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yvducharme
November 29, 2019
Question

Cheque made to pay Visa without reconciling each charge?

  • November 29, 2019
  • 1 reply
  • 0 views

I apologize if this does not make sense. I will explain it as thoroughly as I can.

 

First things first, I noticed the Visa account was in the negative. I didn't know why or how. We were always making the payments. 

 

When we receive the statement in the mail with the amount owing, a cheque is made out to the Visa card, taken to the bank and is paid at the teller.

 

When organizing files, I noticed that there was a Visa reconciliation folder, with NOTHING in it! I opened up the folder where we normally keep the statements and tried to reconcile one of the months. I do it normally for two other accounts and everything seems to work fine for me. Not this Visa, though.

 

The reconciliation was going fine. I was checking off all of the account charges, account credits, deposits, making sure the beginning balance and the ending balance were matching. I hit reconcile now. Normally, there is a "Print Both" option that pops up. In the Visa, after you hit 'Reconcile Now' a different window pops up, asking if I want to make a cheque for payment now. WHAT? Freaking out, I hit cancel. This makes the payment unknown, and the negative balance is still there. It is known as reconciled but shows as unpaid in the QB. On paper, through the bank I have it showing as paid. How do I fix this? How do I enter that I have it paid off? What should I do differently? How can I make this negative visa balance normal? (I have seven more months of this reconciling to do and ALL of those seven months are already paid through the bank.)

1 reply

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LauraAB
November 29, 2019

Hello yvducharme,

 

I appreciate you taking the time to type up all of those details. I'll do what I can to help you here in community and will also let you know how to get in touch with phone support for further assistance in necessary. I know how important it is to get reconciliations right, so I want to make sure you have all the resources you need.

 

I'll start where you did: with the negative Visa account. In QuickBooks Desktop, credit card accounts will show a positive number for the amount owed and a negative number if there's been overpayment on the card. For example, if I have a charge of $100 on my credit card account in the Chart of Accounts, it'll show as positive 100. Now say I make a payment of $300 toward the card; my account register will show an amount of negative 200 because I've paid more than I owed.

 

Since you're seeing a negative amount, I suspect you may have made an overpayment to the card in QuickBooks. If your account has a different balance outside of the program, it may mean that you've missed entering transactions in QuickBooks Desktop. I recommend combing through the credit card register by double-clicking it in the Chart of Accounts to see what might be missing.

 

Next, let's take a look at the window you saw. I suspect it may have been this one, which I was able to pull up in a test file.

 

 

What this window means is the program is recognizing you have an outstanding balance on the card based on what's been entered in QuickBooks Desktop. Credit card payments are typically due at the end of the month, so it's offering for you to enter a payment transaction by cheque, which would bring the balance to zero right away, or to enter a bill later. This will create a bill transaction that you could pay off by going to the Pay Bills feature.

 

Since you hit cancel, you simply reconciled the account without recording a payment for the outstanding credit card amount. Don't worry! You can still make a payment toward that card. I recommend taking a look at the following article which explains how to make a payment toward a credit card account and gives you more details about credit card accounts in the program in general: Set up, use, and pay credit card accounts

 

For further assistance with any of this, check out the Intuit QuickBooks Desktop software support policies article to learn how to get in touch, hours, and policies. An agent will be happy to help!

 

Have a great weekend.

    Y
    yvducharmeAuthor
    December 3, 2019

    When we had received the statements in the mail, they were automatically put into Enter Bills and Pay Bills without Entering Credit Card Charges or Reconciling. How do we record these payments? (I have bank receipts). 

    L
    LauraAB
    December 3, 2019

    Welcome back. With this question, having more details about what's been done would be helpful, but I think I have a sense of what's happened.

     

    It sounds to me like you were entering bills and chose the credit card as the method of payment in the Pay Bills window. If so, that's fine and it will still count your transactions toward your credit card account in the Chart of Accounts. The Enter Credit Card Charges feature can be used to simplify recording the transactions instead of the two-step Enter Bills + Pay Bills process. Feel free to give it a shot on future credit card transactions!

     

    Whether you enter them through the Pay Bills or Enter Credit Card Charges feature, as long as all the necessary transactions are in the credit card account in the Chart of Accounts, you'll be good to go with reconciling. If what's happened is in the process of paying the bills you didn't choose the correct account, you'll need to go in and edit or delete the payment transactions, then recreate them with the proper payment account selected.

     

    Let me know if I've got you covered with that or if I've perhaps missed the mark. If I'm not quite getting it, please give me more details about what's been done and I'll do what I can to help!

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