Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Making JE's Accrual Instead of Cash

Are JE’s Cash or Accrual in QB?

(QuickBooks Tip of the Day)

They’re cash of course. But let’s say you’re creating journal entries to accrue payroll, but the client also likes to see a cash report as well as accrual. Your journal entry is going to show up on the cash report, which isn’t what we want to see, is it? It’s an accrual, after all, and we want it to show only for accrual reports. But there’s a workaround for this pesky little situation.

Let it be known -- I can’t take credit for this one. A friend of mine discovered this, and it’s such an amazing solution I had to steal it and share it. It took her several days of working with QB support for them to figure it out as well. I did warn her I would be doing so, which makes my theft okay. Besides, it’s for the public good.
Here’s the key: “Whether a JE appears on a cash report is driven by the AP/AR accounts.”

So . . . if there is no AP or AR in your JE, do this: enter the first line with AP or AR with a zero amount.
And that’s it. The account doesn’t have to be for anything at all, just listed as the first account on the JE, and that will solve the problem for the reports.

It’s a simple solution to a common problem that I, for one, never would have thought of. Like most QB issues, there is a solution, if only we can find out what it is.