Reporting

Customer prepayments, when a liability account is used, can get complicated, and a report should prove helpful. The report will be set up to look only at the prepayments account:

1. Click Reports|Transaction Detail|By Account.
2. When the report comes up, click Customize, find Total by and select Customer.
3. Click the Filters button and in the Filter column, select Account. In the center, click the down-arrow on Account. Scroll up and click Selected Accounts, then select the Customer Prepayments liability account, and click OK two times.
4. Back at Customize Report, select a suitable date range. A custom date range may be needed to get all of the customers with open prepayments. Then click OK, and view the report.

These reports tend to be a matter of individual preference. You may want to try some other reports. Transaction Detail by Date is good, but you would have to work through a different customizing sequence. Transaction Report by Customer works, if customized with the Detail Level as all.

Memorizing is a good idea, when you have a report that does the job. Before memorizing, change the title. Click Header/Footer and enter a title XE "report:customer prepayments" such as Customer Prepayment Balances. Then check the date. If the date says Custom, the report would be memorized with exactly the dates shown. A generic date range, perhaps This Fiscal Year to Date, would be a better idea. Finally click Memorize, to bring up that window. The title displayed there will appear in the list of memorized reports, and you may change it, is you wish. Click OK to finish memorizing the report.

Invoice Number Report can be generated to list invoices XE "invoice:listed by number" in order by number. It is not difficult, but there is a little trick. To make it work, you must first clear the screen, with Window|Close All. Select Reports|Other Reports|Missing Check Report. The next box that pops up should allow a selection of Account, which will, of course, be Accounts Receivable. When the report comes up, you may need to select Filters, and set the Amount to All. If you were not able to select the account as the report started, select Account as Accounts Receivable. (In QuickBooks 4.0 and earlier, the Source must be All accounts. ) The Invoice Number field is alphanumeric, so the numbers are alphabetized, rather than set in numerical order. That means that 1234 will be ahead of 2, which you can live with, if you are forewarned (you have a choice?)

Are the payments really rolling in? Businesses with only a few customers know who is paying and who is not. Other companies make many small sales to numerous customers. When the customers don't pay, they usually don't tell you that they are not paying. QuickBooks can help with the A/R aging reports. Select Reports|A/R Reports. A summary aging report tells if things are generally unpleasant; a detail (or transaction) report identifies your problem customers. Please refer to the chapter on reports. Unfortunately, I can provide no more service. Getting customers to pay is one of the skills of being a business person.