Ask the Accountant…
Question: I had some accounting in college. Can I enter transactions in QuickBooks as Journal Entries instead of learning the software?
Answer: QuickBooks is designed to follow their designated flow so that your entries are recorded correctly. By doing this, the debits and credits are recorded automatically in the background of the program.
In QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise, there is a home page with a process flowchart, complete with arrows. Each step allows you to enter data, and the appropriate debits and credits are recorded eliminating the inadvertent reversing of them.
There are also a few functions, if entered as a journal entry, will cause errors and problems with QB reporting. The primary one being sales tax.
QuickBooks is designed to minimize the need for journal entries and I suggest avoid using them whenever possible.
Please email your questions to Harriet at Ask The Accountant.
QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise can be modified to better serve ad specialty distributors. Harriet Gatter is a QuickBooks ProAdvisor, a former accounting professor and a former ad specialty distributor. She advises ad specialty distributors to use QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise, often in conjunction with other industry-specific software, to manage the complexities of the ad specialty business, with the results being time saved, errors eliminated and an overall accurate accounting of your business. Contact her at [email protected].
