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While our QuickBooks accountants were answering QuickBooks related questions on Yahoo Answers asked by small business accountants, they came across a few interesting ones regarding how to book income coming from Groupon and donations (the last for a nonprofit organization) or giving customers a refund. We thought to put the answers and questions together in case you find yourselves needing to book similar transactions in your QB accounting business software.

Q1: Customer refund in QuickBooks?
I make a customer receipt for every payment the customer makes. At the end of the day, I go to “record deposits” tab and check every payment; this will make my deposit amount. Sometimes I have to give a cash refund to the customer for the service they have already used and those money was already deposited before. When I make a refund in QuickBooks it does not reduce my deposit amount in the deposit screen. How do I reduce the amount of money in the “record deposit screen”?

A: If you use the “Use Credit To” functionality of a credit memo, it will only allow you to record the refund directly against your bank account, instead of grouping it with other Undeposited Funds. The simplest method to do this would be to create a Journal Entry instead of using the Credit Memo/Refund transaction. You would debit the Income account and credit Undeposited Funds for the amount of the refund. This will then show in the Payments to deposit window as a negative amount. Keep in mind that QuickBooks will not let you make a negative ‘deposit’, however, so you will need to have more to deposit than refund for the day.

Q2: How do you book income Groupon in QuickBooks?
I am a bookkeeper and I have a new client that is using Groupon to promote his business.
Two Questions:
1) I want to book the income as Unearned Revenue and as service is used book that amount as sales. Is that the correct way anyone else is handling Groupon Revenue?
2) What if the Groupon is not redeemed, the amount I assume stays in Unearned Revenue, but what if they customer never shows or uses the Groupon?

A: I would recommend treating the Groupon similar to a gift certificate. You can create another charge item and link it to a liability account. If the customer never redeems the Groupon, then you would move the amount from the liability to income. Keep in mind that you would have to reverse this transaction if the customer ever did show up.

Q3: Can you use Intuit QuickBook as a donation method?
I work at a non-profit charter school. We use QuickBooks for employee paychecks and use QuickBooks for an after school program for requesting payment. The payment is through QuickBooks. The parents get an invoice and they pay that payment through a billpay.quickbooks.com link.
We want to set up a similar method for people want to do donations. Can we do this? So instead of payments, it would be a donation account? A separate account where this money goes?

A: QuickBooks can track donations to a separate account, but you would first have to create an invoice for the amount in order for it to show up on billpay.quickbooks.com.
There is a preference you can turn on that will let you select which account a payment is going to be going to (by default, it’s Undeposited Funds). You can specify a separate bank account for any donation payments received.

In business – contracts, negotiations, proposals – has many twist and turns that normally people, even the businessmen themselves don’t understand. Loopholes, implications, and let us not forget the dreaded fine print which puts our dealings in hold-ups stopping the negotiation process right at its peak due to various liabilities that you have not foreseen. In these situations, to find these loopholes and ensure that every statement’s implication is taken into consideration, any business should hire their own Business Attorney.

A Business Attorney is very crucial in running a business and is also very vital in every aspect of it, especially towards your very goal of making it successful. They take every aspect you deal with crucially and critically, leaving no stone unturned.

To start with, Business Attorneys should be hired as soon as you start a business. There are many types attorneys that are in the line of handling and managing a business, and an attorney who helps you decide on what type of business organization you are going to start with is one of them but, ultimately, it will still be your own decision that is going to be followed. On the other hand, considering the word of an expert is not so much of a bad idea. In addition in helping you decide the type of business organization suitable for your projected venture, they are also the ones who are going to be preparing the paper works necessary in setting up your business.

When your business is well underway, it is when your Business Attorney is at his or her busiest schedule. In the beginning, it is all still good and trying to find stability is the key, but when you try to expand and commit to other suppliers, clients, and other potential major stockholders, then that is when the Business Attorney steps into the limelight. They would have to go through all the documents and contracts being submitted to and by the other side of the negotiating party and all other else that is involved so that you can capture the full essence of what you are taking about. It is a good way of steering yourself away from any liabilities that could happen you have not fully grasped the meaning of the papers that are being given to you. The primary role of the Business Attorney is to prevent any lawsuits from happening such as liabilities, property right, intellectual property rights, among others.

One should remember that hiring a Business Attorney only when the lawsuit is well on its way is already too late and in addition, the costs are way higher.

Speaking of costs, most of businessmen may think that hiring a Business Attorney entails higher costs than doing otherwise, and it may be so, but there are various strategies that can be used such as paying them per hour, by flat fee, contingent billing, or value billing, which is self explanatory.

As they say, prevention is better than cure, so by hiring an attorney as early as the beginning of your business venture, you are preventing future liabilities and high rise expenses.