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Using unique invoice numbers is essential to keeping your books in order. If two invoices share the same number, conventional wisdom should tell you that your clients’ respective transactions won’t record properly. Instead of having both transactions listed in your books, you’ll only have one transaction. Of course, this opens the doors to countless other problems, some of which include unreported revenue, outstanding invoice payments and more.

As you may already know, you can easily create invoices using Intuit’s Quickbooks accounting software by logging in to your account, accessing the Invoicing area and clicking “Send invoice.” From here, you can choose the customer whom you want to invoice, their payment terms (e.g. NET 30), and the product or service you sold. You can also choose to either email or mail the invoice. For the former, however, you’ll need to enter the customer’s email address in the form.

Quickbooks also allows you to preview the invoice before sending by clicking the “Print or Preview” button. Furthermore, you can customize the way your invoice looks by clicking the “Customize” tab, followed by “Edit current.” Here, you can select your own custom logo and other designs. While completely optional, customizations such as this are recommended, especially for business owners who use invoices on a regular basis. When you are completely satisfied with your invoice, click “Save and send” to send the customer to the respective customer.

Now that you know a little bit about creating an invoice in Quickbooks, you might be wondering how to prevent duplicate invoice numbers. Assuming you use Quickbooks, you shouldn’t have to worry about duplicate invoices being created automatically. The software automatically creates unique numbers every time a new invoice is created. With that said, there are certain occasions in which duplicate invoice numbers may arise, in which case your best option is to use custom transaction numbers.

Quickbooks will warn you about duplicate bill numbers. It will not warn you, however, about duplicate invoice numbers. To turn on custom invoice numbers, log in to your account and click the Gear icon, followed by Settings > Company Settings > Sales > Customer transactions numbers > Done. Once this feature is enabled, you’ll see an invoice number window on the right of newly created invoice, which you can use to create custom numbers for your invoices.

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In Quickbooks, an assembly item is a line item used when creating a purchase or sales form. They are used to combine inventory parts and sub-assemblies together. When you create an assembly item in Quickbooks, the inventory parts and sub-assemblies (assembly items) in your Bill of Materials are subtracted from your inventory, which in turn increases the total quantity of the respective assembly item. To learn more about Quickbooks assembly items and how to use them, keep reading.

There are two primary steps required to create an assembly item in Quickbooks. First, you’ll need to tell the Bill of Materials what components are needed to make the item, after which you can build a quantity of the item so that Quickbooks can subtract the parts from the inventory and then add the new quantities of the respective item. When you build an assembly item, the inventory parts are erased as separate parts in your inventory. This is because they are converted to a new item known as an inventory assembly.

Once you’ve defined your assembly items, you’ll notice the items added to your inventory as a “build.” Basically, assembly builds are used to ensure that inventory quantities are correct. Building an assembly item automatically subtracts the inventory parts and sub-assemblies from the Bill of Materials, and as we mentioned earlier, this automatically increases the quantity of the respective assembly item.

So, when should you use assembly items in Quickbooks? According to Intuit, there are several benefits associated with assembly items. Retailers, for instance, can use them to track finished products separately from individual items in their inventory. Building an assembly automatically adds an assembled item to your inventory quantity while also subtracting the component parts and assembly items in the process.  Therefore, it allows you to see exactly how many assembled and component items you have in inventory.

Assembly items can also be used to customize the price of assembled items. If you want to specify a price for an assembly that’s higher or lower that the total cost of its component items, you can do so by creating an assembly item.

Furthermore, assembly items allow you to see detailed information about your finished products and goods, including the date on which the items were assembled, the quantity of assembled items, the cost of assembled items and a list of all component items.

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Want to run Quickbooks on multiple computers in your office? Well, you’ll need to sync them with each other first.  Doing so allows business owners and accounts to collaborate on the same company file. If the computers are synced, changes made to one computer’s Quickbooks won’t affect the other. So, for a step-by-step walkthrough on how to sync Quickbooks between two computers, keep reading.

Before we begin, it’s important to note that you need a single Quickbooks company file. If you have two or more company files, you’ll need to merge them together before proceeding. This is done by using the Data Transfer Utility tool, which you can download for free from the Intuit Marketplace. Install the tool on the computer you wish to host your Quickbooks company file. This will be your primary computer that serves as the host for other computers.

When you are ready to sync your two computers together, copy the Quickbooks installers file on both computers. This should bring up a dialog box asking you to confirm installation and agree to the terms and conditions of the license. Click “Yes” to all prompts and proceed with the installation. You’ll then then need to choose “Use Quickbooks on this computer,” after which you can select the option to “Store Company file for Network Sharing.” Next, enter your Quickbooks product license number on the primary computer on which you are installing the software, followed by “Install.” The installer will begin to run, after which you should click “Utilities” and “Host Multi-User Access.”

Next, go to the “Scan Folders” menu and select “Add Folder” followed by “Scan” to begin to scanning the primary computer on which you are hosting the Quickbooks company file. Once the installer has verified your company file, click “Close.”

You aren’t out of the woods just yes. You’ll need to access the “Company” menu and select “Set Up Users and Passwords” for this computer. Go ahead and add a user with  password, and then set up access for the second computer.

On your second computer, select “File,” followed by “Open or Restore Company” and “Open a Company in Quickbooks.” You can then browse to the location of your company file, select it, and log in using the username and password that just recently created in the previous step. Congratulations, you’ve just synced Quickbooks between two computers!

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Quickbooks supports several different methods for paying bills, including Write Checks and Pay Bills. Only the latter, however, will the place the bill in closed status. If you attempt to bill a bill using the Write Checks feature, it will remain open. As further explained by Intuit, if you use Write Checks and Enter Bills together, the respective check will not be linked to the bill; thus, the bill remains open. This is why it’s a good idea to get into the habi of using the Pay Bills feature, which will avoid conflicts such as this.

So, how do you fix a bill that’s in open/unpaid status because of the Write Checks feature? There are a few solutions, one of which is to remove the bill and create or leave the Write Check entry. However, you should only use this option if you don’t need all of the information associated with the payment in your Accounts Payable report.

A second solution is to link the check to a bill. Assuming the check has been reconciled, you won’t be able to delete it without throwing off your books. You can, however, link the check to the bill. This is done by logging in to your Quickbooks account and changing the Expense account to Accounts Payable. When you reach the written check, simply change the Expense account to Accounts Payable. Next, on the Customer: Job menu, select the vendor’s name. Without entering a name, Quickbooks will reveal an error. After after entering a name for the vendor, click “Save & Close.”

You’ll then need to pay the bill. This is done by accessing the “Vendors” menu, followed by “Pay Bills.” From here, choose the bill or bills associated with the check. Next, click “Set Credits” and check the box labeled “credit.” You can then adjust the total amount of the credits as needed. When you are finished, click “Done,” followed by “Pay Selected Bills.” Assuming you followed these steps correctly, the bill will appear as paid status instead of open/unpaid.

The bottom line is that you need to fix any paid bills that appear as open/unpaid. Failure to do so will throw off your books. Thankfully, Quickbooks simplifies this process by offering several solutions. Refer to the options listed here to ensure that paid bills show as paid in your Quickbooks account.

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In accounting, an opening balance is the amount of money in an account, either when it was initially created or at the beginning of the fiscal year. Regardless of the type of account, it’s important to record the correct opening balance; otherwise, your entire books will be thrown off. Thankfully, Quickbooks simplifies the process of recording opening balances, which we’re going to explore in this blog post.

Before we begin, it’s important to note that you should not enter an opening balances on accounts that did not have a balance before the date specified on your “Quickbooks start date.” If the account had a balance after the date listed here, however, you should record that balance.

There are several ways to record an opening balance in Quickbooks, one of which is by clicking F1. Alternatively, you can select “Should I enter an opening balance” when setting up either an account, customer, or vendor in Quickbooks. This will bring up a new window that walks you through the process of recording an opening balance. This is arguably the easiest way to record opening balances, as you simply need to complete the fields and proceed with the steps listed on screen.

Furthermore, you can record an opening balance when using a general journal entry created from the Balance Sheet for the previous year. However, there are a few things you should know when recording opening balances from a general journal entry.

According to Intuit, business owners and accountants should consider using an Opening Balance Equity when recording opening balances from a general journal entry. The Opening Balance Equity works to offset the account; thus, ensuring the journal entries are balanced.

If you are recording balances for the start of the fiscal year, you may want to consider entering a balance for the previous year’s retained earnings instead of recording every account for income, expense and cost of goods sold (COGS).

Keep in mind that you can only record one accounts receivable or accounts payable transaction for every general journal entry. As such, you’ll have to create multiple journal entries to have the balances for your accounts. Also, be sure to specify a vendor or customer name in the “Name” field of your general journal entries to accounts payable, receivable and sales tax payable.

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