Confusion about BAS Suspense account

Hi there, Jana2.

Thanks for the detailed information. I'm here to provide further explanation.

Once the GST feature is enabled in QuickBooks Online (QBO), the system automatically creates default accounts. I've attached a screenshot for your reference.

The information provided in the article refers to generating a payable to your GST including your PAYG. Once you create a transaction, the GST amount will be recorded on the GST Payable account.

On the other hand, the GST amounts will be transferred to the GST Suspense account once you lodge a Business Activity Statement (BAS). This serves as your total payable to the government.

Please know that you're unable to use the Record Tax Payment feature on the GST centre if you're creating the GST amounts through a Journal Entry, as they will show up on the GST Payable and GST Suspense accounts. In this case, you'll want to record an expense transaction and use the Suspense to post this JE as paid.

Here's how:

1. Click on the Plus (+) icon.
2. Select Expense under Suppliers.
3. Fill in the fields and choose the suspense account in the Category column.
4. Enter the amount. 
5. Choose Save and close.

You can also check out this helpful article: Enter, edit, or delete expenses.

That should do it. Leave a comment below if you have further questions. I'll get them answered.

Hi QB Team,

I'm still not sure if I'm doing correct after reading few QB articles/Q&A, including this one.

I recorded all GST payments as expenses, choosing the ATO clearing account. But now is -$15,000 in this account.

Please note:

a)  BAS we just “mark as lodged” in QB as we don't want to actually lodge it through QB

b) we start using QB in July 2019, and I needed to record GST payments which were paid after 1 July 2019 but related to previous dates.

Am I doing correct (expense to ATO clearing account), or should I do anything else?

Thank you so much!

Brigitte

Hi Brigitte2,

Thanks for reaching out. I hope I have addressed your concerns below:

Recording GST Payments prior to July 2019/Negative Value on ATO Clearing: If the BAS period you are paying is not recorded in QBO, you can certainly still record the GST payments as expenses. However as you've seen this will result in a negative value on the clearing account as there are no transactions for the payment to balance. 

Marking as lodged: Moving forward, If you are using the GST centre to mark your BAS as lodged, you can follow the steps in Option 2 of this article 'Record a GST Payment (BAS Payment) in the New GST experience' which will then automatically create the journal for you. To clarify, you don't have to lodge your BAS to the ATO through QBO; using the 'mark as lodged' option will only record it as lodged without sending the information to the ATO. This doesn't change the process the recording of payments/refunds or so on. 

-Kass

Hi Kass,

Thank you so much for your reply!

As I have recorded all GST payments wrongly and bank statements are reconciled up to end of March, how can I now fix that? Should I do General Journal? If yes, could you please explain how to do it?

Thanks again,

Brigitte2

Hi Brigitte2,

If you have entered your previous GST payments as expenses as they were not 'lodged' in QuickBooks, you don't need to change these - yes, there will be a negative balance on the ATO Clearing account but this is only because the actual transactions that recorded the GST on Sales/Purchases in those periods aren't in QuickBooks either. If you don't want to see that balance on the ATO Clearing account, you can journal it to an adjustment or petty cash account. Eg, you could create an account solely for the purposes of offsetting the balance, and journal from this account to the ATO Clearing account to bring it back to zero. 

If you need assistance on what kind of account you should set up for this purpose, you can review this article on petty cash accounts, however we would encourage you to speak to your accountant as well to determine exactly how they would like to record this journal as we are not accountants. 

-Kass

Thank you Kass!

But the problem is, that after 1 July they were "marked as lodged in QB" & recorded as expense to ATO clearing account:  so, I was refering to these in my previous message.

Hi Brigitte2,

Thank you for clarifying, I understand - in that case, if the BAS periods have been 'marked as lodged' in QBO you can either:

a) delete any expenses attributed to those periods and ensure the payments in the GST centre are instead recorded and matched to your bank as per the steps in 'Record a GST Payment (BAS Payment) in the New GST experience'. 

or

b) do a journal from an adjustment account to the ATO Clearing account from an adjustment account of some kind to clear off the balance from those expenses.

It's up to you which method you choose, and by all means I would encourage you to reach out to your accountant in case they have a preferred way of doing so.

-Kass

Hi Kass,

Thank you so much for your help.

Kin regards,

Brigitte2

I believe you are on the right track, and I find it very frustrating that I cannot post directly to the GST liabilities account. I also use the ATO clearing account (BAS suspense) for the payable or receivable journal and then have to do another journal to transfer from clearing account to BAS suspense account