How do I book required sales tax that was not collected from a customer?

You got a lucky client for not paying a sales tax, daa1. I will walk you through the steps to add it to their invoice.

Your question is tagged to QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Desktop for Mac, so I’ll provide the steps for both. I’ll start with QuickBooks Desktop first.

If you haven’t set up your sales tax, we'll do that first.

1. Click on Edit and choose Preferences.
2. Go to Sales tax and select Company preferences.
3. Select Yes for Do you charge sales tax?.
4. Click on Add sales tax item.
5. Select Sales Tax Item from the drop list, and enter the details of your state tax.
6. Click OK, and click OK on the main setup window.

After the setup, delete the invoice payment because it’ll be applied differently if we’ll just add the tax to the invoice without deleting it. Once deleted, open the invoice and you’ll notice a TAX column on the table. Select Tax on the line item to indicate that it’s taxable, and so the invoice amount will be recalculated. Then, pay the invoice twice: 1 from your customer, and 1 from your end. Be sure to put a memo about this change.

If you're on QuickBooks Desktop for Mac, you'll follow the same process. Just check the User's Guide and go to page 186, the Setting up tax rates and agencies section.

You can run sales tax reports after editing the transaction. 

If you have other questions about sales tax or anything about QuickBooks, let me know.

Hello,

You mentioned adding one payment from the customer and one from my end. How do I make/report a payment from my end?

After the setup, delete the invoice payment because it’ll be applied differently if we’ll just add the tax to the invoice without deleting it. Once deleted, open the invoice and you’ll notice a TAX column on the table. Select Tax on the line item to indicate that it’s taxable, and so the invoice amount will be recalculated. Then, pay the invoice twice: 1 from your customer, and 1 from your end. Be sure to put a memo about this change.

I’m happy to share another way how to record the sales tax collected, JWConsult.

I'd like to clarify which setup are you in now so I can walk you through it from there.

After you create an invoice without the tax, you can receive payment to record the actual transaction and payment from your customer. You may not delete it. Once you go back and make the invoice taxable, then receive payment, you'll be prompted that there are payments applied to the invoice. Changing the amount will cause payments to be applied differently. You can confirm that by clicking Yes. 

You'll be routed to the Customer Payment screen where you can see at the bottom under the UNDERPAYMENT section, Write Off The Extra Amount. Select it and enter the amount to write off (sales tax) and then the correct expense account where you track the tax. Click OK.

You can also refer to this article: Write off bad debt in QuickBooks Desktop.  This article provides you with steps on how to handle the money you can't collect.

Visit there again if you have additional questions. The Community is always here to help you more! I hope you're good! Take care!

I’m using QB Online Plus.

The sales tax was already set up in QB. Someone collected the payment without adding in sales tax so the customer was already long gone before the transaction got to me. I input the customer portion of the payment on the invoice so all that’s left is the sales tax. How do I “pay” this on our end so it doesn’t look like the customer owes us when it’s our fault we didn’t change them correctly?

Hi there, @JWConsult. I'm here to further help you with your sales tax concern.

You can pay the sales tax that wasn't applied to the invoice by manually creating a check. However, this will be treated as your company's expense. That being said, I recommend reaching out to your accountant for further guidance in paying the sales tax. This way we can ensure that your books are accurate and avoid messing up your accounting data. If you're not affiliated with one, you can use our Find an Accountant tool to look for an accounting professional near your area. 

I've also attached this link to provide you details on how you can record, adjust and delete sales tax payments: Manage sales tax payments in QuickBooks Online (QBO).  

Also, reviewing your sales tax payable in QBO is a breeze. You can get this data by running the Sales Tax Liability report. Using this report you can see and ensure everything is correct before filing your tax return.

I'm always around if you have any other concerns about paying sales tax in QBO. Feel free to post again here. Have a good one.