How to Fix Sales Tax Paid by Regular Check in QuickBooks
Published 05/29/2010 | 
If you don’t have it, it’s a pain but you really should void the regular checks and re-pay them through the Pay Sales Tax option. If you change the account used on the checks to Sales Tax Payable (so you can issue a $0 check) or use Adjust Sales Tax Due (using the account that’s on the regular checks), you’ll clear the sales tax due but it won’t be applied to the correct sales tax items because there’s no way to do add sales tax items to either form.
This is one reason I love the new Client Data Review features! You can fix things that used to take hours with just a couple clicks.
This article is provided for informational purposes and is not intended to be construed as legal, accounting, or other professional advice. For further information, please consult appropriate professional advice from your attorney and certified public accountant.
Written by +Ruth Perryman, CMA, CFE, CFM, MBA
Ruth is the president of The QB Specialists, an Intuit Premier Reseller that offers huge savings and expert advice on QuickBooks POS and QuickBooks Enterprise. She is an Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor and a member of Intuit’s Trainer/Writer Network. She is also certified in QuickBooks POS and QuickBooks Enterprise and has provided expert QuickBooks help to thousands of businesses all over the world since 1996.
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I’m in the same situation taking over for someone who has written sales tax payments as expensed items for over 9 years. The accounting firm has made adjusting entries at year end to reconcile the Sales Taxes Payable liability account to actual, but of course this does not affect the sales taxes payable feature in quickbooks.
Is there ANY way to get this cleaned up? I would be willing to try and go back through each year tediously, but am finding some negative amounts in the “pay sales taxes” showing up that look like entries from the adjustments made by our CPA firm. I’m concerned that if I try to adjust anything through there, it will mess up the balance sheet account.
We are already late in this year, but should I just go back and re-do checks done this year? We have sales taxes due to multiple cities and counties, so each month there are several checks issued in addition to our local city, and state.
Any helpful ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
Hi Peggy,
I’d try using Client Data Review. If you don’t have the Accountant edition, you’ll need to create an External Accountant user to access it.
Ruth
A limited edition of Client Data Review is available to users who aren’t using the Accountant’s edition, but I’m not sure if the sales tax cleanup is included.
You can access Client Data Review in the other editions of QuickBooks by creating an External Accountant user and logging into that user account.
If you void a check that’s been reconciled, it will throw off your previous reconciliations.
You can try adjusting your sales tax (Vendors > Sales Tax > Adjust Sales Tax Due). Sometimes that’s all it takes.
If that doesn’t work, create a bank account called something like “clearing”, pay the sales tax at Vendors > Sales Tax > Pay Sales Tax using the clearing account and then change the account you used on your check from sales tax payable to the clearing account. Just remember, the clearing account needs to be $0 when you’re done with all your transactions, otherwise something was entered incorrectly.
Ruth,
I have an extremely similar case as to the one mentioned above.
I have QuickBooksPro 2010, can I access this Client Data Review Feature?
If not, If I do follow the advice and void the checks and then re-enter them through the “Pay Sales Tax” option, will this through off previous reconciliations?
Thanks