how can I transfer $ from one class to another?

Balance sheet accounts don't have classes. Because they don't have classes you can't transfer period.

What you might do is create sub accounts in the bank account.

sub accounts? Are these similar to the same 'accounts' as Office expense, auto milage, etc. Or would the sub accounts be different?

If I did create sub accounts, would I be able to assign an expenditure to > > I created the initial quickbook file with a class for each business

Classes exist for accounts that print on the P&L, they do not exist for accounts that print on the balance sheet.

An account is something that is listed in your chart of accounts.

Any account can have sub accounts. The main account is the total of the sub accounts plus any entries to the main account (other on reports). Sub accounts can have sub accounts.

How you set up your chart of accounts is something you should ask your accountant. Done wrong it will cost you 10X to fix it later.

You asked about a cash (bank) account. 1000 Petty Cash $200 1001 Petty Cash - Location A $10 1002 Petty Cash - Location B $20 1003 Petty Cash - Location C $30 1004 Petty Cash - Home Office $40 petty cash - other $100

That's how it might look. You'll have to decide what works for you and I suggest you talk to your accountant NOW.

10 to 1 you will be using both classes and sub-accounts, or decide you don't need to track balance sheet accounts by location and go with classes only.

Lets see if I understand. If I have one bank account where all the income is deposited into and all the expenses are paid from I may still need to have a combination of class & subaccounts to keep things straight?

I was using quicken, and had one main checking, one main savings, and then a checking account for each of the outlying businesses. So I'd write a check from the main check account to pay the bill for outlying business location A and then copy that transaction to the business A's account. Same thing for deposits, I'd put it in the main acct and then copy it to the outlying location acct.

This allowed transfer of funds from the main account to the outlying location account, but reduced the main checking an raised the outlying loctation... when in reality the $ was still in the main account.

I figured setting up quickbooks with one checking and one savings would fix this by using an assigned class for each deposit and expense, then I could pull a monthly report to see the 'total' for the classes, which would reflect the 'split' of the main bank account associated with each outlying location.

I have setup the chart of accounts to reflect something like:

Expenditures: Inventory purchase: hats shirts pants shoes Office printer paper printer ink misc Income: Inventory sales hats shirts pants shoes Other income donations misc

So for each transaction I've been selecting one of the accounts from the chart of accounts, and then selecting the outlying location from the class list.

But now I want to close down one of the outlying locations and bring their portion of the funds into the main account and have that class reflect a 'zero balance'.

not sure how...

the idea of subaccounts, one for each outlying locaiton would not really improve things from the way I was doing it in Quicken, I'd still need to do two entries; one for main acct, and one for the other acct? or am I misunderstanding?

mr.

From what I am reading below I see an unholly mess. You appear to be going out of your way to make things as complex as they can possibly be. Call your accountant or a QB consultant to help set up your books. KISS is the word of the day.

So putting a class to every transaction, but deposits and expenses will not allow a report to be pulled that will show the 'balance' by class, or a transaction summary by class?

I agree, keep it simple, which is why I'm moving away from a really messy excel spreadsheet, which had one 'tab' for each location, as well as one 'tab' for each inventory item. The excel file was huge! It took forever to figureout inventory, individual balances, etc. Each check regsiter item was copied to the outlying unit 'tab'.

So I moved to Quicken, with multiple accounts, one for each unit, created 'categories' for the expenses, and copied each checkbook regsiter transaction to the unit register too.

I'd pull a report for the bank accts only by selecting them. I'd pull a report for total funds in outlying unit accts. The two report balances should match, otherwise a transaction was not copied from one to the other. Once they matched, I'd share the unit balances with the unit reps, so they would know how much of the 'pie' they had to work with.

Inventory in Quicken is not possible, so I'm moving over to Quickbooks. I set up the outlying units as 'classes' and planned to use that rather than copying each transaction to a unit register, but now I'm finding that I cannot easily pull a report that shows how much of the 'pie' each outlying unit has.

I guess I'll need to do the multiple accounts or the sub-account to the main checking account as someone else mentioned already. pretty strange.

mr

expenditure

What exactly is a unit?

First, I wonder whether you have been going through more steps than you needed to in Quicken. Have you ever run the Balance Sheet, toggling "show Account Detail"? That gives you a breakdown of balance sheet accounts by class, but the total is your "actual" bank or other account balance. When you pay your bill for Business A, as long as you include the class on the transaction, this report will show updated bank balance for "classA". To transfer a 'class balance', just do a transfer from the bank to itself, using Class as you wish. (You can do it as two transactions - showing transfer from "classA" to main, and then from main to "classB", or you can use a split transaction, so that net is zero, for example credit Bank/classA, debit Bank/classB.)

Disadvantage to this? You can't drill down on the balance sheet report. However, for transaction reports, you will be able to see the category:class, and can subtotal by class if you wish.

I haven't been able to find anything in Quickbooks that has classes show on balance sheet reports, but you get a similar result using subaccounts as someone (GCG?) suggested, without having to make two entries. Your physical cheque withdraws from your "main" bank account - but if you enter it correctly using the subaccount, most balance sheet[1] and transaction reports should subtotal as you specified. Only one entry required!

I would suggest you first make one (or more) backup copies of your data file, and then 'play around' to see if you can get all that you need out of it using subaccounts.

[1] The Summary balance sheet does *not* show subaccount amounts.

I see you've more recently posted that you've left Quicken because it won't do inventory, so the first part of my post is moot. I haven't tested the Quickbooks with inventory subaccounts, but it looks like you can save reports with selected subaccounts that will produce 'location unit' balance sheets.

Hope this helps, vcard

Expenses are not balance sheet accounts, they show on the P&L. Expense can be tracked by class.

Deposits (usually a transfer between the undeposited funds account and your bank account) are balance sheet accounts, they show on the balance sheet not the P&L. Deposits as such can't be tracked by class.

Sales Receipts, Invoices, are not balance sheet accounts, they show on the P&L. Income can be tracked by class.

I see you mentioned inventory in another post. That is a royal PITA in any Intuit product. It is possible to track inventory between multiple locations in SlowBooks, but I urge you to find a Certified Pro Adviser to help you set this up correctly and not put excess detail in it.

I also agree with Allan, you are doing way to much extra work trying to class everything! I also see a lot of Quicken thinking in what you are trying to do. SlowBooks isn't Quicken, it is real accounting software. You are going to have to unlearn a couple of kludges you needed to use in Quicken to do what you want, one being using extra accounts for everything. One of the most important things you need to unlearn is deposits being of any importance. In SlowBooks the Quicken deposit is replaced with an Invoice and a Receive Payment function. Same thing on the payable side, Enter Bills and Pay Bills.

No. Depends on what you want to see on which report.

When you say you had a checking account for an outlying business do you mean you had a register in Quicken or an account at a real bank?

When you say outlying business, do you mean a completely separate business? e.g. pool supplies, pet store, clothing store, shoe store. Or do you mean different branches of the same store?

Why? What did this gain you?

A bank account is a bank account. I suggested sub accounts of the bank account but I can't for the life of me see why you care once the money is in the bank which store made which particular $ in the bank account. I've seen sub accounts used for things like set asides for payroll or sales tax payments so the owner won't spend money that will be needed elsewhere, but never for locations unless they were actual separate bank accounts.

no No NO! Inventory purchase isn't an expenditure. It doesn't become an expense until you sell the item. Until it is sold it is still an asset (inventory asset account) of the business and belongs on the balance sheet. When you sell it, it goes into your Cost of Goods Sold account(s).

So far you haven't mentioned your item list. Items are the real power of SlowBooks as long as you don't abuse them. Set up right SlowBooks can tell you how many 10 Gallon hats you sold at each location. Again I urge you to see a Certified Pro Adviser to help you set this up.

The improvement is to abandon the kludge way Quicken makes you set stuff up.

But you do misunderstand. Quicken doesn't have sub accounts so you have to make two entries. Using a sub account you can transfer from one sub to another in a single transaction. It will put two entries into the main account and one each in the sub accounts. It is actually only one double entry transaction, but depending on which register you look at you may only see part of it. [I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but I using Quicken like thinking for him to understand it. I know SlowBooks is pure double entry.]

Then again maybe something wasn't noticed. Besides the locations as subs, you also need a sub for the backroom, the catchall. If you work this right, the total balance of the subs is the total in the main account. When that's not the case you have some other money somehow in the main account they should have been put into a sub. Also you can make deposits into and write checks out of the subs.

Wow, that's a first! Actually agreeing with moi. As far as tracking and costing inventory with multiple locations in QB forget about it. If this is a must have feature then QB should not even be considered. What we have is an example of an OP who believes they will find a Coop Deville in the bottom of a Cracker Jacks box.

In the excel spread sheet a 'unit' was what was used to describe the other locations, unit A, unit B, etc. I should have mentioned that, while it is essentially the same as location A and locatin B, I should have noticed how easily it would be for confusion.

From reading other posts, I think I'll try copying the file I have and working with a 'dummy' file for a while to see better how things interact. I think the sub-accounts of the main account will work.

Only one location has inventory to track, other units may buy shirts, hats, but give them away. We're a non-profit group, and the money comes into one account, is then shared with the outlying locations and only one location (mine) has inventory that is purchased and resold with a markup. We do not have any professional accountants, just me with my Quicken background. I took over and found the excel spreadsheet with lots of 'tabs' to be very confusing and difficult to do any actual tracking of anything. Thus the switch to Quicken, and now to Quickbooks... looking for a more effective way to track the money and inventory.

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We're a non-profit group, with no professional accountant. We receive funds into one actaul bank account, and the $ each quarter is shared with outlying locations for spending, and outlying locations send some $ back to me for depositing into the actual bank account & into their portion of the account.

Only one location (mine) has any physical inventory that is purchased, shelved, & sold at a later date with a markup. The other locations spend their share of the money, via me sending the vendor a check directly or reimbursing one of their people for the expense. All income & expenses are done with the one physical bank account.

It is looking more like my years of using Quicken needs to be unlearned, and subaccounts may function better overall than using classes.

So end goal would be this:

Track deposits and expenses for one physical bank account. (checking). Split the main bank account funds somehow to allow outlying units transactions to be tracked. Track inventory for one location only. Ability to 'transfer' money from an outlying location to the main account and vice versa.

Reports desired: Ability to see deposits and expenses overall Ability select an outlying location and see deposits and expenses & 'balance' for the outlying unit's portion of the main account. Inventory purchases, sales, cost of goods, etc.

Would using subaccounts allow the above end state?

I'll copy my file for a 'working copy' and play with the features of sub acocunts and see if that will function & provide the above. Comments are appreciated. I'm certainly learning that Quicken has a different way of thinking as compared to Quickbooks. :)

mr.

NO! NO! I said ping pong balls not King Kong's balls.

When I asked what a unit was I was refering to what it represented in real life. For example a separate corporation, a separate partnership or LLC or simply a separtate division of a single business entity.

Trying to figure out how to do something is sometimes less important than asking why do it in the first place.

It's possible to track and cost inventory at multiple locations in SlowBooks. It isn't pretty and you can't have very many things to track. When he hears from the Pro Adviser that something in the $20K range is what he needs to do it, he just may decide that he doesn't need to do it as it isn't really giving him information he needs.

There were separate registers in quicken for each outlying unit, not subaccounts of the main bank account register. I didn't see that as an option like Quickbooks offers.

This transfer allowed me to pull a report for the outlying unit register and share their 'balance' with them so they knew how much they could spend out of the main physical account.

Makes sense, and quickbooks seems to resolve the issue. That was a hold over from me trying to use quicken to track my expenses for inventory, etc.

I'll remove those inventory purhcase accounts from the chart of accounts and use only the asset & COGS accounts.

Only one of our locations has inventory that is purchased, held, and sold for a profit. The other locations just spend their non-profit money on fun stuff or get donations in, which are deposited into the main physical bank account, and refected on their 'ledger' so they get credit for the deposit and can spend that $ when they want to.

Luckily we're only tracking inventory at one location (mine). The $ is shared amongst the outlying locations and I need to share with their reps how much of the main account they have to spend, deposit any funds they send to me and give them 'credit' for the deposit so they can spend it later.

expenditure