Tricks of the Trade of October 2009

Every day, members of The Sleeter Group Consultants Network tackle the day-to-day problems of their clients in the real world. The following is an example problem and solution that surfaced this month on our Sleeter Group Consultants Network E-Mail Group.

Question: I have bills from a vendor and credits for returns to the vendor. When the credits equal or exceed the amount of the bill, there is no “document” (like a bill payment voucher) that gets printed automatically by QuickBooks. I need some way of notifying vendors when credits like this are applied. Do you have any suggestions for what to do?

Answer from Doug Sleeter: You’ve identified a good issue, something I consider a shortcoming of the program, and it applies to QuickBooks (all editions and versions of the desktop program). I don't have a very good workaround, other than the following:

1) In Pay Bills, apply the credit, as shown here.

2) This zeros out the bill, so there will be no BILLPMT created.

3) Now, to create a “document” for the vendor that communicates the fact that you applied the credit to a bill, go to the original bill (the one you just credited) and click “History”. This shows the credit that was applied. Click Print.

4) Here is the preview of that printed “Bill History”

This gets the job done.

Please note however:

• You have to know/remember which Bill was paid by credits (no way to automate it)
• You cannot create this transaction history report for more than one bill at a time
• There is no report that shows multiple transactions of bills, credits, and payments that also identifies which credits paid which bills.

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4 Comments

• Joe D says:
  October 06, 2009 14:54

  QuickBooks has always handled vendor credits poorly in my opinion. They should simply show unapplied credits in the pay bills window. Then when you're ready to send the vendor a check, you check off all the bills you're paying and the credits you're using and you're done. QuickBooks can apply the credits to the oldest invoices in date order then use the check to pay the rest of the invoices.

  This is simpler, faster, easier and more logical (IMHO) than the way it's done now.

• Mary G says:
  October 07, 2009 11:01

  Thanks - This has been frustrating me as well. I have a similar problem when paying vendors bills by credit card. There is not way - as far as I know - to let the vendor know what bills you are paying and the credits & discounts applied. I have to use excel to create a report to fax or mail to the vendor.

  Mary

• Mary L says:
  October 09, 2009 22:59

  You can print a "Bill Payment Stub" to send with your check to the vendor. It shows the bills, credits, and discounts taken. Go to File-Print Forms-Bill Payment Stubs and specify the bank account and date to get a list of bill payments. There is no link from the "pay bills" or "bill payment" display screen to print the stub. (Yes, this should be much easier to find!)

  There is still no way to print a list of multiple transactions and show which payments & credits go with which bills (or invoices for customers) and that is sorely needed!

  -Mary Longacre

• Mary L says:
  October 09, 2009 23:09

  ps - QB for Mac shows vendor credits listed in the pay bills window along with the bills.