Forum: comp
Page 412
Subject: Quickbooks--writing off bad debt


  Posted by: Perm Dude - [47047238] Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 16:16

Anyone use Quickbooks?

I have some old invoices in my system that I want to write off. Quickbooks tells me to go to the Receive Payments screen and click on the invoice in question to begin the process of writing it off. But it isn't allowing me to do that.

Also, I believe I need to set up a "bad debts" discount account in Quickbooks, to apply the bad debt amount toward. How is that done?

pd
 
1jedman
      Dude
      ID: 315192219
      Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 21:11
I don't use Quickbooks, but in my accounting system for my
business, I can create another invoice with the exact same number
and put in a negative number and it just wipes out the receivable to
0, which is the same effect as a bad debts account. It in effect
takes that number from my sales for the year. Perhaps you can do
something similar in Quickbooks.
How do you add new accounts to your chart of accounts? Create an
account that is in your sales area that would be contra to sales. If
your invoices create a sales amount, the bad debts account would
be a negative to that.
 
2Perm Dude
      ID: 47047238
      Sat, Jan 24, 2009, 23:49
Sounds like a good way to do it. I can make sure that the bad debt "discount account" is tracked for tax purposes as well.

It isn't a lot of money (I've been very lucky!), but there's no reason to keep, say, $3000-4000 on the books for years when they certainly aren't going to be paid by this time.