money

QuickBooks Helps You Make a Statement

How do you let customers know they owe you money? Probably by sending invoices. And how’s that working for you? If your customers are all conscientious and pay on time, maybe that’s all you need to do.

But perhaps you need to consider doing at least part of your billing by dispatching statements. These forms have their drawbacks. For example, you can’t include sales tax or discounts on them. You can’t group related charges and subtotal them. And your customization options are weaker than in invoices.

Statements lay out the customer’s current financial obligation to you, including any statement charges, invoices, payments, unpaid bills and finance charges that have accrued during a specified period. Unlike invoices, they do not create new charges; they simply report on what’s already been entered. Billing statements that outline historical transactions can be sent as reminders of past due accounts, or you can use them for customers who order frequently, to keep track of items until you’re ready to bill and ship. They’re also useful when you request payment in advance.

You should not invoice for any products or services that have already been entered as statement charges or the customer will be double-billed. Statement charges show up under Recent Transactions in the window adjacent to invoice forms; they also appear in the Customer Center and your Accounts Receivable account in the Chart of Accounts. And you can find them in the Customer Register (Customers | Enter Statement Charges).

Outlining the charges

If you want to enter new statement charges instead of an invoice for, say, a monthly billing or a customer who is ordering frequently but is not ready to be billed, click on the Statement Charges icon on the desktop. (If there’s no icon and you want one, click Edit | Preferences, then Desktop View | Company Preferences, then click in the box next to Statements and Statement Charges.) Or you can just click Customers | Enter Statement Charges.

Click on Edit | Preferences to add Statement Charges and Statements icons to your desktop.

The customer register opens. Select the customer you want to create a charge for by clicking the down arrow next to Customer:Job. If you are in the middle of more than one job for the customer, make sure you make the correct one active.

Go down to the first blank line and change the date if necessary. Tab to the Item field, and drop the list to select the relevant product or service. Tab and enter the Quantity. The Rate and Amt Chrg should be filled in (if not, go back to Lists | Item List and edit the record). QuickBooks will have entered STMTCHG in the Type field. Tab to the Description field and complete it if it’s blank, and select a Class if you’d like. Your window will look something like this:

It’s very easy to enter statement charges in QuickBooks.

If you have another charge for that job or customer, go ahead and enter it. When you’re done with charges for that job/customer, click Record.

Build a statement

You can create statements at any time from data already entered in QuickBooks. The process is the same whether you’ve just entered a series of charges, as outlined above, or you want to remind a customer of outstanding invoices. You’re simply capturing all activity within a given time period. To do so, click the Statements icon on the home page. This window opens:

You’ll select options from this window when you’re building a statement run.

If the window contains an A/R field, that means that you have more than one receivables account. Be sure to select the appropriate one. Verify, too, that the date is correct. This will appear in the customer’s register as the Billed Date.

Here, too, you can choose a range of transaction dates for your statement(s), or simply opt to create forms for all customers with open transactions (in the latter case, you can limit it to transactions that are more than 30 days past due). You must also indicate whether you want statements sent to all customers or a subset. You can manually choose one or many customers, or select by Type (commercial, residential) or Preferred Send Method (E-mail or Mail).

QuickBooks gives you some control over your statements’ layout; click Customize if you want to explore this. Next, you can indicate whether you want to create one statement per customer or per job. The other options here are self-explanatory, but be sure to go through them every time you create statements.

Another decision

Will you be wanting to assess finance charges on the past due charges? This is a decision you should talk over with your ProAdvisor. It’s a complex issue. Should you want to do so, though, clicking on Assess Finance Charges will open the Assess Finance Charges window.

When you’re satisfied with all of your statement choices, you can Preview them. Here’s an example:

Statements lay out all transaction activity within a given period. Statement charges appear as “Due.” In this case, you’re reminding the customer that there’s a large past due balance as well as additional new charges.

Statements can be an effective way to let your customersâ€”and youâ€”get a comprehensive view of their financial interaction with you. They can be used instead of invoices, but there are limitations. If you’re still unclear on how these forms can fit into your accounting workflow, your ProAdvisor can help.

Living Trusts 101

A trust, like a corporation, is an entity that exists only on paper but is legally capable of owning property. However, a live person called the trustee must be in charge of the property. Further, you can actually be the trustee of your own living trust, keeping full control over all property legally owned by the trust.

Note: Property held in trust that is actually “owned” by the trustees of the trust, subject to the rights of the beneficiaries. The trust itself doesn’t actually own anything.

There are many kinds of trusts. A living trust (also called an inter vivos trust) is simply a trust you create while you’re alive, rather than one that is created upon your death under the terms of your will.

All living trusts are designed to avoid probate. Some also help you save on estate taxes, while others let you set up long-term property management.

Do I need a living trust?
Property you transfer into a living trust before your death doesn’t go through probate. The successor trustee, the person you appointed to handle the trust after your death, simply transfers ownership to the beneficiaries you named in the trust.

In many cases, the whole process takes only a few weeks and there are no attorney or court fees to pay. When the property has all been transferred to the beneficiaries, the living trust ceases to exist.

Is it expensive to create a living trust?
The cost of creating a living trust depends on what you want to achieve. The more complicated a living trust is, the more expensive it will be. Also important to note is that while the fees associated with creating a living will are paid upfront a living trust actually saves you money and time by avoiding probate court.

Is a trust document ever made public, like a will?
A will becomes a matter of public record when it is submitted to a probate court, as do all the other documents associated with probate – inventories of the deceased person’s assets and debts, for example. The terms of a living trust, however, need not be made public.

Does a trust protect property from creditors?
Holding assets in a revocable trust does not shelter those assets from creditors. A creditor who wins a lawsuit against you can go after the trust property just as if you still owned it in your own name.

After your death, however, property in a living trust can be quickly and quietly distributed to the beneficiaries (unlike property that must go through probate). That complicates matters for creditors; by the time they find out about your death, your property may already be dispersed, and the creditors have no way of knowing exactly what you owned (except for real estate, which is always a matter of public record). It may not be worth the creditor’s time and effort to try to track down the property and demand that the new owners use it to pay your debts.

On the other hand, probate can offer a kind of protection from creditors. During probate, known creditors must be notified of the death and given a chance to file claims. If they miss the deadline to file, they’re out of luck forever.

Do I need a trust if I’m young and healthy?
Probably not. At this stage in your life, your main estate planning goals are probably making sure that in the unlikely event of your premature death, your property is distributed how you want it to be and, if you have young children, that they are cared for. You don’t need a trust to accomplish those ends; writing a will, and perhaps buying some life insurance is sufficient.

Can a living trust save taxes?
A simple probate-avoidance living trust has no effect on either income or estate taxes. More complicated living trusts, however, can greatly reduce your federal estate tax bill if you expect your estate to owe estate tax at your death.

If you’re wondering whether you need a living trust give us a call and we’ll help you figure out the answer.