Tracking purchases on account at local businesses

"Peace Frog" track of the invoice for each purchase in my filing cabinet and then

The method you are using now is fine.

Newbie warning, that's for me, not you. I can see why you might want to do a more real time tracking of the charges, especially if the billing you do to your customers is affected by these charges. Why can't you just keep them as a regular vendor and enter each charge as an invoice paying the statement as you are now? Seems like the only problem would be if you enter an invoice number for each charge it would need to be unique.

On Fri, 27 Jan 2006 20:10:25 GMT, Peace Frog track of the invoice for each purchase in my filing cabinet and then

Thanks. But if, by fine, you mean my method will work, I know - that's how I've been doing it. What I should have stated more clearly above is that I would like to enter these transactions into QuickBooks as they occur so that at any point during a given month, I can pop the books open and see at a glance what kinds of totals I'm racking up on these vendor accounts. More often than not, these charges are for enough money that I'm uncomfortable leaving them unaccounted for when I'm glancing through my chart of accounts or generating reports. I also don't especially like the practice of sitting for what can amount to several hours at a stretch entering transactions and breaking them down by item, job, class, etc. By entering them as they occur, I spread that task out over the month and when the statement does arrive, I am left with simply double checking invoice numbers and charges, and cutting a check. I'll figure out a way to do it - just thought I'd see if anyone else has a nice procedure already in place. Again, a credit card account seems custom tailored to this type of situation - I just don't know if I'm overlooking any potential problems in going down that road.

"Peace Frog" these vendor accounts. More often than not, these charges are for

This may sound dumb but have you asked your vendors to fax or mail individual invoices to you? 84 Lumber is one of those stores like you describe in that generally they send a statement at the end of the month with invoice copies attached. For a builder's bookkeeper this can be a data entry PITA. A simple request to the bookkeeping department will get the individual invoices mailed, or as with some stores, a weekly mailing for accumulated invoices rather than one-by-one.

Thank-you, newbie - but that also applies to me when it comes to QuickBooks. I've been thinking about this all afternoon and I think you are correct. I had actually figured that out at one point a few months back but then confused the issue recently. I think I just need to use the "receive items with bill' feature under vendors for each of these transactions. This past month, I was mistaking the end of the month statement for the bill and I was using "receive items" without the bill part. Then when the statement came, I couldn't just click off a dozen or so bills to pay because I hadn't entered them along with the item receipt. Big mess.

Thank-you Tara, but as I said in my reply to Steve, this question came about because I confused myself as to invoices -vs- statements. I do get an invoice with each purchase so I have all I need in hand. I just needed to remember how to get the information into QuickBooks. Thank-you again for your reply.

An "invoice" is a bill; a "statement" is nothing, of no significance, de minimus, dreck, useless, of no moment.

Statements should be immediately trashed - under no circumstances give anybody any money because of anything a statement says.

Not true.

Well, I don't know where your information comes from but...

When I walk out of one of these stores with goods in hand, I also have a document summarizing the transaction labeled "INVOICE". I collect these throughout the month. At the end of the month, I get a summary of all the "invoices" in the mail on a document labeled "STATEMENT". It's this document that tells how much they expect me to send them and by what date.

From the Uniform Commercial Code

Have you ever paid an invoice then paid the same amount again when you got the "statement?"

A "Statement" is a recapitulation of "Invoices." It is the original invoice that reflects the commercial transaction under which an obligation to pay is entered into, not the statement. A statement is a courtesy, a reminder, a summary. A statement is NOT a commercial transaction and generates no obligation under the law.

To avoid confusion, simply discard all statements.

Interesting. So I can throw away those statements that my regular phone company sends me. So I can throw away those statements that my call phone company sends me. So I can throw away those statements that my electric company sends me. So I can throw away those statements that my water company sends me. So I can throw away those statements that my gas company sends me. So I can throw away those statements that my cable internet company sends me. All I have to do is wait for the real invoice to appear in the mail. Good to know HeyBub.

No. I charge all these purchases expecting to pay for them all at once on a monthly basis. I know when it's time to pay for them when the business sends me my statement. The statement summarizes all the invoices I've collected during the month. I verify that everything is correct and then detach the part of the statement that says, "please detach this portion and include it with your payment." I write one check, send it off, file the statement in my file cabinet under the name of the business and file the paid invoices under their respective job names or account categories.