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Customers
Sales forms XE
"customer names" (invoices,
cash sales, statements, and estimates) accept
only customer names. Generally,
customers are people or other businesses from
whom you receive money (or expect to receive
money.)
NOTE
Sales tax items are part of a customer record if you handle sales tax. Completion of customer records would
require sales tax items, which should be set up first, as explained in Chapter 10. If you wish, you can start
customer records now. The sales tax items can be added later by editing.
Many of the entries in the customer record become defaults in the invoice, meaning that they are usual values,
which can be changed if needed.
Customer
is the name that will appear in the list.
Bill to
takes the name as it is to be printed onto invoices and statements.
Phone
and complete address must be entered if you choose online payment. (Hopefully, you will not often be
paying your customers, but vendor names have a similar record.)
TIP
The Address
boxes work a little differently. Pressing
Tab
moves the action on to the next box. Pressing
Enter
moves the insertion point to the next address line, which brings up an important point.
Tab is not the
only way to move around transactions. You have the option of using the
Enter
key. The choice is made in
Preferences, either General or
Data Entry, by selecting
Pressing Enter moves between fields.
If this is not selected, Enter
records the information in this window. If moving with
Enter is set up, Control-Enter
will record it.
Do you want to use Enter
to move between fields? People converting from the DOS version may XE "Enter
key:moves between fields" think it is imperative, but there is another side to it. Starting with QuickBooks 5,
there is a bad side to this feature. In the invoice
Description field, pressing Enter
gets you to another line of
description. Only Tab will move you to the next field. A QuickBooks seminar leader summed this up saying
“The Tab key is your friend.”
Clicking the
Additional Info
tab brings the next screen.
Type
XE "type:customer" XE "additional info:customer" may be selected from the pull-down list.
Type
provides an additional label on each transaction involving this customer, which may be used in reporting. A
Customer Type or a Job Type
will be needed, depending on the type of record.
Some reports may be sorted or selected by
Type,
but assume nothing. By entering a few records and then
running the desired report, you ascertain what QuickBooks can do, and confirm that the reporting system will
deliver what you want.
Types may have sub-types, to four levels.
Terms
field sets the default for this customer, which will appear on invoices and estimates. As a default value,
terms may be changed on the invoice.
Terms may be selected from the list of terms, where the visible text is cosmetic. The numbers behind the text
control what happens. The list of terms may be edited under
Lists|Other Lists|Terms.
In response to user suggestions (emphatic suggestions,) QuickBooks 5 handles terms including fractional percentages.
Rep
takes initials from the employee records (Chapter 12) which also become a default on the invoice.
Credit Limit
sets a warning level for new invoices. The program allows you to override the warning and
extend credit beyond the limit.
Sales Tax Information
should be completed for all customers if sales tax is set active for your company
(File|Preferences|Sales Tax.
) This must be done before preparing invoices for customers, but it can be
done any time before invoicing.
Tax item
associates any state, provincial, or local sales taxes with the location of this customer. Enter this for
all customers, since most jurisdictions require reporting of non-taxable sales.
Customer is taxable
must be checked if this customer has to pay sales tax.
Resale number
may also contain a tax-exemption number.
Opening balance
will generate an invoice to undocumented income. It is better left at zero. The opening
balance may be generated, under your control, by preparing an opening balance invoice.
Define fields
allows implementation of custom fields.
Job Info
screen accepts information for job tracking.
The information in these blanks can be retrieved in the Job Administration Report and other job tracking
reports.
Job status
can show one of five states, which can have either the default names, or user selected names. To
set up other names for the states, click
File|Preferences|Jobs& Estimates.
This view, and the next, are from QuickBooks 4. QuickBooks 5 handles the same information, in different
windows.
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