How to record a Fuel Card

I have a fuel card also, and my customer pre-pays me for each load say 1000.00 and I also use the card to make fuel purchases. How do I handle the pre-payment amounts? or do I just upload via csv the fuel costs and then transfer the funds that are left into our business checking account.

Thank you for joining the thread, @land7784. And I'm here to help handle your pre-payment amounts.

You have two options to record customer's pre-payments in QuickBooks Desktop.

First, you can utilize the remain as available credit option when receiving the payments. However, it creates negative Accounts Receivable (AR). Here's how:

1. In your QuickBooks Desktop, go to the Customer menu.
2. Select Receive payments.
3. Enter the amount and click the "remain as available credit" option from the lower-left corner.
4. Click Save & Close.

Your second option is to upfront deposits or retainers. Below is the step by step process:

Step 1: Set up a liability account for upfront deposits or retainers

Step 2: Create an upfront deposit item

Step 3: Record upfront deposits or retainers you receive

Step 4: Create invoices

Step 5: Apply upfront deposits or retainers to invoices

For the detailed steps and information on every step, feel free to check out this article: Manage upfront deposits or retainers.

Please let me know if you need clarification about this, or there's anything else I can do for you. I'll be standing by for your response. Have a great day.

Humm.. not sure that answers my questions

so the fuel card is loaded with half the proceeds of the job up front say 1000.00 then my husband uses part of the 1000. to purchase gas say 200.00, which leaves 800.00 then once the load is deliver he gets the second payment of $1000. and now there is a total of 1800 on the card, then I transfer say $1400 to my business checking account to pay other business expenses. So any given week or at the end of every load I will be moving money into the checking account. So essentially they the gas is prepaid expenses, thought of using the csv to upload the expenses which would show a credit and off set the expense created for the gas and just move the remaining into checking to pay other bills

I am using quickbooks online for my fuel card, how do I record the advance?

I appreciate you for joining this thread, land7784.

I can help provide insights on how to record this in QuickBooks Online. You may want to create a Liability account or an Asset account wherein you can deposit the Fuel advance. You can follow the steps I outlined below in creating a Liability account:

1. Go to Settings and select Chart of Accounts.
2. Select New.
3. From the Account Type drop-down menu, select Other Current Liabilities.
4. From the Detail Type drop-down menu, select a type.
5. Enter a name for the account.
6. Click Save and close.

The moment you pay the fuel expense, you may create a Journal Entry either to apply on a Bill or directly on the Expense account. Here's how:

1. Click + New.
2. Select Journal Entry.
3. Fill out the fields to create your journal entry.
4. Select Save and close.

Here's an article about you can read about tracking your expenses for your reference.

Let me know if you need more help with recording fuel advance. I'll be around for you.

I am using Quickbooks Desktop Pro Plus 2020 for my fuel card, how do I record the Fuel discount?

Good day, Edgar Jr.

Thanks for joining us here! You can add a discount line when you record the fuel purchase. Let me show you how.

1. Go to the Banking and select Enter Credit Card Charges.
2. Select the fuel Credit Card account and enter the necessary information.
3. On the Expenses tab, select an account where you want to track the discount and enter an amount.
4. Select Save & Close.

Post again if you have more questions. Stay safe!

Fuel discount? it is an income account?

Ok. But in which category do I place a discount account? income?

I also would like to know what account to use for the discount.

Hi everyone:

I feel very identified with this situation. I do the accounting for my Transportation Company and I have doubt when receiving payments. The payments for loads we run every day are deposited by the Factoring Company directly on the EFS Card, once we have money on the card we use it to put fuel at the truck stop, (and always maintaining a minimum balance of $ 1000 on the EFS card) we transfer the rest to the regular checking account. My questions are the following:

Should I register the EFS card as a Checking or Credit Card account in the chart of accounts?

How can I avoid doubling the Income amount? Initially it is received from the factoring company to EFS Card and after the drivers used for for fuel the remaining balance is transferred to the company's checking account at the end of the day. Also, every driver has an EFS card with the same scenery.

I use Quickbooks Online.

I would greatly appreciate your help.

This is a response for sharrington55. We are in the same situation. This is what I did. I set up the fuel card as a bank account. I also set up a Fuel Advance account as an Other Current Asset. When we receive a fuel advance, I do a Transfer Funds from the Fuel Advance account to the Fuel Card. When we receive our settlement, I show the Line Haul Income, Fuel Surcharge, etc and also show a line as a negative for Fuel Advance. This way you are showing your income correctly to match your 1099. When I do the deposit for the settlement, everything gets deposited to the Fuel Card. Then I do a Transfer Funds for the amount you put in your checking account. And last, I do a journal entry once a month (you could do daily, weekly, etc) with a debit to the Fuel expense account and a credit to the Fuel Card. This keeps the balance on the card correct. I don't have Quickbooks online though. I hope this helps out any other truckers out there!