QuickBooks Online - not charging GST on Sales Receipts with Taxable codes

Hello Theresa,

Thanks for sharing these concerns with me. I'd like to do what I can to set your mind at ease about what's happening with your sales tax codes and your transactions in QuickBooks Online. I appreciate all the details you've shared here, and based on them, I have some suggestions for you.

The first thing that stuck out to me was that you noted your sales tax code is G for GST. To me, that signals that you were previously using QuickBooks Desktop and migrated your file to QuickBooks Online. I say this because while QuickBooks Desktop has mostly single-letter sales tax codes, QuickBooks Online uses ones that are three-letter codes. When converting a QuickBooks Desktop file to QuickBooks Online, issues with sales tax codes can occur because QuickBooks wants to use it's own codes rather than the ones that were imported.

Because of that, my first recommendation to you is to turn on the sales tax codes for QuickBooks Online and make the QuickBooks Desktop codes inactive. Here are a couple of articles that can help with that.

• How to set up a new sales tax cod

• How do I delete a sales tax code?

Once you've done that, do a test with your transactions to see if the sales tax codes are working correctly. If you're still having trouble, I recommend reaching out to the QuickBooks Online technical support team by phone, chat, or social media so we can take a closer look at this with you. I know I gave you these details in my last response to you, but just as a refresher, here are those options.

Schedule a Callback or start a Chat: click (?)Help in the upper right in QuickBooks Online > type and enter "Contact support" into the QB Assistant > click Contact Us > explain your situation > click Let's Talk > choose Get a callback or Start a Chat.

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Support hours are from Monday to Friday between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. ET.

We're here to help!

Hi Laura,

Thank you for your response, I appreciate the input. This file has been converted as an Online file for a number of years now - but I will look into that to see if maybe it will help avoid this in the future. I only started as bookkeeper for this company a few months ago and since have overhauled the file and I had previously cleaned out a bunch of tax codes to get it back down to just the necessary ones - but I didn't touch the used codes and that was a couple months ago - no problems until just June it did this. It's hard to test though as it is seemingly quite random - 12 of 37 identical (other than customer) recurring sales receipts did not have GST in the total, despite having the taxable code, and also I noticed on the customer page, where it lists all their invoices/payments - it states the GST total there, but it's not part of the total on the invoice... even more strange.... anyway - thanks I'll try updating codes!

Oh also, I am working with the chat help person at QB to get help on this as well!

Cheers,

Theresa

Thanks for the update, Theresa! I hear you on how strange this is given that you haven't had trouble with the codes to this point. Over time, the QuickBooks Desktop codes can stop working or only work for some areas but not others, and that may be what's happened here. All the same, I'm glad to hear you're working with a member of our team via chat on this. I'm confident they'll be able to work through this with you.

Don't hesitate to let me know if you have further questions or concerns. :)

Hi Laura - so do you mean activate code GST and HST - then make all other codes inactive? It makes me nervous to make the tax code used on all my transactions right now an inactive one... I did activate the new codes on the weekend and I'll start using them - but just nervous to deactivate my main GST code from prior... any advice?

Thanks!

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@LauraAB wrote:

Thanks for the update, Theresa! I hear you on how strange this is given that you haven't had trouble with the codes to this point. Over time, the QuickBooks Desktop codes can stop working or only work for some areas but not others, and that may be what's happened here. All the same, I'm glad to hear you're working with a member of our team via chat on this. I'm confident they'll be able to work through this with you.

 

Don't hesitate to let me know if you have further questions or concerns. :)

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Hello again,

Yes. In this case, activating the QuickBooks Online specific codes and then making the old QuickBooks Desktop codes inactive is ideal. You're welcome to leave them active if you'd prefer, in particular until you've completed the filing for that period of taxes. However, you'll note that the program will keep the calculations from the sales tax codes applied even if you make them inactive. For instance, if I apply a G sales tax code on a sales receipt, then go make the G code inactive, the amount calculated in the Sales Tax module doesn't adjust. The program understands that you still need the calculations from this code, just that you won't be using it any further.

The idea of making codes inactive is so that they don't get accidentally selected on newer transactions since they're not working quite right. It'll also clear up the drop-down menu for your sales tax selections and keep things simple.

I hope this helps clarify the direction I've given. :)