Category: Accounting

Reset or Erase your new QuickBooks Online Company

October 8, 2019

Learn how to reset or erase your QuickBooks Online company (started fewer than 60 days ago) so that you can start over from scratch setting up your company.

Many users who are new to QuickBooks Online or bookkeeping for their small business may find that one month in, they’ve set up their QuickBooks Online company incorrectly.

Rather than go back and manually reverse every transaction, it may be easier to just purge, or erase, everything and start over. Keep the following two warnings in mind:

Your QuickBooks Online company must be fewer than 60 days old.

You’ll lose everything that you’ve entered into your company, including customers, transactions, and accounts.

If it has been more than 60 days, you’ll need to start a new QuickBooks Online company instead. Contact QuickBooks Online about your subscription (if you have one) or cancel and resubscribe to the new company.

Setting up your QuickBooks Online company for Amazon? Check out our article for a list of tips and advice. You’ll also find a link to our comprehensive guide for accounting for the most common Amazon transactions on that page.

How to Reset or Erase your QuickBooks Online Company

To reset your company, log into the QuickBooks Online company that you want to erase. Remember, your QuickBooks Online company must be fewer than 60 days old in order to be able to reset or purge.

Make sure you’re on the homepage or dashboard for your QuickBooks Online company
- It may look like this: https://c13.qbo.intuit.com/app/homepage
Add /purgecompany to the end of the URL above
Read the warning and type “YES” in the box and click on OK
Follow the prompts to complete the purge
- If you’re connecting any apps, you may want to wait 24 hours for the purge to complete on the backend

Simply click on Dashboard on the left navigation menu to go back to your homepage for QuickBooks Online.

Then add “/purgecompany” to the end of the URL and follow the prompts to completely erase your QuickBooks Online company. Remember: you will lose all data, so make sure you have everything you need exported and saved.

You should receive a verification prompt after. Type in YES and then click on OK. Your company will be reset and everything erased.

That’s it! Now set up your QuickBooks Online company the way you want!

Cancel Subscription if You Can’t Purge Your Company

If you no longer want to use QuickBooks Online or your company is older than 60 days, make sure you cancel your subscription before you start a new one.

Click on Gear Icon > Accounts and Settings
Go to Billing & Subscription
Click on Cancel Subscription

To cancel your subscription, go to your settings through the Gear icon and then Account and Settings.

Click on Billing & Subscription and then Cancel subscription. Follow the prompts to confirm and complete your cancellation.

If you’re starting a new company, you can simply sign up for a new company using the same email address. Your old companies will remain attached to your email address for a year before it drops off, so you’ll have plenty of time to access any data you may need from them.

Like this article and want to read more helpful articles about QuickBooks Online? Check out the following articles below:

Enter a foreign currency transaction in QuickBooks Online

August 22, 2019

When it comes to foreign currencies or multicurrency in QuickBooks Online, bookkeeping can quickly get messy if you’re not careful about entering your expenses.

Let’s take a look at an example of a common transaction regarding a foreign Amazon marketplace and multicurrency in QuickBooks Online US.

You’ll need to have multicurrency enabled on QuickBooks Online US in order to be able to access these settings.

Exchange rates change day to day or from one second to the next. When Amazon charges you, your credit card or bank account may have a different amount in USD.

We’ll use CAD and USD in this article, but the concept is the same regardless of what currency you’re using.

Let’s say you start selling on Amazon Canada (CA). For your first settlement, you have a balance of -$50 CAD because of various fees. We’re using Amazon CA as the Payee here (the exchange rate field will only appear if your Vendor has a non-USD currency associated with it).

Amazon charges your credit card for $50 CAD, but the charge shows up on your card as $37.93 USD (using exchange rates for August 1, 2019). But you’re going to enter the transaction on August 20, 2019. That $50 CAD is now $37.54 if you’re not adjusting values on the document.

Note that even though we selected August 1, the Total (USD) charge still doesn’t match because of the fluctuations in rates throughout the day.

This difference between the currency can easily cause a discrepancy between your accounts in QuickBooks Online if you’re just entering in transactions monthly and using the default exchange rate.

QuickBooks Online doesn’t allow you to edit the Total (USD) amount. Instead, you’ll need to figure out the correct exchange rate.

To properly calculate the values, you’ll need to take how much your credit card was charged in USD. Then take the amount in CAD that you owe.

Divide the USD by the CAD amount to get the correct exchange rate so that you can enter this in the right field in QuickBooks Online.

Enter the exchange rate to as many decimal places as you need for the Total (USD) to match what you were charged on your credit card.

You may need to enter in a few more decimal places to get the correct value. Once you click OK, QuickBooks Online will recalculate the Total (USD). It should now match what your credit card charge shows for that transaction.

If it doesn’t, recalculate the rate and check that you’ve entered the correct values to the necessary decimal place, whether that’s 4 places or 7.

Notice in the corrected exchange rate above, the Total (CAD) value is correct and the Total (USD) value is now correct.

This document shows that you’re paying a vendor, Amazon Canada, $50 CAD. Your credit card account will show a charge of $37.93.

Whether it’s an expense or a settlement payment, you’ll need to go through the same process of calculating the correct exchange rate and verifying that the values are correct.

For instance, when you receive a disbursement or payment from Amazon for your sales, your Amazon Canada seller account will show a deposit in CAD. But the bank account may show a deposit in USD.

The process is the same here: edit the deposit document with the correct exchange rates to reconcile the amounts.

Read our other articles on QuickBooks Online below.

Set up inventory in QuickBooks Online for Amazon Sales

August 14, 2019

It’s easy to set up inventory in QuickBooks Online to track your Amazon sales, but there’s a lot more you can do to optimize your inventory for better tracking.

Learn more about these related topics on SellerZen:

Let’s take a look at the different options when you add new inventory in QuickBooks Online. You’ll need a QuickBooks Online plan that supports inventory tracking, so that means you’ll have to get Plus or Advanced.

To add a new product or service, go to Sales > Products and Services > New > Inventory.

QuickBooks Online only requires a few fields to quickly set up inventory, but you’ll want to think about how you’re going to organize inventory in QuickBooks Online.

Consistency will help with your workflow, and it’ll lead to better reporting and more efficient reconciliation if you always follow the same procedure.

Let’s take a look at the new inventory setup below.

Here’s an example from your Manage Inventory on Amazon.

Below is the recommendation for how you should populate the fields for your inventory item in QuickBooks Online.

Notice that the Name, Initial quantity on hand, and As of date are the only fields required. QuickBooks uses the default accounts for the other accounts.

For the Name field, many sellers are tempted just to use their Product Name on Amazon. That might be something like “Super Shiny Stainless Steel Spoon 4-Pack,” but this isn’t ideal because Product Name on Amazon can be changed. Some sellers will go through multiple Product Name changes before settling on one they like.

When you change a product title on Amazon, you’ll have to change it through QuickBooks, and this can cause a lot of confusion.

We use the Amazon SKU to QuickBooks Name field so that there’s no confusion when the Product Name changes.

For the QuickBooks SKU field, we recommend using the Amazon ASIN just so sellers can search for convenience should anyone change the QuickBooks Name field for whatever reason. Using the Amazon ASIN in the QuickBooks SKU field also gives you another level of fine detail should you need it.

For the Initial quantity on hand, we recommend that you put 0 when you create a new inventory item. Why? If you enter a number here, QuickBooks Online will put the Cost of Goods Sold at $0, giving you 100% profit when the item sells. Of course, that’s not likely to be true.

Use Vendor Bills or Expenses to receive and increase your inventory accordingly.

The “As of date” field is also important. For this field, you’ll want to enter a date that precedes the date of the first sale. This is because putting the current date on the inventory item will mean you can’t create a sales transaction with a date before the one you selected.

So if you’re setting up your QuickBooks Online for the first time, have those inventory purchase dates ready, or at least have an estimate of it ready so that you can post transactions to QuickBooks Online without errors.

FBA sellers may want to use the inventory shipment date here, or simply use the date of the Purchase Order, Bill, or Expense when you purchased the inventory.

These settings can be changed later, but any changes will also affect your reporting.

The remaining fields in the inventory item deal with the associated accounts.

Notice for the Description field, we entered the Product Name here. While this isn’t necessarily required, having it will make reviewing your transactions much easier. But you’ll have to update this field whenever you make a change on Amazon.

This can be very tedious if you’re optimizing your Amazon listings daily. Otherwise, leave it blank if you have a fairly descriptive Amazon SKU and QuickBooks Name.

One common mistake sellers make here is to add their Cost to the field. QuickBooks Online will generally ignore the value in the Cost field if you’ve used Bills, Expenses, or Checks to receive inventory. But in their absence, it’ll use the value in the Cost field.

The reason you should leave the Cost field at 0.00 is that any update to the Cost field will mean that you’re using averages instead of the actual cost per unit. And averages will give you some misleading information about your inventory status.

One thing sellers can do with the inventory accounts (Inventory Asset, Income, and Expense account) is to set up the inventory so that inventory transactions are tracked across multiple warehouses or brands.

Alternatively, you can use class tracking or location tracking in QuickBooks Online, but if you’re already using those features for other reasons, then having different Inventory Accounts can be helpful.

For instance, you can have all of your kitchen utensils use a Kitchen Utensils Sales of Product Income Account. And you can just use the default Inventory Asset and Cost of Goods Sold account.

When you run reporting later, you’ll be able to see your sales income from Kitchen Utensils, Home Goods, and Furniture income accounts.

Or, if you’re like many sellers, you can use different accounts to track various warehouses. For instance, you’d have a Warehouse A Inventory Asset, Warehouse A Sales of Product Income, and Warehouse A Cost of Goods Sold.

When you run reporting later, you can more details about sales and inventory at both of your warehouses.

The remaining fields aren’t necessary. Leave the Sale price, Purchasing information, and Preferred Vendor fields blank. If you’re using a repricer on Amazon, then it’s pointless to enter a Sale price on the actual item—you’ll enter it on the document that you create.

The Preferred Vendor field is a convenience that may help your workers if you have multiple vendors for the same item. This will let your employees know which one you prefer.

If you set up inventory in QuickBooks Online correctly and consistently, then your accounting for your Amazon transactions will be far more detailed. Better financial reporting in QuickBooks Online will give you an advantage over other Amazon sellers who are just guestimating what their finances are.

Or use a service like SellerZen to automate the hassle of manually entering all of your Amazon transactions.

Like this article and want to learn more?

Recreate Deleted Document in Audit Log in QuickBooks Online

July 23, 2019

Learn how to recreate a deleted transaction or document in QuickBooks Online using the Audit Log to view details.

QuickBooks Online keeps a log of every action that you or a user takes in the software. That includes logins and the actions each user takes. Even deleted inventory and accounts aren’t truly deleted. They’re just hidden from view.

When you delete a transaction, there’s also a log of the details of the transaction. While it may be missing from your books, you’ll still be able to find it in the Audit Log.

Continue reading to see how to recreate a document using the Audit Log.

First, you’ll want to click on the Gear icon > Audit Log to view the log.

Once you’re in the Audit Log, you want to set the filter options to limit and easily find the document. If you know the date, transaction type, or user, then select those to limit your search results.

Once you find the document, you can expand the document details by clicking on View. Click on the arrow to expand details.

You can use CTRL + F to search for “Deleted” to quickly jump to deleted transactions.

You’ll want to open a new transaction type in QuickBooks Online in a new tab so that you can easily switch between the two to enter the details.

In the example above, we have an Invoice that was deleted. You don’t have to enter the Accounts Receivable (A/R) line item because QuickBooks Online will automatically handle the A/R account when you create the invoice.

Make sure that the accounts, values, and other information match the document exactly so that your totals are correct.

If you also deleted the payment, you’ll want to receive payment as well. Otherwise, you’ll want to link the payment to the recreated invoice.

Consider voiding transactions instead of deleting them. When you void a transaction, it won’t affect your bookkeeping, but you can easily restore it by searching for it in the Audit Log and then copying the details to a new document.

To restore a voided transaction, search for “Voided” in the Audit Log instead of “Deleted”. Set filters to streamline the search if possible.

Look for the voided transaction that you want to restore and click on it.

Then click on More > Copy to move the details onto a new document.

Values on the document will all be 0, so you’ll need to re-enter the values and make sure that all the information is correct.

QuickBooks Online Audit Log allows you to see all the changes to your company finances. The added benefit is that the Audit Log will also allow you to recreate any transaction that was accidentally deleted or voided so that you don’t have to spend hours reconciling your finances.

Learn more about other QuickBooks Online topics from our articles below.

Creating a New Parent Account in QuickBooks Online

July 16, 2019

Learn how to create a new parent account in QuickBooks Online and how to create or make a sub-account.

There are numerous reasons why you’d want to make a new account in QuickBooks Online. Too often, the default accounts that exist don’t quite fit the purpose of an account that you need.

For instance, Amazon sellers may want a parent account for all of their Amazon expenses. Or they may want to track Amazon expenses separately from their other accounts.

Creating a new income, expense, or bank account to track your Amazon income and expenses is a great way to see the impact of Amazon on your business. You might also track other marketplaces in separate accounts in QuickBooks Online.

Having separate accounts for Amazon, eBay, and Shopify will give you better insight into your business.

To create a new parent account, go to your Chart of Accounts.

Click on New.

Select the Account Type and Detail Type that best describes the account. Give it a Name that is descriptive so that you’ll recognize it on reports.

In our example below, we’ve created a parent account called Amazon Expenses.

Save your account.

If you want to create another sub-account linked to Amazon Expenses, then click on the New button again.

Choose the Account Type, Detail Type, and give it a descriptive name. The sub-accounts must be the same Account Type as the parent account.

Click on “Is sub-account” and select the parent account you want.

You won’t be able to create a sub-account that is an Income with a parent account that is an Expense.

If you use SellerZen to sync and automatically import your Amazon transactions to QuickBooks Online, then you can map non-order transactions under the Settlement page.

Once you map those individual accounts, they’ll show up on your Profit and Loss Reports. You’ll know exactly how much you spent on certain Amazon expenses instead of seeing them all summarized into one account.

Learn more about custom account mapping on SellerZen.

In the image above, we see a parent account called “Amazon US Other Expenses.”

The accounts underneath are all sub-accounts. Setting up the accounts in this way gives users the ability to minimize and expand reporting to see the details that they need.

But you can also separate your accounts by different marketplaces so that you can see how much you’ve earned through each platform.

Separating accounts by marketplace or organizing them in a clear way can give you a better picture of your business and where to focus your efforts.

Like this article about a QuickBooks Online topic? Read more below.

Delete and Restore an Account in QuickBooks Online

July 9, 2019

Learn how to delete and restore an account in your chart of accounts in QuickBooks Online.

Why should you delete or mark accounts as inactive? New QuickBooks Online usage limits mean that your account may now have a limit to the number of accounts you can create.

But these limits don’t apply to accounts that are marked as inactive. Marking default QuickBooks Online accounts as inactive will not count toward your usage limit.

Deleting accounts that you no longer use will help clean up your chart of accounts and make navigating your chart of accounts easier.

What happens to deleted or inactive accounts?

When you delete an account (or an item in the products and services), then QuickBooks Online marks them as inactive and hides them from view.

Transactions will still be available, so you’ll need to remove those manually. And the accounts are still there, but they’re hidden from your view.

Products and services behave in the same way: inactive items are just hidden from view and can be restored if needed.

One thing to note: if you delete an account, create another account with the same name, and restore the inactive account, QuickBooks Online will automatically add an -1 to one of the accounts since no two accounts can share the same name.

Delete an account in your chart of accounts

To delete an account in your chart of accounts, click on Accounting.

Locate the account you want to delete and click on the dropdown arrow to mark the account as inactive.

You’d also remove any product or service in the same way. Navigate to Sales > Products and Services. Find the item you want to remove.

Click on the dropdown arrow and select Make inactive.

If the account is linked to a product or service, you’ll get an error message saying that the account is in use. You’ll need to change the account on your product or service before you can mark the account as inactive.

Find the associated product or service that the account is linked to. Click on Edit and select a different account.

Read our article to learn how to update accounts with historical transactions if you need to move transactions from one account to another.

Restore a deleted or inactive account in your chart of accounts

If you’ve accidentally deleted a product, service, or account, then you can easily restore them by making them visible and marking them as active.

You can change the settings to show inactive accounts by clicking on the gear icon and selecting Include inactive to show all accounts.

Click on Make active to reactivate the account.

If you want to restore a product or service that you’ve deleted, then the process is slightly different.

You’ll find the option to show Inactive under the funnel or filter icon instead of the gear icon.

Deleting and restoring an account in QuickBooks Online is a fairly simple process once you find the option to show inactive accounts.

And with the new QuickBooks Online usage limits, you’ll need to be more aware of not just the number of accounts you have, but also the number of classes and locations.

Mark discontinued products and services as inactive and clean up your chart of accounts by making unused accounts inactive as well.

Maintaining your accounts will reduce clutter and allow you to keep within your plan limits without having to upgrade to the next subscription tier.

Read other helpful QuickBooks Online guides below:

Difference between Vendor Bills, Expenses, and Checks

June 27, 2019

Learn about the differences between vendor bills, expenses, and checks in QuickBooks Online in this article.

We’ll go over how these transactions affect the various accounts in your books.

Generally speaking, bills should be used to record expenses that you’ll pay later, while expenses and checks should be used to record expenses and payments made right away.

Vendor Bill

The biggest difference between a bill and an expense or check is that a bill is generally used when you have an expense that you’ll pay later.

When you do pay the bill, you’d use Make payment button on the bill or Pay Bills feature in QuickBooks Online.

Why does this matter?

With bills, you can track open balances and amounts owed to vendors. These transactions are also tracked in your Accounts Payable account.

Various reports will also be affected if you’re on accrual accounting since accrual accounting counts money when it’s earned and billed, whereas cash accounting recognizes money when it is received and paid.

When running reports in QuickBooks Online, you can switch between cash and accrual accounting.

You might use a bill when you have a utility bill that is due at later in the month.

Or if you sell online, you may use bills when you pay half up front for inventory and the other half upon receipt.

Check

There isn’t much of a difference between a check and an expense in QuickBooks Online. Both a check and an expense will record the expense and payment immediately.

Use a check when you need to print the check or when you want to print it later with other checks.

Many businesses today have moved away from checks, but if you still use checks and need to print them, then use this document to pay your bills.

Vendor Expense

You’d use a vendor expense for the same reasons you’d use a check: to record expenses and payments immediately.

You might use an expense for office supplies at a Staples or Office Depot. Because you paid for the items on the spot, you wouldn’t need to use a bill and payment.

If you don’t use checks, then you can likely use a vendor expense for all of your expenses instead of having to worry about which document to use.

If you’ve paid with a credit card or electronic funds transfer (EFT), then use an expense to record the payment.

How do these transactions affect my accounting?

These transactions will primarily affect those using accrual accounting since this method of accounting considers revenue and expenses as they happen, not when the money exchange actually occurs (cash basis).

As a result, you’ll see a balance on your Accounts Payable account if you’re using bills.

These transactions will also affect the values in your reporting if you change the report from accrual to cash in QuickBooks Online.

Do any of these features affect inventory?

All three documents can be used to receive inventory. There’s no difference to how inventory is handled with these documents.

QuickBooks Online will automatically calculate the inventory-related accounts like Inventory Asset, Sales of Product Income, and Cost of Goods Sold.

You’ll want to make sure that the dates on the transactions are correct, as they will affect the profit reports and calculations in QuickBooks Online.

For instance, if you receive inventory on June 10 using a bill and a sale happens on June 9, QuickBooks Online will record the COGS at $0 or at the previous COGS calculated.

As a result, your reporting would have inaccurate profits. That’s why it’s important to keep the dates on the documents correct. Avoid guessing the date when it comes to expenses related to inventory.

Learn more about adjusting inventory in QuickBooks Online.

So there you have it! The next time you’re confused about which document to use, ask yourself this: have I already paid the bill?

If so, then use an expense document. Otherwise, create a bill and click on make payment or pay bills when you pay the balance. And if you’re still using checks to pay some bills, then use the check feature instead of an expense.

While these differences may seem minor, having proper bookkeeping practices will give you more details about your business and your cash flow, allowing you to make more informed decisions.

Learn more about QuickBooks Online from other articles on SellerZen:

Connect Amazon to QuickBooks Online with SellerZen

May 28, 2019

Here are 11 reasons why you should use SellerZen to connect Amazon to QuickBooks Online using SellerZen’s automated real-time syncing of transactions.

Visit SellerZen now to learn more about how SellerZen can help integrate and sync your Amazon seller account with QuickBooks Online.

Automated, Real-Time Sync

Once you configure SellerZen, our cloud-based platform works automatically to sync and import your Amazon seller transactions to your QuickBooks Online company.

SellerZen works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to synchronize your transactions between Amazon and QuickBooks Online in real time. That means you’ll see transactions in QuickBooks Online when they’re available on Amazon.

Detailed Reporting

Businesses that have detailed financial reports can make more informed decisions. By using SellerZen to connect Amazon and QuickBooks Online, you’ll be able to see exactly what your income and expenses are using QuickBooks Online’s reporting tools.

See a detailed breakdown of your income and expenses in the Profit and Loss reports, Balance Sheets, or see exactly how much you’ve spent and earned:

Sales of Product Income
Cost of Goods Sold
Refunds
Reimbursements
Cost of Advertising spending
…and more!

Want to track your advertising expenses? Map those fees and more through SellerZen so you know exactly how much you’ve paid Amazon for advertising.

Separate all of your expenses into different accounts, group them into sub-accounts, or just lump them all into one account. However you structure your books, our flexible platform can be adapted to your business needs.

Fully Customizable

SellerZen is fully customizable to meet your business needs. When you sync your Amazon account to QuickBooks Online company through SellerZen, you’ll have the option to configure how we process transactions.

Our platform can be adapted to your business.

Configure the following into your own accounts or use our default settings:

Invoice line items
Inventory and inventory mapping
Taxes
Chart of Accounts for settlement income and expenses
Non-sales income like reimbursements
Class tracking for inventory grouping, consignment sales, or Private Label
Location tracking

Accurately Track Inventory

Looking for software to manage and track inventory? Why use one software to manage inventory and another to manage your books? QuickBooks Online can do both, streamlining your processes and saving you time.

If you have the Plus or Advanced subscription, you can track inventory in QuickBooks Online. Once you map inventory on SellerZen, our real-time sync of individual transactions means that your inventory levels will always be accurate.

Since SellerZen creates documents for sales, refunds, and reimbursements in real time, you’ll know what your inventory levels are at any moment.

Track inventory in QuickBooks Online so that you can replenish your FBA inventory, order more from suppliers, or look into potential reimbursement claims for FBA damage or loss.

Even if you don’t track inventory in QuickBooks Online, you can use a non-inventory item to track sales of product income.

Multichannel Fulfillment (MCF) Support

If you’re one of the many sellers who use Amazon FBA to fulfill orders for other marketplaces, then you can configure SellerZen to help you manage your inventory and expenses for multichannel fulfillment.

Advanced SKU Mapping

However you have your inventory configured in QuickBooks Online, you can use SellerZen to map your Amazon SKUs to your QuickBooks inventory.

Or configure SellerZen so that you can track income and expenses for classes of inventory.

Sell multiple SKUs across a range of categories? Set up SellerZen so that you can track income and expenses through classes for more detailed reporting.

Track sales across multiple Private Labels using SellerZen’s class tracking feature.

Sellers who do sales on consignment can also use class tracking for sales across multiple clients or brands.

Have SellerZen just track just sales income or sales income and fees.

Track Sales Tax

Once you integrate using SellerZen, you can track all of your sales taxes in QuickBooks Online.

Learn how much Amazon has collected and remitted on your behalf for the marketplace facilitator taxes.

If you sell on international marketplaces like Canada, you can configure SellerZen and have us handle international sales taxes.

Or run a report for your own state’s sales tax liability in QuickBooks Online.

By using SellerZen to connect and sync Amazon to QuickBooks Online, you’ll be able to run reports on the sales taxes you owe.

Affordable Solution

Instead of paying a monthly subscription fee for features that you may not use, SellerZen charges a flat rate of 5¢ per order import.

That means you only pay for each unique order ID import. All other transactions, like refunds, reimbursements, and settlements, are imported for free alongside the orders.

This pay-as-you-go plan is fantastic for sellers whose sales increase depending on the season.

You could pay $10 a month (200 orders) and then $20 (400 orders) a month during Q4 instead of a subscription fee of $39.99 per month.

Automate to Reduce Labor

SellerZen’s automatic synchronization will save you countless labor hours in entering transactions and fixing mistakes.

If you have an employee manually entering individual transactions, then it’s a task that is not only time consuming, but also extremely prone to errors. At 5¢ an order, SellerZen costs only a tiny fraction of what it’d cost you for a person to enter the same transactions. And our service is accurate.

Errors can also take hours to hunt down and fix, throwing off your reporting and giving you the wrong data when making important business decisions.

By using SellerZen to connect Amazon and QuickBooks Online, you can assign your employee to other important tasks.

Settlement Reconciliation

Once your settlement arrives, we’ll automatically reconcile all transactions on the settlement with the transactions we’ve created. This ensures that your Amazon to QuickBooks Online sync is always accurate.

You can even use SellerZen to run a settlement report to view all the documents we’ve created for that period.

Multiple Marketplaces

Connect as many North American (Mexico, United States, or Canada) marketplaces as you want to your QuickBooks Online company.

If you have more than one Amazon seller account, then you can connect them all to the same QuickBooks Online company to save you money on additional subscriptions.

Configure SellerZen to use location and class tracking so that you can track sales for each of the marketplaces to see how you’re doing with each one.

No matter how big or small your Amazon business is, SellerZen can help you save money and grow.

Using SellerZen to connect your Amazon to QuickBooks Online can give you powerful insight into your company’s financials that you can easily miss when you use other services that lump or summarize all of your income and expenses.

The best part is that there’s no monthly subscription fee. Start using SellerZen with a free 30-day import of your transactions to see just how we can help you today! No credit card is required unless you want to continue using our service.

Want to learn how to use some of the features in QuickBooks Online? Click on the links below to learn more.

Use Vendor Credits in QuickBooks Online for Refunds and Credits

May 23, 2019

Learn how to properly record and track credits or refunds issued to you by your supplier or vendor in QuickBooks Online.

If you’re new to retail or selling online, then you’ll eventually encounter a situation where you’ll have to handle a supplier credit or refund.

Just ignoring the refund or simply creating a deposit isn’t good practice since that doesn’t accurately track why you received that money.

By tracking supplier refunds, you’ll not only have a better idea of where your money is coming from, but also potential issues from your suppliers. These issues can mean anything from poor quality control to incorrect shipments.

Creating a vendor credit

The first thing you’ll want to do is create a vendor credit form. Select Vendor Credit from the Quick Create Plus (+) icon.

You’ll want to select the vendor, enter the correct date, and select the account and refund amount on the form.

You may also want to enter a description and memo as a reminder should you need a reference later on. It’s also helpful when you run reports or search later on.

The next step depends on whether you’ve been issued a refund or credit that you can apply toward future purchases.

Creating a bank deposit and linking it to the vendor credit

Once you’ve saved the vendor credit, you’ll want to create a bank deposit for the refund amount if you’ve been issued a refund.

Go to the Quick Create Plus (+) icon and select Bank Deposit.

Select the bank account and confirm the date is correct.

Make sure you select the correct vendor from the “Received From” column and the Accounts Payable (A/P) account.

Enter the correct amount. While the Description and Memo fields aren’t necessary, you’ll want to leave yourself some note so that you’ll know what the transaction is for when you run reports.

These notes also help when you’re searching for documents.

Save and close.

Now we have the vendor credit form and the bank deposit, but they’re not linked.

The last step in this process is to create a check to link the two transactions.

To do this, we’ll create a check.

Click on the Plus (+) icon and select Check.

On the Check document, select the Vendor from the dropdown menu and the bank account you’ve selected for the refund.

Once you select the vendor, QuickBooks Online will show both the bank deposit and the vendor credit on the right window. Click on the Deposit and then the Vendor Credit.

If you have multiple transactions there, make sure the amounts are the same and that you’re linking the correct transaction documents.

The total amount should be $0.00 since we’re just linking the transactions.

Note: if you get a “You must select a bill before adding a credit” window, then you’ll need to click on the Deposit first.

Save the transaction.

That’s it! You’ve created a vendor credit, a bank deposit, and you’ve linked the two transactions to process a refund from your supplier.

Applying the vendor credit to a new bill

Sometimes, suppliers will give you a credit toward your next purchase instead of a refund.

Common reasons for credits include defective or damaged inventory that you can send back or destroy for credit toward future bills.

The first step is to create a vendor credit. Refer to the instructions above for how to do this.

Once you have the vendor credit document, you’ll see a negative balance for your vendor. In the image below, we have a $40 vendor credit balance.

The next time you go to pay a bill, this credit is applied to that transaction.

If not, you’ll want to confirm that you’ve selected the correct vendor. A window will show up and you can apply the credit to the document. Below is an example of a bill for $100.

When you click on Make payment, QuickBooks Online will automatically apply the credit to the bill. Confirm that the credit has been applied. You’ll see it below.

If not, you’ll have the option to select the vendor credit to apply to the bill. If the credit doesn’t appear, then make sure you’ve selected the correct vendor and that the dates are correct.

Note: if you get a “You must select a bill before adding a credit” window, then you’ll need to click on the Bill first.

Once you save, you’ll see the bill payment with the applied credit and the remaining balance.

Credits can only be applied to open bills. If you’re getting errors like the credits not showing up for your bill payments, make sure to check the dates on the documents and make sure you’ve selected the correct vendor.

Linking vendor transactions is important in QuickBooks Online.

Unlinked transactions lead to large open balances on your vendors that can interrupt or confuse employees when they go to create and pay bills.

This will also give you incorrect figures when you run reports that include your vendors.

Like this QuickBooks Online article and want to learn more?

Run a Refunds Report in QuickBooks Online

May 20, 2019

Wonder how much you’ve issued in refunds to customers in QuickBooks Online?

Seeing how much you’ve issued in refunds in QuickBooks Online can alert you to issues with your product or marketplace listing. If you have a lot of refunds, then that can be a sign of potential problems.

Run a report in QuickBooks Online to see a list of all of your refunds. Use the filter to customize reports so that you get only the numbers you need.

If you use SellerZen and have multiple marketplaces connected and default customer selected, then you can run a refunds report for each marketplace. That way you’ll know how many refunds and how much in refunds you’ve issued for each marketplace.

A summary of the steps are:

Click on Reports on the left navigation panel
Type in “transaction list” in the search bar and click on the Transaction List by Customer report
Click on Customize on the top right
Select the date range, click on Filter to expand options, and select Transaction Type > Refund and Customer > All
Run report to see results

Need a step-by-step visual guide? Continue reading below.

To start, click on Reports on the left navigation menu.

Then type “transaction list” and select “Transaction List by Customer” from the options that appear.

Then click on the Customize button to select the options you want for the report.

You’ll want to select the date range and filter by Transaction Type > Refund and Customer > All.

If you’re using SellerZen to organize your customers by marketplace, then you can select the marketplace here.

For instance, you can run a Refund report for Amazon US and Amazon CA to see how much in refunds were issued to each marketplace.

Or if you’re creating individual customers, then make sure you select All.

Once you’ve made your selections, click on Run report to see the filtered results.

You should see a list of all the refunds issued within the date range you’ve selected.

If you don’t see any results, make sure you’ve selected the correct date range and check that your filter settings were actually saved.

Then re-run the report.

Having a lot of refunds isn’t necessarily a bad sign. Some categories will have a higher rate of refunds than others. For instance, apparel sellers will have a higher refund rate than kitchenware sellers.

But if you only have a handful of ASINs that you’re selling and a high refund rate, then you should look into the causes. Read your reviews on Amazon or look into the reason selected by customers for the refund.

If you can improve packaging or implement better quality control processes, then you can save money since each refund and return will cost you in fees and shipping.

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