A non-profit client used QuickBooks for its bookkeeping.  The client had funds were invested in a brokerage account and wanted to be able to record dividend income, brokerage fees and unrealized gains or losses on the account in QuickBooks.

Tracking the individual stocks and mutual funds in QB wasn’t necessary for this client; the Board of Directors just wanted to be able to see the overall income and expenses in their monthly reports.

This could be done with either a journal entry or a zero-sum check, which will be shown here.  A zero-sum check serves the same purpose as a journal entry, and, as the name states, has a total value of zero.

Here are the steps:

1.  Create a new BANK type account named “Journal Entries,” which will be used as the account on which zero-sum checks are written and as the first line in — you guessed it — all journal entries.

2.  Create an “Other Income” type account named “Unrealized Gains or (Losses)” and and “Other Expense” type account named  “Brokerage Fees and Charges.”

3.  Create a vendor to  use on the checks.  This will allow you to create reports by vendor.  On our sample check, we used “Investment Income.”

4.  Using the current month brokerage statement, determine the dividend income, brokerage fees, and unrealized gain or loss to the account, allocating each properly to the specific funds, if applicable.  Our TEST Non-Profit  Foundation has two funds that are sub-accounts under the “parent” brokerage account. Income and expenses are allocated by percentage to those sub-accounts.

5.  Go to BANKING> Write Checks.  A check form will open.  In the BANK ACCOUNT field at the top of the form,  select the Journal Entries account.  Enter a check number using any numbering system of your choice.  Our sample check uses the date of the statement followed by BRO for brokerage.   The amount will be 0.00.

6.  On the EXPENSES tab on the “stub” section of the check, record the dividend income, Brokerage Fees, and Unrealized Gains or Losses, allocating the amounts to the various funds on the second line so that the amount “zeroes out.”

The graphic is a bit small so here is a close-up of the dividend income section:

Posting unrealized gains or losses can be a bit tricky, so here is a mnemonic to help:

The total amount of an unrealized gain is posted as a negative number of the “unrealized gain/loss” account (Other Income type account), and as (a) positive number(s) to the various sub-accounts that make up the brokerage account in the non-profit’s QuickBooks file.  This increases the amounts in the sub-accounts.

The total amount of an unrealized loss is posted as a positive number to the “unrealized gain/loss” account and as negative numbers to the various brokerage sub-accounts. This lowers the amounts in the sub-accounts.

Nothing is posted to the “parent” brokerage account.    Here is a close-up of that section of the zero-sum check stub:

Running a Profit and Loss Report dated prior to the brokerage statement and after the brokerage statement shows the effect that the entries have on the “unrealized gains or losses” and “brokerage account fees and charges” accounts.

I hope this is helpful.

Wishing you a happy and prosperous day.

Patti Killelea-Almonte

If a business with multiple locations is using QuickBooks classes to track income and expenses between the locations, sometimes deposits or checks are posted to the wrong class.  For instance, in our sample two-location company, all deposits have been posted to one location, which skews the Profit and Loss Report by Class, as shown below.

The report above would lead a reader to think that the Kapolei Clinic wasn’t making any money at all, which is incorrect.  That clinic has actually made $15,000 during the reporting period, so we need to correct our records to show the correct allocation of income.

Therefore, we need to move $15,000 to the Kapolei Clinic’s income.  There are two ways to do this: the first — and probably most familiar method — is to use a journal entry. Go to COMPANY > MAKE GENERAL JOURNAL ENTRIES, and the General Journal Entry window opens.

Use the “Journal Entries” account as the first line of the journal entry to ensure that it will be easy to find in the Journal Entries “bank” account register later.

On the next line, choose the appropriate income account – in this case 43700 – Fee for Service Income –  to debit (which moves money OUT of the acount) and select the “Kaneohe  Clinic” class.  On the next line, you’ll credit the same income account but choose the “Kapolei Clinic” class.

Click SAVE AND CLOSE.  Running a Profit and Loss By Class Report now will show income  allocated properly to each location.

I hope this is helpful.

Wishing you a happy and prosperous day.

Patti Killelea-Almonte

When working in QuickBooks, using combinations of keys to access various functions can be a time-saver.  Here are some keyboard shortcuts for QuickBooks for Mac users.

I hope you find these helpful.

Wishing you happinesss and prosperity.

Patti Killelea-Almonte

I recently did some consulting for a client who uses Quicken for her rental property management business.  Although I favor QuickBooks, the client has her reasons for using Quicken, and it’s her business.

In order to ensure that reconciling her bank account in Quicken to the bank statement goes well, I set up a clearing account (bank type account) for her.  It will function almost like QuickBooks’ Undeposited Funds account would — as a temporary place to hold the funds until she goes to the bank.

When renters’ checks for security deposits and/or monthly rent arrive, she can post them to the clearing account individually.  Let’s say she gets to the bank once per week.  When she goes to the bank, she simply transfers all funds from the clearing account to the operations checking account, and VOILA! the amount transferred should match her bank statement amounts.

Here are the specific instructions:

1. Open the account from which you want to transfer money.  If you set up your Quicken 2014 Rental Property Manager file with a CLEARING ACCOUNT as explained above,  you’ll use that.
2. Click the Account Actions icon (the UPPER of the two gear icons, which is highlighted in yellow in the screen shot below), and then choose Transfer Money.

3.  The “Transfer Money Within Quicken” window opens.

4.  Enter the date, and the amount of the transaction

5.  Verify the account from which you’re transferring money, the source account.

6.  Select the account into which you’re transferring money (the destination account).  If you want to transfer money to an account that you haven’t previously set up in Quicken, click Add New Account in the To Account list.

You can’t include a transfer and a category in the same Category field, but you can tag the transfer.

7.   Enter a memo for the transfer — for example, “January rental income.” (This step is optional.)

8.   Click OK.  When you use this procedure, your checking account in Quicken will be easy to reconcile to your bank account statement.

I hope you’ll find this helpful.

Wishing you a happy and prosperous day.

Patti Killelea-Almonte