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A
Acct2022
October 10, 2022
Question

High Sub Credit Card Balances

  • October 10, 2022
  • 1 reply
  • 0 views

We have a fairly new, high credit limit corporate account with several card holders. When we reconcile, we have been reconciling the corporate account and not the card holder accounts. The balances on the card holder accounts look very high and I am concerned that we have not done this correctly. I know that we enter the transactions, enter the payments made (which can you be made to the corporate account) and that the corporate account reconciles. But the balances on the balance sheet for the card holders never goes down. Is there a better, more accurate way to do this?

1 reply

DivinaMercy_N
DivinaMercy_N
October 10, 2022

I appreciate you sharing details of your concern, @Acct2022. I'm happy to provide some info about reconciling credit card accounts in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT).

 

First, let me discuss some details about how parents and sub-accounts work in the program. 

 

In QBDT, the entries posted on the card holders (sub-accounts) will affect the balance of the corporate account (parent account), however, posting to the latter won't impact the former. For instance, if there are money-out transactions recorded to the corporate, the balance of this account will go down, while the balance of the cardholders will remain the same. 

 

To further check what causes the difference between the two balances, I suggest looking through the corporate account to review if there's an entry that hasn't been assigned to a card holder. For additional guidance with the process, I recommend reaching out to your accountant. If you're not affiliated with one, feel free to use our Find a ProAdvisor tool.

 

Also, your process of reconciling the corporate account instead of the card holders is correct. For reference, please visit this article: Set up, use, and pay credit card accounts. 

 

I've attached here this helpful resource that you can access at any time for additional guides and reference when performing your QuickBooks tasks: QBDT Help page. 

 

I'd love to know updates on how this goes. If you have any other concerns about managing your credit card account, don't hesitate to leave a reply below. I'm happy to provide additional assistance. Have a good one and take care. 

A
Acct2022Author
October 10, 2022

Thank you so much for your reply.

I think my concern is that the balances on the balance sheet for each card holder is very high. Should we be entering an adjusting entry to move the balance from each card holder account to the main account? I have not been doing that because once I enter a payment on the main account, that balance reduces meaning that there is no corresponding negative balance on the main account to offset the total of the card holder accounts on the balance sheet. I feel like I'm missing a step.

DivinaMercy_N
DivinaMercy_N
October 10, 2022

Thanks for getting back here in the Community, @Acct2022. Let me provide further details to fix the balance of the card holder account in the Balance Sheet report. 

 

I appreciate you sharing additional information about your concern. Follow along below to get this done right away. 

 

To start, may I know if the main account is connected to the online banking? If so, let's ensure that the transactions for the card holders account are recorded properly. This may be the reason why their balance in your Balance Sheet report is high. In this process, we have to make sure that the total amount is equivalent to the total value reflected for the parent account. For the detailed instructions, please check this article: Set up, use, and pay credit card accounts. 

 

If verified that the transactions are entered correctly but the Balance Sheet report is still out of balance, you can resolve it by following the steps in this link: Fix a Balance Sheet that's out of balance.

 

Before performing the recommendations above, I suggest creating a backup of your company file to ensure you have the original data that you can restore at any time in case of accidental loss or damage. 

 

I also recommend reaching out to your accountant for guidance to make sure everything will be recorded correctly to avoid messing up your books. 

 

Please let me know how the steps work. I want to make sure your goal is achieved. I'm just around the corner to provide further assistance. Have a good day and keep safe.

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