Paying down credit card

I appreciate all your efforts in explaining all your concerns and following our article, @Big-Al. 

I have answers to all of your questions. Happy to share that with you so you can manage your credit card transaction accordingly. This way, your books will stay accurate. 

The first step is to generate a check using Accounts Payable. Ensure the Print Later box is unchecked so you can enter the BillPay number in the Check No field. 

Go as follows: 

1. Go to the Banking menu and select Write Checks. 
2. Pick the bank account you want to use for paying the credit card from the Bank account ▼ dropdown.
3. Select the name of your credit card company from the Pay to the order  ▼ field. 
4. Enter the payment date and bill py number. 
5. Go to the Expenses tab and select Accounts Payable in the Account box.
6. Click Save and close.  

After that, let's create a bill if you still need to. Proceed with the following steps:

1. 1. Go to the Vendor menu and click Enter Bills. 
   2. Complete the Vendor name, Date, Bill Due, and Memo. 
   3. Select your credit card account in the Account field. 
   4. Enter the amount, then Save and close.  

After that, pay the bill. Ensure the credits are in place and apply the check to the bill. For complete steps, check out this article: Pay bills in QuickBooks Desktop. 

Regarding the obtuse term used in our article, I recommend sending feedback to our author. Choose an option from the Was this helpful? and follow the instructions on the screen. 

Moreover, visit these articles below on how to reconcile accounts and Bill Pay FAQs in QuickBooks: 

• Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Desktop
• Use Online Bill Pay in QuickBooks Desktop

If you have other questions navigating your account, add them in the comment below. I'll be sure to get back to you. Keep safe always. 

I have read thru your reply a couple times, and I am still a bit confused.

1 - Your first step ... Writing a check.  Normally, I would have entered the credit card charge before attempting to write a check to pay something I haven't entered yet.  Additionally, you said (#5) to enter "Accounts Payable" in the Expenses tab.  As an accountant, I have been conditioned to never use a control account (AR, AP) directly, and unless I misunderstood something regarding Credit Cards, the liability for a credit card charge is not posted to AP but to an account used for each credit card used. ???? This entry would credit a cash/bank account and debit AP, and there would generate an imbalance in the GL AP account and the total on the AP Detail report, no?

2 - Your second step .... using Enter Bills to record the charge to the credit card.  Here, unless I really misunderstood the QB instructions, I don't use Enter Bills.  I go to the credit card liability account in the COA, and right click, then select the item for "Enter Credit Card Charges".  In this entry, I post the individual transactions to the affected GL accounts (normally expenses),and then Save.  This posts the total of the charge to the liability account and the debit to each of the GL accounts listed in the lower portion of the entry.  So now I have a credit in one of the credit card liability accounts offset by the debits to the other accounts entered in the entry.

3 - You then say "After that, pay the bill." To me this seems like this would credit cash/bank a second time and offset with the credit card liability account.  This would be ok, making Step 1 unnecessary, and more than that, generating an imbalance between the GL and supporting data.

I understand trying to get the detail into a "bill" status so it can be paid using the Pay Bills portion, but this is a lot of extra steps to simply be able to enter alpha characters in the check field, which is a reference field in most of today's systems.

It seems like it would be easier to simply Write Checks and list the credit card liability # in the lower portion of the check entry, leave the check # blank, and check-mark Print Later, then go to the Check Register and enter the alpha characters (BILLPAY) in the check number field, and remove the check from the print queue ... IF I could find out how to get to the Print Queue.  How do I find that?  Documentation doesn't tell me how to get there, only that there IS a way to remove something from the print queue!!!

Is that not easier and far less time consuming, plus it doesn't adversely impact the Control Account AP?  

Can you tell me how to access the print queue?

Or am I really way off base here?  Thanks in advance.

I forgot to mention ... your example shows for the check number field an entry like "1466 - BP#"

I don't know if that was an example of how to enter alpha characters, but as I mentioned earlier, we do not know what check # the bank will use on the Bill Pay when they send out checks until early in the next month when we get the bank statement.  We obviously are not going to wait to enter Bill Pay transactions until the following month, that would be ridiculous.  So we need to enter timely when the Bill Pay is scheduled, and simply entering the term BILLPAY is sufficient to identify the transaction.  It would be nice if the bank would allow us to choose each Bill Pay "check" number, but no bank I know of does that.  I'm sure they need to have a consistent and traceable ID for their internal purposes.

Thank you for sharing your confusion about the steps shared by my colleague above, @Big-Al.

Let me provide additional information about recording credit card charges and help you from there.

Yes, you're correct. The process shared by my colleague above is to offset the credit card liability account and mark the bill as paid. Though your suggestion on writing a check is a great idea, I still recommend seeking help from your accountant. They can help ensure it puts on the correct accounts.

On the other hand, a check is tagged as Print Later in the write check window, it'll remain in the print queue until you actually print it. Thus, you can't remove the check from the queue. You can just enter check numbers as you create them and disable the "To print" option if you aren't printing them.

Come back to this post if you need more assistance about this, @Big-Al. I'll be around to provide further assistance.

You may also want to run and customize reports in QuickBooks Desktop. This will help you focus on the transactions or business information you want to see.

Wishing you all the best!

Why will no one tell me how to access the Print Queue?

Mark R said

"On the other hand, a check is tagged as Print Later in the write check window, it'll remain in the print queue until you actually print it. Thus, you can't remove the check from the queue. You can just enter check numbers as you create them and disable the "To print" option if you aren't printing them."

I have seen other posts on how to delete Payroll checks from the Print Queue, and other postings.  I'm confused that you are saying that "you can't remove the check from the queue."  

And how do I get visibility of the Print Queue?  Even the posts about deleting checks from the Print Queue don't tell me how to "get there".  ????   Frustrating.  Is this a major secret?

And what exactly do you mean by "disable the "To Print" option."?