Does Everybody Need Help With Quickbooks Like I do?
Hello all.
I'm not sure if I am doing this right or not. I purchased QB Desktop last month to convert my 6 spreadsheet rental property tracking system to one program. I have never used any accounting software before and it is safe to say that the learning curve is pretty steep. I have spent many hours setting up a Chart of Accounts, watching tutorials, coding accounts, trying to get transactions entered to show up elsewhere without messing up some other account, and a host of other banging my head against the wall activities.
I have found that Intuit is not the most. . . hmmmm . . ."available" in their customer support. The Quickbooks community posts also seem to thread into the author using symbols and all caps to convey their frustration at the Quickbooks support "answers" not really saying anything of substance. With that said, I was hoping perhaps someone on this forum has been through what I am trying to do and could tell me what I am missing.
1. Tenant Security Deposits: From everything I have seen online, tenant security deposits show on your balance sheet as an "Other Current Liability". I have one savings account for all of my security deposits and have set it up in the COA under Other Current Liabilities. Now, when I get a SD from a tenant it is put into my working checking account and then transferred to the SD Savings. The issue I am running into with the transactions in QB is in order to deduct an amount from my checking and transfer it to my Liabilities on the COA, the checking register has to show a "payment". . . But. . . If it is listed as a payment and directed to a Liability account, the liability balance goes down (ie I have $5,000 in the SD Savings and transfer $1,000 into it, when the transaction is made the $1,000 is deducted from checking but the SD Savings balance reflects $4,000 now instead of $6,000). I cannot get both of the accounts to match reality at the same time. I am looking at the following two options:
a. Listing the SD Savings as a bank on the COA and to hell with a couple grand being off of my balance sheet as a liability
b. Praying someone reads this post and says. . . "Brett, you dummy. All you have to do is this one little thing in the journal entry to fix all this mess you are creating for yourself."
2. Reconciliation of Registers to Bank Statements: Originally I had started putting in my accounts and listing the "Opening Balance" at the date of the last statement for each individual account. That's all great IF all of the banks put out statements on the very same day of the month. In my case they do not. The business credit card comes out on the 18th, some accounts are on the 1st, others the 29th, and so on. This created a huge mess when I tried to get all of the registers to line up because one transaction effected an account that started after the post date of the original transaction. I finally scrubbed it all and decided 10/18/2020 was the opening date for all accounts as it matched the business credit card statement date. Now, all of the account balances match the online balances for the associated dates for each transaction. I am running into an issue when it comes to Reconciliation of the registers to the bank statements though. The process leaves me with a "Cleared vs Beginning / Ending Balance Difference" of some amount. If I click reconcile against the warning QB throws up, an automatic Journal Entry is made balancing the account which changes the balance shown on the Register for that Account. If I delete the Journal Entry, the Register Balance becomes correct, but the Reconciled Balance is off again. (Catch 22?). Again I am looking at 2 options:
a. Never using the Reconcile feature on QB and keep up with the balances on my own OR
b. Praying someone reads this post and says. . . "Brett, you dummy. All you have to do is this one little thing in the journal entry to fix all this mess you are creating for yourself."
At the risk of asking too many questions and soliciting advice from people that I should be paying professionals to help me with, I will stop the post here. I will be going to my CPA to set up the Basis, and accounts for each property, but they charge from $65-$260/hr and I am trying to minimize costs as much as possible. At least if I go in with some solid notes and record the entire conversation my money to get this set up will be well worth it. Any help would be appreciated and feel free to message me if you want more details about the issues I am facing.
Thanks In Advance.