Cannot associate an item with receivable account? Suggestions? FS ramifications?

(sorry for the long post...)

QB Premier Accountant Ed 2008

Background: my client...mom and pop oil and fuel retail company.....shifting accounting software to QB.

When the client purchases oil, diesel, and other gas products, they are charged federal and state excise taxes at various rates depending on the jurisdiction and product. All products except one have tax of some sort attached, and usually multiple tax items.
When the client sells the above products, some customers are exempt from the federal tax, some from the state tax, some from both, and some from none.
The client files monthly for a refund of those taxes paid above and beyond what is sold to taxable customers. This equates to a refund of thousands of dollars each month from both the state and the fed.

In the client's previous software setup, we had an "item" for each product and then an item for each tax. So at the purchase, there would be a debit to Fuels Excise Tax Receivable account. Then, upon sale, there would be a credit to the same Receivable account when sold to a non-exempt customer. Obviously, the resulting receivable account balance would be the amount due to the client as a refund for overpayment of excise tax.

In QB, each excise tax is set up as a non-inventory item. But evidently QB will not allow us to associate it with the receivable account - at least, that's what he error says when we try to do so. First question: why won't QB allow it? Something to do with the way it processes receivables?

I'm tempted to simply change the account type of the Excise Tax Receivable account to that of an Inventory account. But I plan to set up Financial Statements to print from within QB, and I don't know anything about the FS editing module of QB 2008. Basically, I'm afraid that the Excise Tax account will be "forever" associated with the Inventory accounts - and that wouldn't be good. In that case, I'll need a different workaround.

So.......anybody have experience financial statement editing module within QB2008? Would I be able to manipulate the grouping of Inventory accounts in order to exclude the Excise Tax Receivable account - even if it has an Inventory type?

Any input and/or suggestions appreciated.

~bill in tx

Yes it won't let you point them at a receivable account only an expense or income account. You can point them at many other types of G/L accounts (assets, liabilities, cash).

Not 100% sure but you might see if you set these up as "sales taxes" rather than non-inventory items and associate them with different "sales tax vendors" (your previous A/R's) and create credit memos when you get those statements. Your customer balances will be correct and you can create reports for each different tax this way. Not sure it will fill your specific bill though.

If you have to use different A/R's then you will have to be picking which A/R to use at the top of the invoice. Maybe this is what you are looking for or perhaps using sub A/R's.

Gary