How to 'Park' An Entry in QuickBooks for Later

Ask the Accountant…

Question: When I enter my credit card charges or bank entries, I don’t always know where to put them in QuickBooks. Do I have to wait until I know before entering them?

Answer: QuickBooks has an expense account that allows you to “park” an entry until you can figure out where it belongs or until you can meet with your accountant. The account is appropriately called “Ask My Accountant.” With this account, you can enter all your data and make sure everything is in QuickBooks even if it’s not yet in the correct account.

I also use this with the distributors for whom I do monthly reconciliations. Our orders are so complex that I don’t know where an entry goes on occasion. I put it in “Ask My Accountant,” and my client knows to go in there to see what needs to be handled. Often, it’s an invoice or Supplier Purchase Order that hasn’t been brought in from SAGE yet. Other times, it’s something odd about an order—we certainly have lots of those—and once my client tells me what it is, I can fix it. It’s a great way to gather all the questions in one spot.

Harriet Gatter is a QuickBooks ProAdvisor, a former accounting professor and a former ad specialty distributor of 23 years. She advises ad specialty distributors about using QuickBooks Premier & Enterprise, and SAGE Online to save time, eliminate errors, and correctly account for your business. Her specialty is converting distributors from ProfitMaker, SmartBooks, OrderMaster, AIA, and other accounting systems.

HGatter@AccountingSupportLLC.com www.AccountingSupportLLC.com

Please email accounting questions you would like considered for the column to HGatter@AccountingSupportLLC.com with the subject line of "Ask the Accountant".