Sales tax descrepancy

ARSTOW · ‎October 31, 2024

Hello, I have an issue that I cannot figure out for the life of me, and i don't even know where to being.

I am a very small business, and when I pay sales tax, on the Liability report it shows;

"Total sales, non-taxable sales, taxable sales, tax rate, tax collected, and tax payable." (cash basis)

for the entire use of quick books, the sales tax collected, matched the sales tax payable.

something happened last quarter that it now shows the tax collected and double or triple the tax payable.

and when i go back and run previous reports the numbers are different.

IE: my 1st quarter tax printout (thank god i print them) says 1002.77 collected and 1002.77 payable, printed in April of 24.

when I run that SAME REPORT today, it says 1002.77 collected and 2989.54 payable for that time period, for a 2886.77 difference that wasn't there in the first quarter and the payable number just keeps changing every quarter since.

Apparently this started the 2nd quarter of this year and i must have missed it on the last report printout that there was a discrepancy. (ironically the discrepancy the 2nd quarter was exactly 1002.77 on the print out 1386.88 / 2389.65)

If i print that SAME REPORT today, Quickbook NOW says the 2nd quarter is off by 1986.66, (1386.88 / 3373.54)

This third quarter shows a discrepancy of 1986.54 (1851.25 / 3837.79) the tax collected is accurate, but the sales tax payable is just random to me, and i don't know how far back it goes as of now, but i am running reports back to see and comparing them to actual printouts.

the 1st quarter 1002.77 payment of (1003.00 with a .33 cent adjustment) does show in the vendor history and sales tax payment history, as well as the 2nd quarter payment

and yes, I use PAY SALES TAX via the vendors menu.

does anyone have any idea what could be going on?

is there something someone could have done to mess this up?

FishingForAnswers · ‎October 31, 2024

@ARSTOW The Sales Tax Payable column is affected in large part by the past Sales Tax Liability payments, and the payment dates thereof.

There are a few ways it can go off the rails, though.

First, of course, would be prior payments getting deleted.

Second would be payments being made without regard to the 'Show Sales Tax Due Through' date box in the 'Pay Sales Tax' window. Much like with payroll liabilities, it is important to specify which date range you are paying or, in the case of sales tax, which date range you're paying up to.

If you do it incorrectly, you're basically blowing QuickBooks' mind and a lot of strange looking numbers are the normal result. It's like telling the computer to mark something paid, but also use time travel to do so.

If I were handling it, I would start by, if necessary, undoing the past bank reconciliations, deleting the current sales tax payments, and making sure I recreated them properly, using the correct 'Show Sales Tax Due Through' dates.

All that being said, you'd probably make quicker progress by having an accountant visit you either in person, or by remote server; there are too many specific ways to throw a wrench in the works for most users here to be able to tell you exactly which transaction is creating problems.

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