Vendor refund by check - how to physically deposit?

I appreciate you sharing your concerns regarding the refund vendor check, AmericanRV. 

I'm here to provide insights into how QuickBooks handles this.

QuickBooks is a powerful tool for accurately recording and tracking business transactions purposes only, ensuring the integrity of your accounting data.

Concerning printing a deposit, QuickBooks doesn't provide the specific functionality to print deposit slips. You can handle the deposit process by manually submitting it to your bank.

I'm sharing this article that will guide you in recording refunds you received from a vendor: Record a vendor refund in QuickBooks Desktop.

Furthermore, I'm also adding this link to monitor the payments made to your vendors within a specific period: Customize vendor reports.

If you have any further questions or require assistance with any other QuickBooks task aside from vendor refunds, please don't hesitate to add them below. I'll be here to lend a hand.

@AmericanRV  RE: But how do I PHYSICALLY get the check to the bank? 

Same as any other deposit: Take the check to the bank and deposit it, either using the ATM or with a teller.

Not funny.

@AmericanRV 

I don't think @BigRedConsulting was trying to be funny and I had the same thought when I read your post. 

Your questions were:

"how do I PHYSICALLY get the check to the bank?" and "How do I print a deposit with the check included so I can cash the refund check?"

With all due respect, QB doesn't have any way to print a deposit slip and you need to make a bank deposit at your bank.  Not sure what else you could be asking. 

I wasn't trying to be funny.

The solution tells me how to receive the refund and zero it out in QuickBooks. But I'm standing here with a physical paper check in my hand. I guess what I need is to get it into undeposited funds so I can print a physical deposit slip to take the physical check to my bank and deposit it. The above method simply enters a $0 transaction. It doesn't give me an option to actually have it entered as a bank deposit.

With customers who pay by check I enter the payment against the invoice and put it into undeposited funds, then print a physical deposit slip, walk over to the bank and deposit it. Then I have the correct deposit (not a zero dollar deposit).

QuickBooks doesn't give me the option to put a vendor refund check into undeposited funds the way a customer payment does. I have a physical paper check, not a virtual one. So how do I accomplish that?

- Since you recorded a deposit in your bank account, I'd think you can print a deposit slip from the deposit. It doesn't matter if the thing you're depositing is from a vendor or a customer.  What happens when you edit the deposit and click the Print | Deposit Slip from the top of the window?

- No matter what happens, there is no reason to print a deposit slip from QuickBooks. You can fill one out by hand at the bank, if they require it, or the teller will do it for you. Or, deposit the check into the bank's ATM.

@AmericanRV 

"With customers who pay by check I enter the payment against the invoice and put it into undeposited funds, then print a physical deposit slip,"

I didn't know that you could print a deposit slip from QB.  I was obviously wrong about that in my previous post.  My apologies.  

Really? Do you do manual deposit slips then? Well, now you know. But thanks for hanging in there with me on this.

Let me see if I can state the issue more clearly.

1. I receive a paper check in the mail, which is a vendor refund check.
2. I create a deposit, and leave the "Deposit To" as my default checking account. Rec'd from: Vendor name. From acct: Accts payable. Memo: A note on what it's for, Pmt Method: Check, amount, and save.
3. I go to the vendor and create a credit memo in the same amount.
4. I go to the Pay Bills window and pay the "bill" (which is actually a deposit) by using the credit I just entered.

But at this point I'm left with:

1. A check entry for $0.00 (which QB automatically generates when you follow this procedure).
2. A physical check I'm holding in my hand that needs a corresponding ACTUAL deposit, not a $0.00 one.

Thus my question: How do I get that physical check into my bank account so QB is accurate? Even if I have to hand-write the deposit slip, it still doesn't fix QB.

I can't find any method at all that lets me show my vendor gave me a credit and sent me a check that I then will deposit in my bank. To my it seems that instead of using the credit to pay a bill (resulting in a $0.00 payment auto-created by QB), there should be a step somewhere that I can put it in Undeposited Funds, and then deposit a PHYSICAL CHECK.

Am I taking crazy pills here?

“No matter what happens, there is no reason to print a deposit slip from QuickBooks. You can fill one out by hand at the bank, if they require it, or the teller will do it for you. Or, deposit the check into the bank's ATM.”

I don’t care whether I print it or fill it out by hand, that’s irrelevant. And I know how to make a deposit with a teller or an ATM (and fill out my own deposit slip). That’s not the point. The point is making QB match my credit to the paper check I’m holding in my hand right now. Just that. How do I get QB to create a link between the credit memo and the actual refund (paper) check? (As in, how to prevent the "QuickBooks generated zero amount transaction for bill payment stub" that it automatically does when you use a credit to pay a bill.)

“Since you recorded a deposit in your bank account, I'd think you can print a deposit slip from the deposit. It doesn't matter if the thing you're depositing is from a vendor or a customer.  What happens when you edit the deposit and click the Print | Deposit Slip from the top of the window?”

A couple of things here:

• I need to match the credit to the check I received, right? Otherwise, it sits on my books as an available credit when it’s not.
• No, it doesn’t matter who the check is from when you’re creating a deposit slip. I know how to create a deposit and print a deposit slip. I know that I can add or delete entries from my deposit slip once created, and I know I can enter the refund check at that time. But that doesn't link it the way it needs to be linked.
• I’m not sure what you’re asking by “what happens when you edit the deposit and click print” - ? It does what it always does, it’s prints a deposit.
• When I enter checks from customers I put it into Undeposited Funds, which populates my deposit slip when I’m ready to go to the bank. But I cannot enter a check FROM a vendor, so Undeposited Funds isn't available.

Through all of this discussion I (think) I can narrow it down at least a little bit. 

You can’t enter a check FROM a vendor, only checks TO a vendor, so I can’t bring in the Undeposited Funds account, which is where every other incoming funds are entered if it’s a paper check.

The purpose of a credit memo is to remove the returned item from my inventory and show that it’s been credited to me – so at that point my inventory is correct.

It’s how QB handles the remaining process that’s all twisted up.

If I enter a deposit for, let’s say, a $25.00 refund, and a corresponding credit memo for the $25.00 inventory item I returned, I have to link them in QB for my vendor and inventory numbers to be correct. But as soon as you link them through Pay Bills, you get a check for $0.00 and the message: “QuickBooks generated zero amount transaction for bill payment stub”.

That doesn't work. I need to show a REAL deposit for $25.00 from that vendor for that item. And obviously my checking account won’t balance if that $25.00 refund check comes up as $0.00.

In my mind there’s steps missing or too many steps taken in this process to make this happen correctly. Do away with the credit memo? It doesn’t get my inventory item out. Just throw the check in with my other deposits when I run them? It doesn’t show under my vendor. There’s no history to link the refund from my vendor to a deposit of a paper check.

I can’t believe it’s this difficult. Am I asking the wrong questions? Wrong terminology? QB is supposed to be able to handle the basic functions. I’m using QB 2024 Premier, not just the basic QB. I’d think this kind of thing would be built in. But if it’s not, I need a workaround.

Would using a pass-through account work in this situation? And if it would, what are the steps?

I'm at a loss as to what the problem is. You wrote that you recorded a deposit in your bank account in QuickBooks, listing the vendor name and amount and the AP account. If so, then you're done, as far as keeping records in QuickBooks to match your bank account.

Then you wrote how you applied the credit the deposit created to a bill.  Then you're done as far as your AP account.  You can ignore the 0.00 check some versions of QuickBooks create when you do this. I don't know why they do that.

Then deposit the check you're holding in your bank, which mirrors the deposit you created to start the process.

@AmericanRV 

"2. I create a deposit, and leave the "Deposit To" as my default checking account. Rec'd from: Vendor name. From acct: Accts payable. Memo: A note on what it's for, Pmt Method: Check, amount, and save."

Stop right there.  After this step, you're done as far as the deposit is concerned.  Finished.  Finito.  Done like dinner.  Moving on.  Look at your bank register, you will see the deposit listed.  You're getting tripped up by the credit memo and $0.00 check.  The credit memo and the $0.00 check have nothing at all to do with the deposit.  That is just how QB records the offsetting account (reason) for the deposit and gets it listed under the vendor' account.