Filling in fields goes much faster when you can choose info from drop-down lists instead of typing values. The lists that appear on the Customer & Vendor Profile Lists submenu (choose Lists➝Customer & Vendor Profile Lists to see it) pop up regularly, whether you’re creating an invoice, paying a bill, or generating a report. For example, when you create an invoice, QuickBooks fills in the Payment Terms field with the terms you assigned to the customer’s record, but you can
choose different terms from the drop-down list to urge your customer to pay more quickly.
For many of these lists,
creating entries requires no more than typing the entry’s name and specifying
whether that entry is a subentry of another. This section describes how to add
to entries to each list and how to put these lists to work for you. •‰â•‰Customer and Vendor
Profile Lists
Sales Rep List
If you pay sales reps on
commission or want to assign employees as points of contact for your customers,
you can assign people as sales reps to your customers and then generate reports
by sales rep . But first you have to add the names of your sales reps and
contacts to the Sales Rep List.
To add a name to the Sales
Rep List: 1. Choose Lists➝Customer & Vendor Profile Lists➝Sales Rep List. In the Sales Rep List window that opens, press
Ctrl+N or click Sales Rep➝New. The New Sales Rep List
dialog box opens.
2. In the Sales Rep Name
drop-down list, choose a name; in the Sales Rep Initials box, type the person’s
initials. When you create a sales rep
entry, you can choose names from the Employee List, the Vendor List, and the
Other Names List. If the name you want doesn’t exist, choose <Add New> at the top of the drop-down
list. QuickBooks automatically fills in the Sales Rep Type field with Employee,
Vendor, or Other Name, depending on which list the name came from (or, if you just
added the name, the type you assigned when you added that person).
3. Click Next to add
another sales rep, or click OK to close the New Sales Rep dialog box. If you select a name and realize that it’s misspelled, you can
edit the name from the New Sales Rep dialog box. Click Edit Name, and
QuickBooks opens the Edit Employee, Edit Vendor, or Edit Name dialog box so you
can change the name. Customer Type List Customer types help you analyze your income and expenses by
customer category. For example, a healthcare provider might create Govt and
Private customer types to see how much a change in government reimbursement
might hurt revenue.
You first create customer
types in the Customer Type List and then assign one of those types in each
customer’s record. Creating all your customer types up front is fast—as long as
you already know what your entries you want to create:
1. Choose Lists➝Customer & Vendor Profile Lists➝Customer Type List. In the Customer Type List dialog box that
opens, press Ctrl+N. The New Customer Type
dialog box (Figure 6-4) opens.
2. Create the customer
type. Enter a name in the Customer Type field and
indicate whether the customer type is a subtype of another.
3. After you create one
type, click Next to create another or click OK if you’re done.
You can also create entries
as you work: If you’re creating or modifying a customer in the New Customer or
Edit Customer dialog box, click the Additional Info tab. In the Type drop-down
list, choose <Add New>, which opens the New Customer Type dialog box. Then, you can
create a new customer type, as shown in Figure 6-4.
Figure 6-4:╇ In the New Customer
Type dialog box, the only thing you have to provide is a name in the Customer
Type field. If this type represents a portion of a larger customer category,
turn on the “Subtype of” checkbox and choose the parent type. For example, if
you have a Utilities customer type, you might create subtypes like Water
Utility, Electric Utility, Gas Utility, and so on.
Vendor Type List
Vendor types work similarly
to customer types—you can filter reports or subtotal your expenses by different
types of vendors. For example, if you create a Communications vendor type, you
could generate a report showing the expenses you’ve paid to your telephone,
Internet, and satellite communications providers. You create Vendor Type
entries the way you create Customer Type entries. Choose Lists➝Customer & Vendor Profile Lists➝Vendor Type List, and then press Ctrl+N to open the New Vendor
Type dialog box.
Tip: To create a new vendor type while you’re
creating a vendor, in the New Vendor dialog box, click the Additional Info tab;
in the Type drop-down list, choose <Add New> to open the New Vendor Type dialog
box.
Job Type List
Job types also follow the
customer-type lead. For instance, you can filter a Profit & Loss report to
show how profitable your spec house projects are compared to your remodeling
contracts. You create Job Type entries the way you create Customer Type entries.
Open the Job Type List window by choosing Lists➝Customer & Vendor Profile Lists➝Job Type List.
Terms List
The Terms List (Lists➝Customer & Vendor Profile Lists➝Terms List) includes both the payment terms you require of your
customers and the payment terms your vendors ask of you. If you assign terms in
a customer’s record, then QuickBooks automatically fills in the Terms box on
the invoices you create for that customer. Likewise, filling in terms in a
vendor record means that QuickBooks fills in the Terms box on bills you create.
The fields that you fill in
to create terms (Figure 6-5) are different from those in other Customer &
Vendor Profile lists. To add a new term, open the Terms List window, and then
press Ctrl+N. ╉╉Customer and Vendor
Profile Lists
Figure 6-5:╇ Because payment terms apply to both
vendors and customers, consider using generic names that say something about
the payment terms themselves. For example, the “10% 5 Net 30” entry is an
enticement for early payments because it means that the amount is due 30 days
from the invoice date, but you can deduct 10 percent from your bill if you pay
within 5 days.
Setting up terms using elapsed time
The New Terms dialog box’s
Standard option is ideal when the due date is a specific number of days after
the invoice date (or the date you receive a bill, if you’re the customer). If
you send invoices whenever you complete a sale, choose the Standard option so
that payment is due within a number of days of the invoice date. Here’s what
the Standard option fields do:
• Net due in _ days. Type the maximum number
of days after the invoice date that you or a customer can pay. For example, if
you type 30, customers have up to 30
days to pay an invoice or you have up to 30 days to pay a bill. If you charge penalties
for late payments, QuickBooks can figure out when customer payments are late, so
you can assess finance charge.
• Discount percentage is. If you or your vendor
offer a discount for early payments, type the discount percentage in this box.
• Discount if paid within _ days.
Type the number of days after the invoice date within which you or a customer
has to pay to receive the early payment discount.
Note: When terms reduce a customer’s bill for
early payments, QuickBooks deducts these discounts in the Receive Payments
window, which is how the program can tell if the customer paid early. If a
vendor offers discounts for early payments, you can take advantage of those in
the Pay Bills window .
Setting up date-driven terms
The Date Driven option sets
up terms for payments that are due on a specific date, regardless of the date
on the invoice. This option is handy if you send invoices on a schedule—say, on
the last day of the month. For example, home mortgages often assess a late fee
if payments arrive after the 15th of the month. chapter 6: setting up other quickbooks lists 145 ╉╉Customer and Vendor
Profile Lists
Here’s what the New Terms
dialog box’s Date Driven option fields do:
• Net due before the _th day of
the month. Type the day that the
payment is due. For example, if a payment is due before the 15th of the month,
no matter what date appears on your statement, type 15 in the box.
• Due the next month if issued within _ days of due date. Your customers might get annoyed if you require payment by the
15th of the month and send out your invoices on the 14th. They would have no
way of paying on time, unless they camped out in your billing department.
You can type a number of
days in this box to automatically push the due date to the following month when
you issue invoices too close to the due date. Suppose payments are due on the
15th of each month and you type 5 in this box. For invoices you create between August 10th and
August 15th, QuickBooks automatically changes the due date to September 15th.
• Discount percentage is. If you extend a discount for early payments, type the discount
percentage in this box.
• Discount if paid before the _th day of the month. Type the day of the month before which a customer has to pay to
receive the early payment discount.
Customer Message List
When you create an invoice,
you can add a short message to it, such as “If you like the service we deliver,
tell your friends. If you don’t like our service, tell us.” To save time and
prevent embarrassing typos, add your stock messages to the Customer Message
List (Lists➝Customer & Vendor
Profile Lists➝Customer Message List).
The New Customer Message
dialog box (which you open by pressing Ctrl+N while the Customer Message List
window is open) has only one field—the Message field— which can hold up to 101
characters (including spaces). Don’t use the Customer Message List for notes
that change with every invoice (like one that specifies the date range that an
invoice covers) because you’ll fill the list with unique messages and won’t be
able to add any more. If you want to include unique information, do so in the
cover letter (or email) that accompanies your invoice.
Payment Method List
Categorizing payments by
the method the customer uses can be handy. For instance, when you select
Banking➝Make Deposits, you can
choose to process all the payments you’ve received via a specific payment
method: You can deposit all the checks and cash you received into your checking
account, say, but deposit the payments you receive via credit cards to a
dedicated merchant account.
You categorize payments
using the entries on the Payment Method List. QuickBooks starts the list for
you with entries for cash, check, and credit cards (such as American Express
and Visa). To add another payment method—for payments through PayPal, for
example—choose Lists➝Customer & Vendor
Profile Lists➝Payment Method List, and
then press Ctrl+N. In the New Payment Method dialog box, type a name for the
payment method, and then choose a payment type. For instance, if you use two
Visa credit cards, you can create two entries with the Visa payment type. Other
payment types include Discover, Debit Card, Gift Card, and E-Check.
Ship Via List
When your invoices include
the shipping method that you use, your customers know whether to watch for the
mailman or the UPS truck. QuickBooks creates several shipping methods for you,
including DHL, Federal Express, UPS, and U.S. Mail. If you use another shipping
method, like a bike messenger in New York City or your own delivery truck,
simply create additional entries in the Ship Via List window (Lists➝Customer & Vendor Profile Lists➝Ship Via List) by pressing Ctrl+N. In the Shipping Method field
(the only field in the New Ship Method dialog box), type a name for the method
and then click OK.
Tip: If you use one ship method most of the
time, you can have QuickBooks fill in the Shipping Method field on invoices
with that entry automatically..
Vehicle List
If you want to track
mileage on the vehicles you use for your business, create entries for your cars
and trucks in the Vehicle List (Lists➝Customer
& Vendor Profile Lists➝Vehicle
List). Use the Vehicle box to name the vehicle: Ford Prefect 1982 Red, for example. The
Description field holds up to 256 characters, so you can use it to store the
VIN, license plate, and even the insurance policy number.
Fixed Asset Items Assets that you can’t convert to cash quickly—such as backhoes,
buildings, and supercomputers— are called fixed
assets. If you track information
about your fixed assets in another program or have only a few fixed assets,
there’s no reason to bother with the Fixed Asset Item List. As you can see in
Figure 6-6, Fixed Asset items track info such as when you bought the asset and
how much you paid. But in QuickBooks, you have to calculate depreciation for each asset at the end of the
year and create journal entries to adjust the values in your asset accounts. chapter 6: setting up other
quickbooks lists 147 ╉╉Fixed Asset Items
Figure 6-6:╇ When you buy a fixed asset, you can create
a Fixed Asset item and enter the asset’s name and purchase information, where you
keep it, its serial number, and when the warranty expires. When you create a
Fixed Asset item, QuickBooks doesn’t automatically add the purchase price to the
asset account you choose. Instead, the account you choose in your purchase transaction
(check or credit card charge, for instance) is what adds the purchase price to
the Fixed Asset account in your chart of accounts.
When you sell an asset,
open the Edit Item dialog box (choose Lists➝Fixed Asset Item List, and then press Ctrl+E) and turn on the
“Item is sold” checkbox. When you do that, the sales fields come to life so you
can specify when you sold the asset, how much you sold it for, and any costs
associated with the sale.
If you decide to track the
details about your fixed assets outside QuickBooks, you still need to include
the value of those assets in your
financial reports. Simply create Fixed Asset accounts to hold the value of your
assets. Then each year, you’ll add a general journal entry to each Fixed Asset
account to reduce the asset’s value by
the amount of depreciation. •‰Creating and Editing List Entries UP TO
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