The most important thing you need to know about sales tax is that administering it correctly can be challenging.

If you sold only one type of product to customers in one city, collecting and paying sales tax would be easy. But most businesses have a wider reach than that.

QuickBooks Online offers tools that allow you to set up sales tax rates and include sales tax on sales forms. Further, it calculates how much you must pay to state and local taxing agencies.

This is one of the most complicated areas in QuickBooks Online because you may have to deal with numerous taxing agencies. If you’re not already working with sales taxes, we strongly recommend you let us help you get everything set up correctly from the start. Taxing agencies can audit your recordkeeping and you want to make sure it is set up correctly.

That said, here are five things we think you should know.

QuickBooks Online calculates sales tax rates based on:

• Where you sell. Every state is different. If your business is located in Florida and you sell to a customer in Minnesota, you’ll be charging any sales tax levied by the state of Minnesota and possibly the city and county and other taxing authorities – if you have a connection, a “nexus” in that state (a physical location, active salesperson, etc.).
• What you sell.
• To whom you sell. Some customers (like nonprofit organizations) do not have to pay sales tax. You’ll need to edit their customer records to reflect this in QBO. Open a customer record and click the Edit link in the upper right. Click the Tax info tab and make sure there’s no checkmark in the box that says This customer is taxable. The Default tax code will be grayed out, and you can enter Exemption details in that field.

Customer records for exempt organizations should contain details for that exemption. You’ll need to see their exemption certificate or at least know its official number.

Intuit now offers a revamped version of QuickBooks Online’s sales tax features.

At some point, you’ll be asked if you want to switch to the new, more automated system. The actual mechanics of the process are simple, but you’ll be moving historical and in-process data to a new structure. If you have sales tax set up right now and your situation is at all complicated, you’re going to want our help with the transition.

This enhanced feature only supports accrual accounting.

You can combine individual tax rates.

If you are required to pay city, county, and state sales tax rates for a particular customer, for example, you can create a Combined tax rate that contains all of the individual components. The customer will only see the total on an invoice or sales receipt, but QuickBooks Online will track each one accordingly for payment and reporting purposes.

You can combine sales tax rates in QuickBooks Online (image above from current Sales Tax Center in QuickBooks Online, not the enhanced one).

Product and service records should contain sales tax information.

This is another area that will require some research. Just as some services are subject to tax, some products are not (like groceries in Arizona). So, you’ll need to find out what the rules are for what you sell. You can find this information on the website of the state’s Department of Revenue (sometimes called the Department of Taxation).

Once you know, you can record that status in QuickBooks Online. Open a product record by going to Sales | Products and Services and clicking Edit in the Action column or create a new one by clicking New in the upper right. Scroll down to Sales tax category in the record. You can choose between Taxable – standard rate and Nontaxable.

There’s a third option here: special category. This gets complicated. We can help you determine whether it applies to you.

QuickBooks Online tracks the sales tax you owe.

You can see what you owe to each agency by running the Sales Tax Liability Report, and record payments when you’ve made them. Summary and detail versions of the Taxable Sales report are also available.

Once you get sales taxes set up in QuickBooks Online, it’s easy to add them to the relevant sales forms. Getting to that point, though, takes time, study, and careful attention to detail. If you’re getting ready to sell, or you’re already selling and struggling with sales taxes, let us know. We can schedule an initial consultation to see how we can be of assistance.

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Did you know that QuickBooks Online can calculate and apply sales taxes to transactions? However, setup requires some upfront research. Here are a few things to get started.

Does your business have to charge multiple levels of sales taxes? QuickBooks Online allows you to combine them. Here’s how.

QuickBooks Online calculates sales taxes based on where and what you sell, and to whom. It’s a bit complicated and here is why. We can help you get through setup.

Did you know that Intuit has released an enhanced version of QuickBooks Online’s Sales Tax Center? Here are the details and we can help you make the transition.

Send us an e-mail or call us today at 727-544-1120 and ask for Debbie Jackson to discuss your QuickBooks accounting needs with an experienced Largo CPA.

The hardest part of creating a budget is getting started. QuickBooks Online provides tools that can jump-start the process.

 

You know you should have a budget. You’re aware that it can help you stay on track with your company’s income and expenses throughout the year. Maybe you’ve even tried to make one before, but you got discouraged by the mechanics or by the difficulty of estimating money in and out for the next 12 months.

 

June may not be the beginning of your fiscal year, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make a serious effort to start building a budget that can help you rein in expenses and set revenue goals.

 

Here’s a look at QuickBooks Online’s budgeting features.

 

Creating the Framework

 

Before you begin, you’ll want to make sure that your fiscal year is set correctly in QuickBooks Online. Click the gear icon in the upper right, then click Your Company | Account and Settings | Advanced. If the First month of fiscal year isn’t correct, click the pencil icon over to the right and change it. Then click Save and exit out of this window.

 

Click the gear icon again and select Budgeting, then click Add budget in the upper right.

QuickBooks Online asks you the questions that need to be answered before you start filling in your budget grid.

 

The first thing you’ll do is give your budget a descriptive name by entering it in the Name field. Next, open the drop-down list under Fiscal year and select the correct 12-month period. You can create your budget in one of three intervals: Monthly, Quarterly, or Yearly. If you want to populate your budget with numbers from this year or last, make that selection in the Pre-fill data? field.

 

There’s one more option at the top of the Budgets Grid screen that’s not shown in the image above. You can Subdivide by Customer, Class, or Location. This can be useful if you want to view budget data specific to a subset of entries in each of those categories. You could, for example, choose three customers and view only their numbers in the grid individually, one at a time.

 

Providing Your Numbers

 

Once you’re satisfied with the selections you’ve made, click Create Budget in the lower right. The screen will refresh and display a grid that you can edit.

 

Let’s say you’re working on a budget for the second half of 2018. QuickBooks Online brought in your numbers for January-May. You see that the numbers don’t vary much from month to month on one specific line item, so you’re going to assume that they will continue to be true (unless you know something that will affect it after May). You could enter a rough average of the first five months in the JUN field.

 

Hover your cursor over the arrow to the side of that field, and this sentence appears in a small bubble: Click to copy the value across on the row. QuickBooks Online will then enter that number in the JUL through DEC fields.

QuickBooks Online can save you some time as you enter data in your budget grid fields.

 

When you’re done entering data in all of the fields relevant to your business, click Save in the lower right and close the window. Your budget will now show up in the list.

 

Tip: If you have multiple blank rows and don’t want them to be displayed, click the gear icon in the upper right corner of your budget page. Click in the box in front of Hide blank rows to create a checkmark.

 

The Hard Part

 

QuickBooks Online simplifies the mechanics of creating a budget, but it’s up to you to supply the numbers. There’s lots of common-sense advice that experts offer for this process, like:

Remember seasonal upswings and downswings. Make your goals as realistic as possible. You might want to create separate budgets for “needs” and “wants.” Track your expenses carefully for a period of time so you can estimate more confidently. Create reports regularly that compare your budget vs actuals.

QuickBooks Online can help you with that last piece of advice; it offers a report called Budget vs. Actuals. You’ll find it in the Business Overview group.

 

We can help, too. Once we understand a little more about your business structure and goals, we can take a look at your income and expense history and make some personalized recommendations. Connect with us soon, and we can start you on the path to a more focused financial future.

 

Social media posts

 

It may be halfway through the year, but you can still work on budgeting. QuickBooks Online can help; we can, too.

 

Thinking about creating a budget for 2019? Start now by tracking income and expenses carefully; you can use this year’s data to project next year’s numbers.

 

One of QuickBooks Online’s most useful reports is Budget vs. Actuals. Don’t have a budget? Let us walk you through creating one.

 

Here’s a budgeting tip: Create one budget for “wants” and another for “needs.” Let QuickBooks Online walk you through their creation.

Send us an e-mail or call us today at 727-544-1120 and ask for Debbie Jackson to discuss your QuickBooks accounting needs with an experienced Largo CPA.