Splitting my expenses to detail HST / GST portion of the expense

Hi mgala028,

Being able to track your HST and GST is something that's made easy in QuickBooks Online. I can help go over sales tax and how to view the different amounts.

When you input a sale or a purchase into QuickBooks Online the first thing it asks you is do you track sales tax. In order to set up your sales tax in QuickBooks Online you can follow the steps in this article. Once you assign the sales tax codes to an invoice you will be able to track them by running the transaction detail by tax code report. You can access that report by going to: Reports>Sales Tax>Transaction Detail by Tax Code. For journal entries the only way to tell would be to assign it in a memo on that entry.

Hope this helps you track your sales tax!

I was asking about expenses. 

My clients are international and I don't charge them any sales tax, however, I do source some of my materials locally and I pay HST & GST and I am going to have to file them at the end of the year. 

Anyway I can track the HST / GST paid in office supplies for example? 

Hello mgala028,

Thanks for clarifying what you're looking to do with tracking your sales tax. It's great to hear that you've got clients beyond the Canadian borders and I hope that means your business is doing well. I can shed more light on the expense side of things.

I'm happy to share that, yes, it is possible to track your sales tax on expenses. After setting up the sales tax codes you need using the link my colleague gave you above, a sales tax column will appear on all relevant forms, including expenses, bills, and journal entries. For expenses and bills, it's as easy and assigning the sales tax code you'd like to the transaction lines using the Sales Tax column.

Journal entries are a little trickier, but it's also possible to assign sales tax to them. I'll follow up with my colleague to make sure we're on the same page with this, but in this case, it means including the sales tax as it's own line on the journal entry by choosing the appropriate sales tax account. Once you've done that, you can then map it as needed using the Sales Tax column in order for it to properly register and calculate in the Taxes section of the program. If you only choose the sales tax code related to the other lines on the journal, it won't properly register in your taxes, so doing it the way I've just described is key. I recommend checking in with an accountant if you'd like to go that route as they'll be able to best guide you with this process.

If you'd like to work with an accountant, the My Accountant tab can help. It provides a field where you can invite an accountant you're already teamed up with as a user on your account so they can help you directly in your books. It also has the Find a pro to help button for instances where you're still searching for an accountant.

I hope that helps clarify the situation, but feel free to ask more questions if you have them. I'm here to help!

How do I break out the PST paid on an invoice that clears the bank account?  It will not let me because I have not "named a supplier".  It then says to go to preferences which I cannot find, and turn on expense tracking on suppliers and purchases....?????  Cannot find these things.  Please help.

Hi donnaguavy,

It's always great to hear from a member of the QuickBooks Community. QuickBooks includes many different versions of the product. Each version has its own way of recording data. A little more information is required to provide specific steps. I can provide you with information that can lead you down the right path.

The sales tax is tracked by the tax codes you use in the transaction. Generally, a tax code with PST also includes GST, and the program knows how to post it by the specified code. These articles for QuickBooks Desktop and Online that explain sales tax codes and how to set them up. These articles also break down how the sales tax modules work: 

Online: 

• Set up and use sales tax in QuickBooks Online
• Common Sales Tax codes

Desktop: 

• Sales Tax series

I hope you find this information helpful. If you'd like to share some more information I'd be happy to help you further. Take care.

I do not think this helps as legal bills include taxable and non taxable components and so the rate is not a % of the total bill.  The payments come right out of the automatic bank feed. But I will read again.

Hi there donnaguavy,

It's important that your transactions are entered correctly so that the correct amount of tax gets calculated. I can provide some information about this.

When creating a transaction, you can add multiple lines to represent different items or services. You can apply a different tax code for each of these lines so that some are taxable, and others are not.

If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out here.