When you select 'Account codes' under 'Accounting' on the main menu, you'll see a screen that lists all of the accounting codes associated with your accounting method (cash or accrual) as well as period-to-date, year-to-date, inception-to-date, and unextracted amount totals for each account code.
(You won't see this screen until you've entered a transaction that posts amounts to accounts. Instead, you'll get a message that tells you "no accounts have been created yet.")
On this screen, QuickFill displays the internal general ledger accounts and the amounts you've accumulated in each of them for the period, year, and inception to date. The inception-to-date column records the total amount you've accumulated since you first installed QuickFill. For balance sheet accounts, this figure represents the current balance in the account. For income accounts, it represents the cumulative income since you installed the system.
If you use 'Import subscriptions', your balance sheet accounts will be correct after you have imported your existing subscription system to QuickFill. Click here for more information on the treatment of balance sheet and income accounts during a subscription import (see "The accounting impact of importing subscribers" section at the end of "How to import subscriptions").
Unextracted amount
QuickFill also displays in the "Unextracted amount" column the amount you've accumulated in each account since you last ran the 'Journal extract'. (Remember, QuickFill shows these accounts either on a cash or on an accrual basis, depending on the method you chose on the 'Companies' definition screen.)
Accounting codes
When you first select 'Account codes' (after entering some transactions that have an accounting effect), you'll see that the third and fourth columns— "Accounting codes"—are blank. Enter codes in these columns to correspond to the codes you use in your outside accounting system. For example, in line one of our example above, the publication code in the outside accounting system is "0100." And the accounting code that corresponds to QuickFill's code A_RN (accounts receivable from new orders) is 1130.
For some of the general ledger accounts, such as cash, you may want to combine the amounts you extracted from many QuickFill accounts into a single general ledger account for your outside system. To do so, simply assign a single general ledger account code to all the QuickFill accounts you want to combine. For example, QuickFill keeps track of all payment types—cash or check, Visa, MasterCard, and so forth—separately. You may want to combine these different payment types into a single cash account in your outside general ledger. You may also want to combine the cash accounts for different publications into one cash account.
QuickFill posts the journal entries it produces to the following internal ledger accounts (that is, the accounts you see in column two):
Account codes for a cash basis ledger:
|
PAYxyy |
Payment, where "x" is N for new orders and R for renewal orders and "yy" is one of the following payment type codes: C = Cash or check PN = Credit card (card number not known) |
|
SUBDC |
Deferred subscription income cash |
|
S_HDC |
Deferred shipping and handling cash |
|
TXCxxx |
Tax collected and owed to tax jurisdiction xxx |
|
SUBECN or SUBECR |
Subscription income cash (new or renewal) |
|
S_HECN or S_HECR |
Shipping and handling cash (new or renewal) |
|
REFUND |
Refund liability |
Account codes for an accrual basis ledger:
|
PAYxyy |
Payment, where "x" is N for new orders and R for renewal orders and "yy" is one of the following payment type codes: C = Cash or check W = Wire transfer |
|
A_RN or A_RR |
Accounts receivable (new or renewal) |
|
SUBDA |
Deferred subscription income accrual |
|
S_HDA |
Deferred shipping and handling accrual |
|
TXCxxx |
Tax collected and owed to tax jurisdiction xxx |
|
TXUxxx |
Tax not yet collected for tax jurisdiction xxx |
|
SUBEAN or SUBEAR |
Subscription income cash (new or renewal) |
|
S_HEAN or S_HEAR |
Shipping and handling accrual (new or renewal) |
|
WOA |
Write-off amount |
|
REFUND |
Refund liability |
Suggestions for integrating some of QuickFill's account codes with those of your own accounting system:
Refunds
Because QuickFill doesn't actually issue refunds (that is, you must write the check), you'll probably want to make QuickFill's REFUND account code correspond to a refund liability account in your outside general ledger. Then, when you write the check, you can charge the expense to this refund liability account.
For example, say you enter a refund transaction for $50. Assume that this refund applies only to issues you haven't yet served, and you're on the accrual system. QuickFill posts the following entries to its internal ledger:
|
Db |
SUBDA |
Deferred subscription income accrual |
$50 |
|
|
Cr |
REFUND |
Refund liability |
|
$50 |
Now, when you write the check, post the following entries to your outside accounting system:
|
Db |
Refund liability |
$50 |
|
|
Cr |
Cash |
|
$50 |
Sales tax
In the same way, you probably want to make QuickFill's sales tax account code, TXCxxx (where "xxx" stands for the jurisdiction code), correspond to a sales tax liability account in your outside general ledger. Then, when you write the check, you can charge the expense to this sales tax liability account. (See the example we gave for refunds above.)
If you're using the accrual system and collect sales tax, you'll see that QuickFill posts some of the sales tax to the account code TXUxxx (again, "xxx" stands for the tax jurisdiction code). TXUxxx represents the portion of your accounts receivable that is sales tax. When you enter payments, QuickFill automatically transfers the sales tax from the TXUxxx to the TXCxxx account.
Write-offs
You can treat write-offs either as an expense or as an offset to income. Simply insert the proper account code for your outside general ledger next to the WOA account.