded a debit to the expense account, and the customer invoice recorded an equal and offsetting credit.  This approach generally is not recommended if the amount you charge customers for reimbursable expenses is greater than what your vendor bills you.  If you do elect to use this method, it’s a good idea to have a separate expense account for non-reimbursable expenses of the same type.  This allows you to monitor the balance in a separate reimbursable expense account, which should reach a $0 balance when all vendor bills and customer invoices are recorded.

When accounting for reimbursable expenses, keep in mind that if you delete or void the customer invoice for reimbursable expenses, the reimbursable expense remains marked as having been billed.  To change that status, you’ll need to modify the Billable? field in on the vendor bill.

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What Is an Inventory Assembly Item?

Chief Mechanic · August 23, 2010 ·

In QuickBooks an inventory assembly item is a specific type of Item that is the result of putting together a new inventory part out of a bundle of individual items to enable tracking finished goods separately from individual components. Normally, an inventory assembly item is used when separate raw materials are assembled, packaged, and sold as an inventory item that is separate from the component parts.

See our article on all of the Item types supported by QuickBooks for more information.

The inventory assembly item type is only available in QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise Solutions.  It’s not available in QuickBooks Pro.

It is similar to – but different from – a group item, another approach to managing a bundle of individual items. A group item is a way to quickly add a bundle of items to a form while preserving the ability to track those items individually. Where an inventory assembly item functions like a pre-assembled kit, a group item functions like an “on the fly” kit.

An inventory assembly item is made up of a Bill of Materials (visible by clicking the Full View… button) which can contain a range of item types: service, inventory part, another inventory assembly, non-inventory part, and other charge. Note that a subassembly can be nested within an inventory assembly. However, the Bill of Materials cannot contain these item types: subtotal, group, discount, payment, sales tax item, or sales tax group.  Further, there’s a limit of 100 items in the Bill of Materials for an inventory assembly in QuickBooks Premier; for Enterprise Solutions, that limit is 500 items.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Bill of Materials Full View

The Cost shown for an inventory assembly item should normally not be entered. When a Cost is not entered, QuickBooks will use the Bill of Materials Cost that appears at the bottom of the table.

An inventory assembly is built from its components parts by clicking on the Vendors->Inventory Activities->Build Assemblies menu selection. During the build process, the Quantity on Hand of the inventory assembly item is increased by the Quantity to Build, and the Quantity on Hand of each component is reduced by the product of that item’s Qty in the Bill of Materials and the Quantity to Build.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Bill of Materials Full View

Builds in QuickBooks can be either pending or final. If there are insufficient quantities of the component parts, a build will automatically be marked as Pending. You can also manually mark a build as pending by clicking on the Edit->Mark Build As Pending menu selection while the Build Assemblies window is displayed. The Pending Builds report (Reports->Inventory->Pending Builds) supports managing future build requirements.

Here’s an example of invoicing for the inventory assembly item Interior Door kit shown above. Unlike a group item, which automatically adds other items to a form and controls whether these other items are printed, the inventory assembly item appears as a single line item on a form.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Create Invoices Inventory Assembly Item

The price of an inventory assembly item is specified, just like the price of an inventory item, and can be changed directly on a form.

Sales tax for an inventory assembly item is calculated based on the single Tax Code assigned to the inventory assembly.

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