QuickBooks Online 2021 accounts receivable, beginning balance and new customers. Let’s get into it with Intuit QuickBooks Online 2021. Here we are in our get great guitars practice file, we’re going to be focusing in on the beginning balance of accounts receivable and adding new customers. So there’s basically two goals that we have here, one getting that beginning balance in place, and to adding those new customers onto which we can then create invoices and whatnot as we move forward in the company file.
00:31
Going over to our beginning balance worksheet over here, we’re imagining we got these numbers from another system, our old accounting system these days are beginning starting point that we’re going to put in there as of December 31 2020, start the new accounting system from this point forward as of January 1 2021. This is our beginning balance for the accounts receivable 20,500. In order to enter the beginning balance properly into QuickBooks, QuickBooks basically will not let us enter that balance with just a journal entry unless we assign a customer. So we’re forced to assign some customers that will add up to that 20,500.
01:09
As we do that, we also want to focus in on just simply adding customers, which is also something that we’re going to need to do when we just start up our new company file. The amount of detail we need in the QuickBooks system related to customers will depend on the type of industry that we are in. If we have a customer, a couple customers that we really do a lot of business with, we want to make sure that we have all their contact information and maybe even like personal information and whatnot, so that we can communicate with them as efficiently as possible. So we’re going to do those two things as we add this in.
01:40
Remember that our system for entering the beginning balances will be with regards to accounts receivable, we’ll just add them for the particular customers, QuickBooks will then populate this amount for us. The other side, QuickBooks will put to some equity account or some income account, possibly income, because it’s probably going to generate like a receivable type form, or it might, because that’s the form typically used to increase the revenue, which means it might hit the income statement. But because we’re entering it as of the first day of a prior year, it’ll still roll into the equity section, which is fine.
02:14
Once the equity section is all done with all these accounts and has been hit by all these accounts, then we can just adjust the equity section. That’s our objective. Okay, so then our accounts receivable information is going to be here. Now I’ve provided this if you’re working with us, we’ve provided this Excel worksheet, or you could just type out this information, if you so choose, the main information is going to be the name, and first name, last name. And then the amounts over here, the 5000, the seven, five and the 8000. Those are what’s going to add up to our beginning balance here, which is the 20,500. So there’s the 20,500.
02:51
Obviously, if you have a list of your customer information that you might have from some other database source, you could probably export it to excel. And if you could do that, then we can enter this information with an upload type of feature in a similar way as we did with the items as we do so we want to kind of line up the headers as best we can. So that it’ll line up to when we upload it. Although once again, we’ll shoot have that matching kind of system that will help us out to map this thing out. So let’s go and check it out. Let’s go back on over.
03:22
Now if I go then to the there’s a couple ways that we can upload information. So remember, you could go to the the icon up here in the cog, and then we can go to import data. So if you import data, we have the customers here, but I think most people would probably go to the sales tab on the left hand side. So let’s do that. Let’s go to the sales tab on the left hand side, we go to the customers up top. So we have our customers up top, we have our one customer because we just entered the practice customer here. And then if you were entering one customer at a time, you can just say new customer, and then enter one customer at a time.
03:59
You can see there’s a lot of data here, we got the address tab, the notes, the tax information, and so on and so forth. But all we really need to process an invoice is the customer name. And if you want to email it to them, you need the email address, if you’re going to send it to them, you need the mailing address, right. But if you want you know, depending on the customer, you might want a lot more information. So you have their contact information and all that kind of stuff. So there’s a whole lot of fields that we could populate, but only a few Fuze fields that we absolutely need to are required to populate.
04:35
So there’s an Asterix right here for required field that we have, right. So I’m going to close that back out. Now if we have a list of items like we do here from another contact source and we want to add all of those customers in at one time, it would be quite tedious for us to do that one at a time. So we’re going to try the import team feature here. Then we will add new customers kind of one at a time as we go in a future time. Note also that if you’re adding customers As you go, like if you’re in like a store or something like that, and you have customers similar to a register situation, when you create a sales receipt, you can add the customer as you go, you can just simply add the customer, and then create the sales receipt.
05:13
And you might not need much information if you’re not doing repeat business with that person. And then you could just you can generate customers basically, as you go. And you can do that with the invoice form as well. But like I said, if you have a list of customers already, and we want those customers and the detail for them in the database program, then you’re going to want to, you know, import that customer information and set it up, well set it up properly.
05:36
So we can send them our newsletters, and tell them all the good stuff and how we’re saving the world and everything. So then let’s go ahead and import this thing. So I’m gonna go to the import, let’s go to the import customers and see what that looks like. So I hit the drop down, then import, we have the same process we saw with the items where we have the upload, then we map and then we import.
05:55
Let’s look at the fields here, I’m going to download the example file just like we did before, download the example file and see what that looks like. So here’s the example file. So the headers, the headers are what we’re really looking for here. So what I’m going to try to do is copy our information into this one, I’m going to enable the editing, I’m going to remove this bottom column and just delete that. And then I’ll keep the data up top. And I’ll try to just mirror what we have on our so I’ll just copy it over here.
06:29
So I’m going to say. So we’ve got the name and then the company over here, what I really want to be populating is going to be the company name is what I would like to be populating. And then the contact information would be the contact information here. So I’m actually going to be copying the company name and see if we could simply add that as the field that we want to be sorting by.
06:49
So I’m going to go back on over here and say I want the company name, I’m going to pull this down a little bit, I’ll pull it down right here, I’m just going to kind of mirror what we have up top and see if we can just enter this information into this template. And then I’ll delete the data up top, which we don’t need the main number. So I’m going to say first name, last name, company name, that’s what we really want here. And then we’re going to say the main number, I’m going to pick up the main number and put that over here.
07:17
So the main number is going to be the phone number, I’ll put that here. So I’ll make this a little bit larger. And then we have the address. Now here’s where the problem is. So if I copy these addresses, we have this problem because if I bring them over to the formatting that they have set up for us, they’ve broken out the street, the city, and so on. And if I have my data, I have everything in one area. So if I paste that here, then we have everything included.
07:47
Now there’s you can use some Excel formulas to kind of pull this out. But I’m just gonna do you know, copy and paste here. So if you have this situation, you want to look at tricky Excel formulas to basically take the full Date field and break it out to street, city, state. And zip, there’s some nice techniques to do that. But again, for me, I’m just going to go ahead and say,
08:09
All right, I’m just gonna, gonna cut this amount. And I’m going to put this here. So this is going to be then there. And then I’m going to do the same thing here, I’m going to cut this out. And I want California. So I’m going to cut that and put that there. And then the zip code, I’m going to cut that out and put that there.
08:33
So we’ve broken that one out, this one will do the same thing, get rid of the comma, I’m going to cut this Ctrl x, paste it there, then I’m going to do it again, I’m going to get rid of the comma, and then Ctrl x, I’m going to put that there, double click here, I’m going to take this Ctrl x and put it there. So there we have that and then we’ll do this one more time. So here and I’m going to take this when I cut this and put it there, and then double click here, I’m going to delete that, cut this and put it there.
09:11
And then do it one more time taking this and cut that and put it there. Now once again, if this was really long amount of data, that would be a tedious thing to do. But and you can look up other techniques to make that a little bit faster. But I’ll do that for now. And then in Excel Excel techniques, and then the email address, I’ll copy the email address over. So we’ll pick that up. And let’s put that here somewhere. That’s the website, where’s the email address, got to have an email address.
09:44
There it is. email address. And then we have the beginning balance and the as of date. So I’ll take the beginning balances then and those need to go In the beginning balance, which is going to be here, and then the as of date, pick that up, it’s going to be here last day of the prior period. And we will put that then there is a resale number, I’m not going to include that. And the fax in the mobile, and I’m not including the name, because I really want the company name there, and the other one being the contact within it. So now I’m going to go ahead and delete these cells up top.
10:31
I’m going to delete these. And so we just have our data in it, then I’m going to save this, I’m going to go to File Save As, and let’s save this to our location. So I’m going to go to the desktop, we’re going to find my folder, and it’s quickbooks online customer file. Let’s do that. Okay, I’ll do that. I’ll get rid of the sample. So I’m going to save it as an XLS. Type file. And I’m going to change it to to a modern one, the current one, which is an XLS. x file, I’ll save it there.
11:05
And then I’m also going to save it as a CSV file, which will remove kind of the formatting in Excel, I’m going to delete these two tabs to delete these two tabs. So that doesn’t confuse things. And then I’m going to file save as and a CSV file. So I’m going to save as a CSV file, which should strip the formatting. So just a CSV type of file. And that should make it less likely to confuse QuickBooks when we upload it.
11:35
And so there that is, now let’s, let’s take a look at it if I was to open the CSV file, so let’s close this one out. I’m going to close this for now. And just look at it in CSV file format. So now we got QuickBooks Online customers, it looks a little bit different than the icon. If I open that up, then you it’ll look very plain. So we got rid of all the all the added detailed data. And so then I still have these three items down below, these should not be there. I’m going to delete that and save that.
12:08
So we’ll save that. And then let’s just open it again, make sure that saved. So open that one more time. And so that looks good, right? That looks good, doesn’t it? I think it does. So let’s close this out, and then import it. So I’m going to close this out, I’m going to copy the location that it’s at. And I’m going to import it now to QuickBooks. So we’re back to QuickBooks, I’m going to say drop down in the new customer, import customers. And then I’m going to browse for that file, I just copied the location. So now I’m going to put that location up top.
12:45
And so it’s right where we need to be and we want the QuickBooks Online customers in the CSV, which is down here with a dot CSV at the bottom. So I’m going to pick that one up to clean that up. And then I’m going to continue down below, we’re going to go through the mapping section. So notice, we don’t have a name field here, because I didn’t put the name field and it’s saying, hey, it wants a name. Let’s put I’m gonna put the company name up top again, because I wanted to sort by the company. That’s why I’m doing that.
13:16
So I’m gonna have the company name, which is in there twice. But I’ll keep that for now. We got the email, the phone number, we don’t have a mobile fax, don’t have website we don’t have that’s fine. The street is picking up correctly. Now city state, the zip code looks good country opening balance has been picked up. And then the opening balance date, which I just put date, I think that’s fine, tax resale number we don’t have and customer type we don’t have. So that’s good.
13:45
Let’s say next. And then here’s our information. So Anderson guitars company is the same. So I’m going to have those two the same to make sure that we’re sorting by that that item that the company name, email address, phone number Street. So everything looks good to me. I’m just going to click on this for the date. It doesn’t let it wants the dashes. So it wants the year, month, date, year month date. So I’m going to say 2020. And then month is 31. date is going day. It wants the month which is 12 dash D which is 31. So let’s copy that.
14:30
See if it will accept that will you accept that. So there’s the format and that formatting we should probably put if we put that in the Excel sheet at the beginning, we won’t have to deal with that. fixing it here. And then we’re going to go ahead and import it. So three of three customers successfully imported. That’s good news. Good news. So there we have them. We’ve got Anderson guitars, Jones guitars, and then Smith guitars. Now we have the beginning balances that are shown on the right hand side and then if I to open up one of those items, we can see the detail here.
15:03
Notice what it did with the detail is it entered an invoice, we didn’t enter an invoice, it made the invoice, because that’s the form that usually increases the accounts receivable. So that’s how it put in the beginning balance. And then if I edit it, just to check it out and put Anderson guitars in the name and the first and last name here. Now note in our original data, we had a first and last name field. But if I was to enter the first and last name field like Joe Anderson, then it would have picked it up as like if I said Joe Anderson here, it may have picked it up as the display name down below.
15:40
So that’s what I wanted to kind of avoid. By doing that I wanted to sort by the by the company name, so you can then put your contact, maybe the contact information up top, and then make sure that your sorting option your display option is displaying in the way that you would like it to display down below. Or else you can put the name if it’s not your primary contact up top possibly into like the notes you could say we deal with Anderson guitars.
16:03
And in the notes you can talk say who the Who are the people at Anderson guitars that that you deal with or something like that. But in any case, I’m going to save this out. And now this has been inputted into the system, it’s going to affect the financials as well. So I’m going to right click on the tab up top, I’m going to duplicate the tab and let’s check out the effect on the financials by going then first to the balance sheet because our objective was to enter this beginning balance to 20,500. Let’s see if that did indeed happened by going to the reports reports on the left hand side.
16:36
And then we’re going to open up our favorite report that being the balance sheet report. Opening up the balance sheet report and date change arrange change up top I’m going to go to period we’re going to be working on which is Oh 101212 1231 to one, run that report, we’re going to close up the hamburger up top hold down Control zoom in just a bit to that 125. And there’s that 20,500 in accounts receivable, just as we were hoping and knew that we just knew that it was going to work.
17:06
So there it is, and it happened in the prior year. So I’m going to change the date to 2020 up top in the beginning. So we could see the detail. And notice what it did it made three invoices and we didn’t make any invoices, QuickBooks Made the invoices by us entering that beginning balance, and then it put the memo of opening balance. So if I open up the invoice, let’s see what it looks like. It’s not going to take us to that data input screen where we actually entered these amounts, but to an invoice the other side they put to an item called product and service or hourly.
17:39
So it just picked an hourly item and took it to here. So what’s this invoice actually gonna do? Well, it’s an invoice so it would typically increase accounts receivable, that’s what we want, what’s an invoice, usually doing the other side, go to income, we don’t want it to go to income, you know, we want it to go to like the equity section. So let’s see what happened there. If I go back up top.
17:59
Now, it’s not a problem for us because it went into equity, which then rolled into the balance sheet here. So in other words, if I duplicate this tab up top, and let’s look at the income statement. So I’m going to duplicate this tab and go let’s look at the profit and loss report the P and L, the the income statement and scroll on down to the P and L report. We’ll do the range change up top this time looking at 2020.
18:26
So I’m gonna go oh 101 to zero to 1231 to zero, run that report, close the burger up top a hamburger? And there it is it put it to services up top, you know like Well, I didn’t want it to go to services, right? I didn’t I mean, I just wanted to put it on the balance sheet, the other side’s gonna go to equity eventually. But if I go back, it’s not really a problem because it put it to services back in 2020, which is before the point in time that we’re gonna be doing data input.
18:53
We’re gonna be doing data input in our new system as of 2021, January 1 2021. If you want to know what happened before January 1 2021, we’ve got the beginning balances as of January 1 2021, in our system, but if you want to know the detail, you got to go back to the prior accounting system. This data has nothing to do with this accounting system. It’s just what we needed to do to be in balance. And if you go to the current time period that we’re going to be working in which is 2021. Then it’s if we have no activity yet, which is what we want.
19:29
So if I go to 2021, it goes away it goes to zero. Why did it go away because it rolled over into the into the balance sheet. So the profit and loss the performance report is back outs at zero but the odometer is reset to zero for the starting point of when we’re going to use this accounting system which starts January 1 2021. And the balance sheet is correct for the accounts receivable and the balance that was going to income account because they made an invoice but we entered it in the prior year rolled into equity, it rolled into retained earnings.
20:04
So in other words, if I take this back to the prior year, like if I take this back to Oh 101 to zero to 1231 to zero and run that report, the income statement rolled into net into the equity in net income, and it shows you the net income. But then if you go into the next year, the year that we’re working on that rolls into retained earnings, so then if I change this to a 101, to one to 1231, to one, and run that report, now it’s in retained earnings, that’s where we want it to be as long as it fell out to equity. That’s our plan. And then once we do all these beginning balances, everything else will wash out into equity,
20:45
I don’t care if it washes out into equity by first go into the income statement in the prior period, which I don’t care about, because it’s going to roll into equity. Or if it goes straight to equity in this account that they made up the opening balance equity, it doesn’t matter as long as total equity is correct as of the starting point of the year that we are working in. And then we’ll just adjust the equity account to whatever it should be in accordance with whatever type of business we are in, like a sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation will just adjust the equity accounts.
21:15
And that’ll be the last thing that we do. So in other words, everything is proceeding forward as planned. Also note that you might want to like work with this with a trial balance, I’m going to open up one other report and and we’re going to try to print this trial balance report after each presentation so that you can use it to check your work. And I highly recommend like working with the trial balance as you do data input and getting used to this report because it’s a lot easier to look at, than always open up the the balance sheet and the income statement. And let’s just see why we’ll see why as we go. So I’ll try to start weaving in the trial balance here.
21:55
If you if you look at the trial balance. Notice we just got these these few accounts here. And it’s just the balance sheet on top of the income statement even though it has debits and credits, and that could be a little confusing, the subtotals are all gone. So it’s a lot faster thing to look at. So I can see the same thing here. If I was to say, Oh 101 to zero to 1231 to zero, run that report, you can see now that 20,500 is on an income statement account revenue.
22:22
And then when I go to the following period, it’ll roll into retained earnings, it the service revenue will be gone. So if I go up and say, Oh 101212 1231 to one, then now we only have balance sheet accounts there are no income statement accounts because they closed out this would be kind of like a post closing trial balance after the closing process or all income accounts have rolled into it from the prior year and 2020 rolled in. So we just basically have the balance sheet. So I’ll try to print these trial balances after most of the presentation so you can see the impact. Before and after each presentation.