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Record commonly-used transactions

SOLVED•by QuickBooks•55•Updated over 1 year ago

Learn how to record the most frequently used transactions.

You'll find that you use the same transactions repeatedly in QuickBooks Online. This article shows you how to enter transactions for the most commonly used transactions.

Depending on when you receive payment, there are two ways to record sales transactions:

  • For an immediate payment, create a Sales Receipt
  • For a deferred payment, create an Invoice to record the sale, and then, when payment is received, use Receive Payment to record the payment.

To create a Sales Receipt

  1. Go to Bookkeeping, select Transactions, then select All Sales (Take me there).
  2. Select Sales Receipt from the New transaction dropdown list to open the Sales Receipt window.
  3. Select the Customer name from the dropdown list. If you plan to email the Sales Receipt to the customer, be sure to enter the customer's Email address.
  4. Enter information for the sale, including a Sales Receipt date, Payment method, the Product/Service sold, and the Amount of the sale.
    Be sure to select the Tax checkbox if the item is taxable.
  5. (Optional) Specify any Discount to apply, and enter a Memo regarding the transaction.
  6. Select Save and Close.
    Alternatively, you can select Save and send to email payment information to the customer.

Both the sale and the payment are recorded.

To create a Received Payment

For a deferred payment, record a payment and associate it with a previously-created invoice or other transaction:

  1. Go to Bookkeeping, select Transactions, then select All Sales (Take me there).
  2. Select Payment from the New transaction dropdown list to open the Receive Payment window.
  3. Select the Customer name from the dropdown list.
  4. Enter information about the payment, including the Payment date, Payment method, the account in which to Deposit the payment, and the Amount received.
  5. In the Outstanding Transactions section, select the invoice or transaction to which to apply the payment.
  6. Select Save and Close.
    Alternatively, you can select Save and send to email payment information to the customer.

To record an Estimate or an Advance payment, you can follow the same process from the New Transaction menu.

Depending on when you make payment, there are two ways to record expense transactions:

  • If you made an immediate payment, create an Expense
  • If you will make a payment at a later time, create a Bill to record the expense, and then, when payment is made, use the Pay Bills feature to record the payment

To record an expense or a bill:

  1. Go to Bookkeeping, select Transactions, then select Expenses (Take me there).
  2. Select either Bill or Expense from the New transaction dropdown menu.
    The option you select depends on the transaction type and circumstances.
  3. Enter information about the expense or bill, including the Payee and the Date.
    For a bill, enter the Due date and, optionally, the Terms.
    For an expense, specify the Bank/Credit card account the expense was paid from.
  4. Under Account details, specify the Account to use for the transaction, the Amount of the purchase, and any Tax paid, and indicate whether the bill or expense is Billable to a customer (and the Customer to bill).
  5. Select Save and Close.

The bill or expense is recorded. For a bill, when payment is made, you can select Pay Bills to record it.

You can set up a recurring transaction for any bill, expense, or other transaction you create on a recurring or periodic basis.

To set up a recurring transaction:

  1. Go to Settings ⚙️.
  2. Under Lists, select Recurring transactions.
  3. Select New.
  4. In the Select Transaction Type dialog, select the type of transaction to make recurring from the Transaction Type dropdown list, and select OK.
  5. In the Recurring window for the transaction you specified, enter a Template name and specify the Type.
  6. Use the Interval fields to specify whether to create the transaction on a Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly basis, identify the Day of the week, month, or year to create the transaction, and specify a Start date and (optionally) End date for the recurring transaction.
  7. Specify the Account for the transaction, the Amount, and other transaction-specific details in the fields provided.
  8. Select Save template.

The transaction appears in the list on the Recurring Transactions window and is created at the interval you specified.

You can easily find recent or historical transactions.

To view a recent transaction:

  1. Select the Magnifying Glass icon on the Toolbar.
  2. Review the Recent Transactions list.
    You can select a transaction from the list to open the transaction window.
  3. If the transaction isn't listed, select View More to open the Search window, listing more results.
    You can optionally enter search criteria such as the type of transaction and select Search or Add Filter to narrow the list, or use the options available from the Date Filter button to change the date range of the results.

Alternatively, for a quick search, you can enter the date, the transaction amount, or other information in the Search Transactions bar to search for a specific transaction.

To view historical transactions:

  1. Go to Bookkeeping and select Chart of accounts (Take me there). 
  2. Select the appropriate account.
  3. From the Action column, select Account history. The register lists all of the transactions for the selected account.

You can select a transaction from the register to view its details.

If a transaction has not been entered, it's always best to split the transaction among multiple accounts when entering it.

To do this, simply add additional Account lines as you record your transaction.

When you enter a transaction directly into the register, only one account can be associated with it. However, you can then modify the transaction through the register window if you need to list multiple accounts on that particular transaction.

To split transaction from the register:

  1. Go to Bookkeeping, select Transactions, then select Bank transactions (Take me there).
  2. Select the appropriate account.
  3. Select the transaction to be split to expand the fields, and select Split.
  4. In the Split Transaction dialog, select the appropriate categories for the split transaction from the Category dropdown list, and specify any other requested information (for example, Received From or Class).
    You can select Add lines to add more entries.
  5. Enter the amount of the total to assign to each entry in the Amount column.
    As you enter amounts, they are added to the total in the Split amount field and deducted from the total in the Original amount field.
  6. When you have completed the entries, verify that the Split amount field equals the Original amount field, and that there is no balance displayed in red in the Difference field.
  7. Select Save and Add.

The transaction is split as you specified.

The majority of your transactions are automatically matched when a direct or standard bank feed is delivered or imported into your QuickBooks Online file.

If possible, QuickBooks Online suggests possible matches for downloaded transactions based on existing entries, such as payments from customers or purchases from suppliers.

If you know you have a matching transaction for a downloaded transaction but QuickBooks Online can't find it or isn't matching to the right one, you can search for other transactions to match to the downloaded transaction.

Note Multi-currency option users: if the matching transactions are not in the same currency, resulting in a difference, you can create a journal entry reporting the gain or loss to account for the difference.

To view or accept transactions QuickBooks Online has suggested as matches:

  1. Go to Bookkeeping, select Transactions, then select Bank transactions (Take me there).
  2. Select the For Review tab.
  3. Locate a transaction with one or more possible matches to review. If one match was found, the matching transaction appears in the Category or Match column. If QuickBooks found multiple matches, you must open the transaction row to review the possible matches.
  4. For a transaction matched to a single record, if the match is correct, from the Action column, select Match to accept it.
  5. For a transaction matched to multiple records, from the Action column, select View to open the transaction row, review the possible matches listed under Records found, select the correct one, and select Match to accept it.
  6. If the possible match is not correct, select the transaction to open it, and select Find other records to open the Match Transactions window and search for other possible matches.

The transactions you matched are moved from the For Review tab to the In QuickBooks tab and marked as matched.

To manually find matches for each of the remaining transactions:

  1. Go to Bookkeeping, select Transactions, then select Bank transactions (Take me there).
  2. On the For Review tab, select a transaction to open it.
  3. Select the Find match radio button to open the Match transactions window.
    By default, the Match Transactions window lists All unmatched transactions within the date range, but you can narrow the results.
  4. (Optional) Use the Show, Search, and From and To fields to narrow the results by transaction type, date range, or specific text.
  5. Select the checkbox of the matching transaction.
    You can select as many transactions as necessary. For example, if you grouped payments for three invoices into a single deposit, you can select all three transactions to match to the deposit record.
  6. Verify that the total in the Selected transactions field equals the total in the Downloaded transaction field.
  7. Select Save.

The transactions you matched are moved from the For Review tab to the In QuickBooks tab and marked as matched.

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