Periodic billing isn't easy

QB produces good "item" based reports if that's what you want.

What you really need to do is to consult a competent professional accountant. You need to try to explain WHY you think you need a separate entry in "the register" (which register, by the way?) for every single item sold, an extremely unusual requirement. A competent accountant may be able to find out what you REALLY need, show you how to get it, and explain why you probably do NOT need what you currently think you do.

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Interesting point. I assume that many businesses find themselves in situations similar to mine if they sell on account and write invoices periodically. Wouldn't they want to keep track of every sale? Particulary, since each sale may be slightly different: discounts etc.

If I create a bi-weekly invoice I lose my individual transactions in the A/R register. I am trying to imagine how to do without them and although it's possible (all the information is stored in the invoice) but it requires a lot more work and doesn't seem feasible. Ideally, I should be able to program my QB to take a transaction and automatically record it in all the relevant registers: A/R, A/P, sales tax, sales, cogs. I haven't seen a way to do it yet. But even with exessive manual labor I am getting into trouble not being able to print a reasonable invoice or statement or whatnot to send to the customers in order to reclaim my A/R.

Could you please elaborate. At least, tell me where to find it and I'll take a look at it. Maybe reports will solve my problems if I can keep the transactions hidden in invoices and rely on reports to analyze the sales. Sounds a bit too convoluted though. Doesn't easily fit into the model of accounting I have studies.

The sales of a business will be assigned to "income" accounts for financial analysis, but each invoice will be built up of sales "items" and each of these "items" will be assigned to an "income" account.

Quickbooks, as well as producing financial reports of general income & expenditure can also produce more detailed reports showing how your income is constructed on an "item" basis as well.

I would go to the "lists" menu and select "items" then "report on all items", and see what it will do.

Thank you. I'll try reports. This may prove adequate.

Give yourself a slap on the back. Even I don't have a clue as to what in the world you are taking about and I'm the worlds second biggest fan boy.

Quickbooks fan boy that is.

Who's the first?

Either I'm misunderstanding you or I think you're approaching this from faulty reasoning. Companies who sell products on account still record each individual sale as an invoice. They either mail these individual invoices with a net X terms then send a statement at the end of the month or they send all the individual invoices with the statement. Its service companies who sometimes deviate a bit and use an incremental invoice. I work (and have worked) for many companies of different types and each company has vendors that sell to them on account. I've never come across any situation where a company doesn't send either:

a) Individual invoices at the time the transaction occurs with some kind of account terms (as in net 30, net 15, 10th, etc) with a monthly statement showing each invoice, its date & amount. This, btw, is the preferred method of most bookkeepers regardless of whether they work for the invoicee or invoicer.

b) A monthly statement with individual invoices attached. The invoices are all dated with the actual transaction date but are stockpiled to be sent with the statement. Lumber companies are a bit famous for this method and its a pain for anyone who has to do the data entry.

c) A periodic, incremental, service-type invoice that is more like a statement in that it lists, in the description/line item section, the date, transaction & amount. This is what you generally see from lawyers, accountants and other service oriented businesses.

As for the expense side of your business, that should have nothing to do with how/when you invoice your customers because the creation of an invoice doesn't affect A/P. The sales tax issue depends on your state's requirements. If you're required to pay on a cash basis then ideally you should be creating individual invoices per transaction so that you can properly report & pay in sales tax generated from those transactions, for the month the transactions took place. If you're required to pay on an accrual basis, when you actually receive payment for goods/services rendered, then the way you handle your invoicing has no bearing.

Thanks, Tara, for the details. I am suspecting now that it's the QB's behavior that throws off a seeming smooth process. As I described (probably cryptically) in the original question, if I enter individual invoices at the time of sale then I can't print my periodic statement which needs to contain all the invoices for the period. The statement lists only the total for the period and does it many times on separate pages, as many as the number of invoices that it should contain. It's so useless that it has to be a bug in the software. Maybe if I upgraded my QB or moved from Mac to PC I would see a beautiful billing statement based on my invoices and wouldn't ask stupid questions. Another thing with QB which could be intended, but is annoying anyway is that the A/R entry for the invoice doesn't contain the item and memo details of the invoice. I see that if there are many items in the invoice there is no way to record them in the register but since I use only one I would like to see the data there. Maybe if I mastered the reports I wouldn't need the data in the register. Another thing that I lament is that I cannot program QB to parse a transaction into separate accounts all at once. Instead I have to take care of A/R and A/P separately thus adding to my work and multiplying errors. Is any version of QB programmable?

Thanks, Tara, for the details. I am suspecting now that it's the QB's behavior that throws off a seeming smooth process. As I described (probably cryptically) in the original question, if I enter individual invoices at the time of sale then I can't print my periodic statement which needs to contain all the invoices for the period. The statement lists only the total for the period and does it many times on separate pages, as many as the number of invoices that it should contain. It's so useless that it has to be a bug in the software. Maybe if I upgraded my QB or moved from Mac to PC I would see a beautiful billing statement based on my invoices and wouldn't ask stupid questions. Another thing with QB which could be intended, but is annoying anyway is that the A/R entry for the invoice doesn't contain the item and memo details of the invoice. I see that if there are many items in the invoice there is no way to record them in the register but since I use only one I would like to see the data there. Maybe if I mastered the reports I wouldn't need the data in the register. Another thing that I lament is that I cannot program QB to parse a transaction into separate accounts all at once. Instead I have to take care of A/R and A/P separately thus adding to my work and multiplying errors. Is any version of QB programmable?

Thanks, Tara, for the details. I am suspecting now that it's the QB's behavior that throws off a seeming smooth process. As I described (probably cryptically) in the original question, if I enter individual invoices at the time of sale then I can't print my periodic statement which needs to contain all the invoices for the period. The statement lists only the total for the period and does it many times on separate pages, as many as the number of invoices that it should contain. It's so useless that it has to be a bug in the software. Maybe if I upgraded my QB or moved from Mac to PC I would see a beautiful billing statement based on my invoices and wouldn't ask stupid questions. Another thing with QB which could be intended, but is annoying anyway is that the A/R entry for the invoice doesn't contain the item and memo details of the invoice. I see that if there are many items in the invoice there is no way to record them in the register but since I use only one I would like to see the data there. Maybe if I mastered the reports I wouldn't need the data in the register. Another thing that I lament is that I cannot program QB to parse a transaction into separate accounts all at once. Instead I have to take care of A/R and A/P separately thus adding to my work and multiplying errors. Is any version of QB programmable?

The prize would have to go to the esteemed Mr. Block. He is the man.

I hear you load and clear. The inability to parse a transaction into separate accounts is the number one complaint that most QB users have. Most find this shortcoming more annoying than the need to subscribe to tax tables.

As far a programability you (we) are in luck. You can download the Quickbooks SDK. I'm quite certain you will be able to master this programing tool in less time it takes you to eat a tuna fish sandwich.

PS

I'm sure most of use will want to purchase the parsing application your develop so we can finally parse also. Kept us informed as to when you think it will be avaliable.