FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS – Starting Out
Q. A Customer paid us too much but as they are a regular, would like us to put their account in credit but when I enter the payment the additional amount goes into the finance charge box. Is this O.K. or is there another way to process it?
A. No that’s not O.K. – it’s a nightmare to undo incorrect finance charges and it won’t actually put their account in credit. Avoid finance charges unless they ARE finance charges. Sorry about the tone but I have a thing about Finance Charges as you can tell!
When a Customer overpays you actually over type the amount in the amount applied column with the actual amount you received. Any field that turns blue can be over typed. When you record the transaction a pop up window will appear that will say “This payment will result in 1 credit memo. Use settle credits to apply the credit to an open receivable or to write a refund cheque”. Click O.K. When you generate another Invoice for your Customer you can apply this credit amount.
Q. My Bank Reconciliation doesn’t balance with my Bank Statement – what do I do?
A. Firstly – don’t panic. In the Bank Reconciliation window, print the reconciliation. Find a quiet corner where you won’t be interrupted and mark off transaction by transaction using your bank statement and matching to your bank reconciliation. You will probably find you have either transposed a transaction ie 1200.63 instead of 1200.36 or you have left off a transaction altogether. You could also have ticked a cleared transaction off in error but the bank statement will be correct so just take your time and locate the out of balance amount.
Q. I recorded a Purchase and entered the wrong amount – can I change this?
A. Yes you can providing you are on a Payment GST filing basis or if on an Invoice GST filing basis, are in your current GST accounting period. If you have already filed a return using the Invoice GST basis with the incorrect transaction, you will need to credit the transaction in the current period and also re-enter it in the current period.
Q. What is the difference between the Invoice Basis and Payments Basis when filing a GST return?
A. The Invoice Basis is where you claim or pay GST on Sales and Purchases made even if they have not been paid in your current GST period. The Payment Basis or alternatively known as the Cash Basis is where you claim and pay GST on payments made on payments received in the current GST period. For the Payments Basis the Bank Statements are an absolute record of all these transactions.
Q. I want to enter a new Account Code but don’t understand what is different about a Header Account and a Detail Account – I suppose I need to put it in the right place – what do I need to know?
A. Yes you do need to know the difference between the two. A Header account is the total of all the Detail accounts that fall beneath it. For example, you may have a Header account called Income that has Detail accounts breaking down how that income was made. The Income Detail codes could be made up of Product Sales, Service Sales, Miscellaneous Sales, etc, which are all Income related accounts but are recorded as individual Sale Account codes to give a total to the combined Header account total.
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