I know accounting but I'm new to quickbooks. I'm sure the info is in manuals but I don't have time to learn new systems every day. (My philosophy of UX is that) things need to be made intuitive.
So my question is: I linked bank accounts to my QB bookkeeping account and I'm classifying the transactions. That's nice. I like the linking feature. This one specific question will probably address multiple questions I have about the platform.
I paid $201 with my management company (this qb account) to a landscaper on behalf of a different LLC client entity (in a different qb account). I then reimbursed this management corp from that LLC via my bank website- so both of these transactions show up in the set of quickbooks transactions to be categorized.
While I don't know exactly what the payment on behalf of the LLC should be technically (GAAP) classified as, I know they are an asset/receivable so I put them down for now as uncategorized assets, similar to how I put paid to this management corp as "rents in trust" (a liability). This would be the inverse- an asset debited with cash credited. Then the deposit for reimbursement would undo this).
The problem is I'm not sure quickbooks thinks this way. I categorized the payment as an uncategorized asset but QB is still calling it an expense in different places. A thing is not simultaneously an asset and an expense. Stop stop stop. I'm not 100% sure but think what they're doing is being cutsey and doing the idiocracy thing where they call every outpayment shows is called an expense to the system user but really inside the system it is what it is. That, or impatient me is just missing a setting.
Anyway I called it a current uncategorized asset, and it knows that cash left the account, so I assume it would put two and two together and debit uncategorized assets and credit cash (despite what it calls it elsewhere).
If I credit ungategorized assets when I received a deposit, it would naturally do the reverse, and there would be no hard linking (unless I made it associated, and I'm sure there's a feature)
Is there any way I can just do the double entry myself? I guess there's no point- the system knows to either debit or credit cash. We just have to tell it the other side, and for other entries, like booking an asset or liability, e.g. revenue with receivables, for these types of non cash transactions, we can do a standard JE. Ok this makes sense if that's how it works. If so, I don't like the nomenclature. Would they call buying inventory an expense, lol? If so, they could fix everything by just letting the user call it a receivable. That one easy fix would make everything more accurate and keep people from being led astray
I guess "transaction type" is a unique quickbooks concept and is either expense or deposit, nothing else. If they just called it an expenditure or outflow that would be good too. They don't call deposits 'income' or 'revenue' so they're kind of contradicting themselves.. but I guess I can give them grace. It's not as if accounting is their main thing lol.
When I try change it to billable it won't let me (no option). It will let me call it transfer.
When I try to make a new A/R account, it says I need to choose a customer. There are four parties here- Venmo, Which pulled the money out of my Mgmt C corp to pay Sarah, on behalf of Property LLC. I don't know why it's so controlling and complicated and erroneous but it is what it is
Also there's a lot of clutter on the dashboard, a few adds but it's a powerful system. Keep it honest and keep it simple first and foremost, and then make it powerful. Gimme the journal, the Balance sheet income statement and cash flows any day and I can figure out what's going on with a business.
