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ztel
January 16, 2021
Question

Income and expenses from personal bank account

  • January 16, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 0 views

Background: In 2020 during the start of the pandemic, I was was laid off during lockdown, and when that ended (late May), my job was no longer available, but I was given the opportunity to finish the project as a subcontractor with no strings attached afterward. The project continued until the end of the calendar year. Works for me.

I purchased a subscription to QuickBooks Self-Employed, and used my personal bank acct to accept income and my personal visa to pay for expenses. Later in the year, I got smarter and opened a business checking acct (and a couple savings) and a business visa.

Now I have my own projects (billing time and materials) and decided to upgrade to QuickBooks Online Essentials.

My bookkeeping for 2021 is up to date in the new software, as well as the portion of 2020 where I was using my new accounts.

Here is where I need help: I want to enter my earlier 2020 income and expenses (the ones that were in my personal accounts) into my QuickBooks online software, but I don't think I should be linking my personal bank account to QuickBooks and including it in my bookkeeping from here out. What's the best way to go about it?

Can I just enter my income and expenses, and leave out all of my personal transactions?

How will that reconcile and what QuickBooks accounts should I use?

2 replies

LeithG
LeithG
January 18, 2021

Hi ztel:

 

It really depends.

Are you still essentially self-employed, or have you incorporated creating a separate entity (your company) which employs you?

 

If the latter situation is true, you're right that you probably don't want to link your personal account to the business; it's probably also true that this prior business was conducted personally and should not be recorded as part of this new business.

If you're still essentially self employed, but are simply separating your personal and business dealings in separate accounts, I might be tempted to take the net results of all the prior revenues and expenses (net profit/loss) and create a single entry to represent those...

    Rebecca R
    Rebecca R
    January 18, 2021

    Welcome to the QuickBooks Community ztel!

     

    Congratulations on being a new business owner. I can tell that you've been putting a lot of time and effort into ensuring that your income and expenses are all accurately tracked, and I love that you've even expanded and made the switch from QuickBooks Self-Employed to QuickBooks Online Essentials. I'm sure you'll love the increased functionality and fun new features that you get to explore. Your inquiry might be better suited for an accountant since our support team specializes in technical support, but let me give you some resources and additional information that you can work with in the meantime.

     

    When it comes to connecting your personal accounts to QuickBooks Online to enter your income and expenses, you won't have to worry about including personal transactions. You'll simply need to categorize the transactions you need, and exclude the others. However, as you've mentioned, this might make things complicated when it comes time to reconcile your accounts for the month as you'll be missing transactions and your account balance will be off. While using the bank feeds to enter your transactions makes things easier, it's not a necessary part of using QuickBooks Online. Assuming that you have all of the details for the business transactions you made using your personal account, you can simply add those transactions into QBO using the + New button. 

     

    You have the option to add a new account in the Chart of Accounts to represent your Owner's or Partner's Equity in your new QBO Essentials subscription where you can track your business expenses paid for by personal funds, and then record a reimbursement from your business accounts to your personal account as an expense. I want to share a few articles that I know will help you out with this:

     

     

    When it comes to the finer details like whether you should even include your personal income and expenses, and which accounts you should set up in your QBO Essentials account, I would highly suggest consulting with an accountant. If you're working with one already, you can even invite them to work within your QuickBooks account with you by navigating to the My Accountant tab and use the field to invite them using their email address. If you're not working with one, but would like to find a QuickBooks-certified accountant to give you some advice, the same page features the Find a pro to help button that'll take you to a page where you can search for a ProAdvisor in your area. Many even include free consultations, which will make the decision on which one is right for you a little easier.

     

    Let me know if there's anything else I can do to make using your new QuickBooks subscription a little easier! It's what I'm here for. I also want to encourage other members of the Community to chime in as well if they have any expertise in this area. 

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