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How to Track Commissions Using Quickbooks

In the retail industry, it’s not uncommon for sales reps to earn commissions. Most sales reps are still paid wages or salary, but they’ll earn a bonus based on the number of sales they generate. Known as commissions, they are designed to motivate sales reps. If your business’s employees earn commissions, though, you’ll need to track them. Fortunately, Quickbooks offers a simple and easy way to track commissions.

The Basics of Tracking Commissions in Quickbooks

Quickbooks Online doesn’t offer a specific feature for tracking commissions. Instead, it offers class tracking and location tracking. You can use either of these options to track commissions. Class tracking and location tracking are included as a native feature in Quickbooks Online. With either of these options, you’ll be able to track the commissions earned by your business’s employees.

How to Enable Class or Location Tracking

You can enable class tracking or location tracking in Quickbooks Online by clicking the gear icon and choosing “Account and Settings.” From the left-hand menu, select “Advanced.” You should now see a window containing various account settings. Look for “Categories,” and click the small pencil-shaped icon next to it. Quickbooks will then expand the “Categories” section so that it contains an option for “Track classes” and an option for “Track locations.” Click the box next to either one of these options to enable class or location tracking.

Using Class or Tracking to Track Commissions

With class tracking or location tracking enabled, you can now track commissions. This is done by adding your sales reps to a list. If you use class tracking, you’ll need to add them to a class list. If you use location tracking, on the other hand, you’ll need to add your sales reps to a location list. Class tracking and location tracking both use lists. When you include a sales reps on a class or location list, you’ll be able to track the commissions he or she earns.

Quickbooks will automatically categorize your sales reps on the list to which you add them. Location tracking is typically used for tracking specific locations. With that said, you can use it to track almost any element or segment of your business’s operations, including commissions. Just add the sales rep to a list, after which you pay the sales rep the commission. You can then run a report to view all of the commissions earned by the sales rep.

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How to Manually Add Transactions to Quickbooks

Recording transactions is essential when running a business. You’ll need to record all of your business’s income and expense transactions so that you can calculate its profits. Only then will you know how much money your business has made, and the taxes your business needs to pay. In Quickbooks Online, you can manually add transactions in just a few simple steps. Below is a brief guide on how to manually add transactions using Intuit’s cloud-based accounting software.

Pull Up Your Account Register

Start by pulling up your account register in Quickbooks Online. To do this, click the “Accounting” menu on the home screen and select “Chart of Accounts.” After locating your preferred account register, click the “View register” link under the “Actions” column.

Add the Transaction

With your account register pulled up, you can now add the transaction. You should see several fields and menus on the transaction page. Clicking the “Date” field will allow you to specify a date for the transaction. Clicking the “Add check” field will allow you to choose the type of transaction. If it’s a check, for instance, you can choose “Check.” Quickbooks Online offers several other types of transactions, including deposit, sales receipt, receive payment, bill payment, refund, expense, transfer and journal entry. Regardless, you’ll need to click “Add check” and then select the appropriate type of transaction. After adding the transactions, save the changes and exit the screen.

How to Edit Transactions

You can also edit transactions that you’ve already added. If a transaction is wrong, you can fix it by changing it. Start by going to your Chart of Accounts and choosing the register containing the transaction. Next, click “View register” in the “Actions” column. To find the transaction, click the “Filter” icon and specify your desired filter or filters. Filters are optional. Considering that many businesses have hundreds or thousands of transactions, though, you may need to use them to find a specific transaction.

Once you’ve found the transaction that you want to edit in your register, click it so that the transaction is expanded in your Quickbooks Online account. You should then see fields and menus with information about the transaction. Just make the necessary changes to the transaction by selecting the fields or menus, after which you can click “Save and close” to complete the process.

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Write-Off vs Write-Down in Accounting: What’s the Difference?

The terms “write-off” and “write-down” are often interchangeably to describe the devaluation of an asset. Regardless of what type of business you own, chances are it has assets. Nearly all businesses have at least some assets. Assets are things of monetary value, such as cash, equipment, materials, real property and even patents or other forms of intellectual property.

While both write-offs and write-downs do, in fact, involve lowering the value of an asset, they aren’t necessarily the same. Write-offs and write-downs are intended for different purposes. When recording

What Is a Write-Off?

A write-off is the complete devaluation of an asset. When you write-off an asset, you are claiming that it no longer holds any value to your business. If a piece of equipment is broken or obsolete, for instance, you may want to declare it as a write-off. You can write-off the asset by lowering its value to $0 in your business’s books.

You can also claim write-offs such as this as a tax deduction. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) allows businesses, as well as freelancers, to deduct the cost of write-offs from their taxes.

What Is a Write-Down?

A write-down, on the other hand, is the partial devaluation of an asset. Assets can depreciate in value. In some cases, they may lose all of their original value in a short period. In other cases, devaluation occurs more slowly. A write-down is an accounting process in which you record an asset’s value as being lowering than its original value. The asset still has some value, but it’s less than the original value from when you initially purchased or acquired the asset.

Differences Between Write-Offs and Write-Downs

The main difference between write-offs and write-downs is that the former is the complete devaluation of an asset, whereas the latter is the partial devaluation of an asset. With a write-off, you are claiming that one of your business’s assets is essentially worthless. With a write-down, you are claiming that an asset has lost some but not all of its original value.

There are also nuances regarding the tax implications of write-offs and write-downs. Write-offs offer the greatest tax benefits. When you write-off an asset, you’ll lower your business’s tax liabilities for the year in which you claim it. Write-downs can lower your business’s tax liabilities as well, but they don’t have the same positive impact because they still recognize the asset as having some value.

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How to Record a Reimbursement in Quickbooks

Do your business’s employees use their own money to purchase products or services related to their respective job? If so, you’ll need to reimburse them. Employers in the United States are required to either purchase these essential products and services on behalf of their employees, or they may reimburse their employees for the cost of these products and services. When taking the latter route, of course, you’ll have to record the reimbursements. In Quickbooks, you can record a reimbursement to an employee in a few easy steps.

Create a Journal Entry

Quickbooks offers journal entries as a way to record reimbursements. You can create a new journal entry in Quickbooks Online by selecting the “Create +” button on the home screen, followed by “Journal Entry.”

When setting up the new journal entry, you’ll need to choose a liability account as well as the dollar amount of the reimbursement. You’ll also need to select the employee for whom you are recording the reimbursement under the “Name” drop-down menu. For the “Account” menu, choose an expense account. For the “Debits” field, enter the dollar amount of the reimbursement. After completing these steps, click “Save and close” to finish setting up the new journal entry.

Pay the Employee

Upon creating a new journal entry, the reimbursement should be recorded in your Quickbooks account. However, you’ll still need to pay the employee. After all, that’s the entire purpose of a reimbursement.

To pay the employee for whom you recorded the reimbursement, click the “+ New” button on the home screen and select “Expense.” From the “Payee” drop-down menu, find and select the employee’s name. Next, click the “Category” drop-down menu and choose the option for a liability account. If you don’t already have a liability account, you’ll need to create one.

You’ll also need to specify a few other pieces of information to pay the employee, including the dollar amount of the reimbursement. After completing the required fields, select “Save and close.” Keep in mind that Quickbooks Online Payroll offers a special type of account for reimbursement payments. Known as a reimbursement account, it will keep all of your reimbursement payments grouped together so that you can easily access and analyze them. Even without Payroll, though, you can still record reimbursements, and you can still pay employees for those reimbursements.

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Classes vs Subclasses in Quickbooks: What’s the Difference?

Quickbooks Desktop makes it easy to categorize your business’s accounting data. You can separate transactions from customers from vendors, for example. You probably don’t want all of these transactions grouped together. By separating them, you can compare your business’s sales revenue to its inventory expenses. But that’s not the only categorization method available in Quickbooks Desktop. Intuit’s popular accounting software offers other ways to categorize your business’s accounting data, including classes and subclasses.

What Is a Class?

A class is simply a customizable tag that’s used to categorize accounting data in Quickbooks Desktop. They aren’t required. Rather, Quickbooks Desktop gives you the option of using classes.

If you want to categorize your business’s accounting data using a custom method, classes are the answer. You can set up classes for your business’s different locations, vendors, promotions, local vs online store and pretty much anything else. When viewing your business’s accounting data in Quickbooks Desktop, you can select one of these classes.

What Is a Subclass?

A subclass is essentially a child-level class. It works like a standard class by categorizing and tracking accounting data. You can create a subclass to categorize data using a custom method. The difference is that subclasses go under a standard class.

All subclasses must be assigned to a standard class. They are known as “subclasses” because they go under a standard class. With subclasses, you can categorize data within a standard class. If your business has three locations, and there are three departments within each of these locations, you can create subclasses for the three departments. The subclasses will simply go under the location-based classes.

How to Use Classes and Subclasses

To use classes and subclasses, you’ll need to enable class tracking in Quickbooks Desktop. Open your business’s company file and choose “Preferences” from the “Edit” menu. Under “Accounting,” click “Company Preferences.” You should then see an option for “Use class tracking for transactions.” Assuming it’s currently unticked, click the box to enable class tracking. When finished, click “OK” to save the changes.

Once enabled, you’ll be able to assign classes and subclasses to your business’s recorded transactions. From invoices and sales receipts to checks, bills, purchase orders and more, most transactions support the use of classes and subclasses. Keep in mind, though, that all subclasses must be assigned to a standard class.

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What Is Net Operating Income?

When researching accounting terms related involving real estate businesses, you may come across net operating income. Not to be confused with net income, it’s used extensively by property developers and investors to determine the profitability of a piece of property. Real estate isn’t cheap. Before buying a piece of property for the purpose of generating revenue, developers and investors will often evaluate its net operating income. What is net operating income exactly?

Overview of Net Operating Income

In real estate, net operating income refers to the profitability of a piece of real property. It takes into account the property’s gross operating income and operating expenses.

Buying a piece of property typically comes with expenses. Developers and investors will foot the bill for the expenses, which can eat into their profits. To determine whether a piece of property is worth buying, they’ll calculate its net operating income. Developers and investors will estimate the property’s gross operating income and its operating expenses. Using this data, they’ll identify its net operating income.

How to Calculate Net Operating Income

You can calculate the net operating income for a piece of property by subtracting its gross operating income by its operating expenses. Gross operating income, of course, is the income the property is expected to generate. Operating expenses, on the other hand, include all non-tax costs associated with buying, maintaining and selling or utilizing the property as a commercial investment.

Why Net Operating Income Is Important

Net operating income is important for real estate businesses because it provides insight into whether or not a piece of property is a smart investment. Real estate businesses buy properties to make money. If a piece of property’s expenses outweighs its gross operating income, developers and investors should avoid it. They won’t make money when expenses exceed gross operating income.

Fortunately, net operating income is a calculation that reveals whether a piece of property is worth investing in. It looks at the property’s gross operating income and its operating expenses. Using this simple formula, developers and investors can determine the property’s profitability. They generally want properties with a high net operating income. A high operating income is a sign of profitability in which the underlying property has high gross operating income and low operating expenses.

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What Is the ‘Master Admin’ User in Quickbooks?

If you use Quickbooks Online, you may come across a user type known as the master admin. All Quickbooks Online accounts have a master admin. The master admin is at the top of the account type totem pole. To learn more about the Master Admin, including how to change it, keep reading.

Overview of the Master Admin

The master admin is the user with the highest level of permissions and privileges in Quickbooks Online. Intuit’s cloud-based accounting software supports several types of users, including accounting firms and standard users. The master admin is above all of these users. He or she can access every feature in Quickbooks Online, including all of the respective business’s accounting data.

Quickbooks Online restricts businesses to having a single master admin. You can’t create two or more master admins. Rather, you can only create a single master admin. When you subscribe to Quickbooks Online, you’ll create a master admin. While you change the master admin — meaning you transfer the account to someone else — you can’t add new master admins to Quickbooks Online.

How to Change the Master Admin

Most businesses won’t need to change their master admin. Business owners who subscribe to Quickbooks Online will typically retain their master admin accounts. Nonetheless, there are instances in which a business may want to change its master admin. If your business appoints a new executive leader, for instance, you may want to give him or her access to the master admin. You can change the master admin in just a few easy steps.

Start by signing in to Quickbooks Online as the master admin. From the “Settings” menu, click “Manage users,” followed by “Add user.” You can then select “Company admin” and “Next.” In the next field, enter some basic information about the user, including his or her email address, after which you can click “Save.” Quickbooks will then send the user an email with a link. Upon receiving this email and clicking the link, the user will become the new master admin.

If the user whom you want to make the master admin is already added to your Quickbooks account, go back to “Manage users” and find the user in the “User Type” column. After finding the user, click the drop-down arrow for “Action” and change his or her user type to “master admin.”

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5 Features of Quickbooks Advanced Inventory You Need to Know

Depending on which version of Quickbooks you use, you may notice an option to subscribe to Advanced Inventory. It’s available in Quickbooks Desktop Enterprise. While optional, Advanced Inventory can prove useful for many businesses. It’s designed to extend Quickbooks’s inventory tracking features. If your business sells a lot of products, you may want to use it. Below are five of the top features of Advanced Inventory.

#1) Track By Location

Advanced Inventory allows you to track product sales by location. Not all businesses operate at a single location. Many businesses have multiple stores or workplaces spread across an equally large number of locations. If your business falls under this category, you may want to use Advanced Inventory. With this optional Quickbooks feature, you can track product sales by location.

#2) FIFO Accounting

Advanced Inventory also offers First In, First Out (FIFO) accounting. It’s an inventory costing method that’s used in the calculation of cost of goods sold. It works on the assumption that your business’s oldest products are sold before its newest products. You will then use these costs in the calculation of your business’s cost of goods sold. Advanced Inventory will bring FIFO accounting to your business’s Quickbooks.

#3) Track By Lot

In addition to location, Advanced Inventory allows you to track products by lot. If you work with six different suppliers, for example, you can track their respective products as they enter your business’s supply line. Each vendor will essentially be assigned a unique lot number. In Quickbooks, you can see which vendor’s products are selling the best at your business and which vendor’s products are selling the worst. Advanced Inventory offers several new tracking methods, two of the most notable being location and lot.

#4) Automatically Track Associated Expenses

By using Advanced Inventory, you’ll have a better understanding of how much your business pays in non-direct expenses associated with its operations. Advanced Inventory provides insight into the cost of insurance, shipping and other associated expenses. It will automatically track these associated expenses so that you don’t inadvertently overpay for them.

#5) Bar Code Scanning

Finally, Advanced Inventory offers bar code scanning. After enabling Advanced Inventory, you can use a compatible barcode scanner to automatically add or remove products from your business’s inventory. When you buy a product for the purpose of reselling it, you can add it to your business’s inventory. When you sell a product, on the other hand, you can remove it from your business’s inventory.

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How to Record a Business Loan in Quickbooks

Are you in the process of obtaining a business loan? Many entrepreneurs use loans to finance their businesses. Whether secured or unsecured, though, a loan is a financial liability that, like all liabilities, must be paid back. As a result, you’ll need to record it. Quickbooks makes it easy to record business loans. In just a few simple steps, you can set up a business loan in Quickbooks.

Create a Liability Account

To record a business loan in Quickbooks, you’ll need to create a liability account. You can create new liability accounts in Quickbooks Online by accessing the “Chart of Accountings” menu under “Settings.” Upon accessing the “Chart of Accounts,” click the drop-down menu for “Account Type” and select either “Long Term Liabilities” or “Other Current Liabilities. If it’s a long-term loan with a repayment period that’s greater than one year, choose the former option. If it’s a short-term loan with a shorter repayment period, choose the latter option.

You’ll also need to choose the “Detail Type” for the business loan. Under the “Detail Type” menu, select “Notes Payable,” followed by entering a name for the loan. Quickbooks allows you to enter a name for new loans, as well as other liabilities accounts, but it’s recommended that you use something descriptive. Choose a descriptive name that corresponds with the type of loan. Doing so will make it easier to identify and distinguish from other loans and liability accounts.

Create a Journal Entry

After creating a liability account for the business loan, you’ll need to create a journal entry. What’s the purpose of a journal entry? It will update your Quickbooks account with the new money. A loan is money. When you receive a loan, you’ll have to deposit it in one of your business’s bank accounts, which requires the use of a journal entry.

To create a journal entry, click the “+ New” link on the home screen and choose “Journal entry.” You can then select your recently created liability account from the “Account” menu. For the “Credits” field, enter the amount of the loan. For the “Account” menu, select the bank account into which you deposited the loan. You should also enter the loan amount in the “Debits” field. Click “Save and close” to finish setting up the journal entry. Your business loan should now be recorded in Quickbooks.

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Intuit Releases HubSpot for Quickbooks

Quickbooks just received a major upgrade. In November 2020, Intuit announced that its popular and long-running accounting software would now support HubSpot. Business owners who use HubSpot can take advantage of this integration by automatically transferring all their data to their Quickbooks account. How does HubSpot for Quickbooks work exactly?

The Basics of HubSpot

To better understand how HubSpot for Quickbooks works, you must familiarize yourself with the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. HubSpot is a type of CRM software that allows businesses to manage their customers’ data in a centralized interface. Research shows that over 30,000 businesses currently use HubSpot. Based on these numbers, it ranks as one of the most popular types of CRM software.

HubSpot offers many processes associated with managing relationships with customers. Business owners can use it to track customers during each stage of their sales cycle, capture leads, set up marketing sequences, track sales and more.

Overview of HubSpot for Quickbooks

While HubSpot is still available as a standalone product, it’s now supported by Quickbooks as well. According to Intuit, business owners who use Quickbooks Online — the cloud version of Intuit’s accounting software — can now integrate it with HubSpot.

HubSpot for Quickbooks is designed to tackle two common challenges encountered by business owners: managing customers and recording financial information. “By teaming up with HubSpot, we are helping small businesses digitally transform and address their top two pain points — getting paid and managing customers,” said Intuit Chief Sales Officer Bobby Morrison. “The combination of our product portfolios will create tremendous value for small businesses around the world. This is the first step in a multi-pronged relationship that will only grow over time.

With HubSpot for Quickbooks, business owners will no longer have to manually transfer data from HubSpot to Quickbooks. Once integrated, HubSpot will automatically send data to the business  owner’s Quickbooks account.

HubSpot for Quickbooks won’t just streamline many accounting processes for business owners; it will protect against errors. Manually transferring creates an inherent risk for errors. If the wrong data is transferred, it could throw off the business owner’s financial records. With HubSpot for Quickbooks, there’s little or no risk of errors. All data is transferred automatically. Best of all, perhaps, there’s no additional charge to use HubSpot for Quickbooks. If you currently use Quickbooks Online and HubSpot, you can integrate them to take advantage of these benefits.

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