Hi talavigne,
Welcome to the community family! I'm glad to hear you're using the sales tax centre in QuickBooks Online to accurately track your sales taxes collected and paid. I know how important it's to properly record your transactions in your books. I'll be happy to guide you with this.
QuickBooks Online has several powerful features to help you easily run your business. When it comes to whether to record a transaction, which transaction type to choose or how to record it in your books, your accountant is the best resource for accurate information and guidance. Whether it's making a journal entry or record a tax only transaction, your accountant will be able to figure out the best approach for the solution that you need. You can easily invite an accountant to your books or find one in your area. Just head to the My Accountant tab to get started, then select Find a pro to help.
If you decide to make a journal entry, there are specific steps for it to hit the sales tax center. After you turn on sales tax in the program, the GST/HST Payable account is automatically created for you for proper sales tax tracking. This is important to note because when doing a journal entry involving taxes, you'd have to select that account, and use the Sales tax field on the form to choose which tax line to map the amount to. You can learn more about journal entries here: Create a journal entry in QuickBooks Online
In case you and your accountant prefer to do a tax only credit transaction, you could either do a supplier credit or a credit card credit. Your accountant will be able to help you choose which one's best for your books. The principle will stay the same to only enter the tax amount. Here's what I mean.
- Select the + New button at the top, then Supplier credit or Credit card credit.
- Select a Supplier, the correct Bank account, and the proper Date.
- Make sure amounts are set to Exclusive of tax. This gives us full control of the subtotal field.
- On the first line, select which category/account would best fit the credit and enter an amount of 0.01
- The sales tax code will be what sales tax the credit is (ex. GST, HST, QST, PST).
- On the second line, select the same category/account as the first line and an amount of -0.01. Sales Tax should be Out of Scope.
- At the bottom of the form, include the amount the credit was for in the tax section near the subtotal.
If you opted for a supplier credit, I recommend checking out this useful article for the next steps: Enter a refund from a supplier
I hope this helps! You're always welcome to stop by if you need anything else.
