Today we’re going to do another quick study of the online banking capabilities of QuickBooks Online (QBO).
This may be one of the most talked about features of QBO. Depending on the workflow of your particular organization, it has a varying effect on the time spent entering and clearing bank transactions.
But for everyone, it adds efficiencies to the accounting system.
Let’s examine bank rules and what they can do for you.
Below is a screenshot of the banking transactions in the QBO sample company.
Note the red arrow pointing to the Update button. There is a small down arrow at the right edge of the button.
If you click on that, the menu shown in the graphic opens. Choose Manage Rules.
Above is the top half of the Rule setup window. For our example, we name the rule Tim Philip Masonry. What we hope to accomplish is to tell QBO that, since Tim Philip is a masonry subcontractor, whenever we create an expense to him, it should post to Subcontractors expense.
That scenario fits the entries made for the bank rule along the top line of the screenshot. The name makes sense. It is for expenses or money out. And, the rule should affect all bank accounts.
The second section of the window allows more settings. We could create a complex rule that would require QBO to examine several criteria. The rule could require all or any of the criteria be met.
For our example, we want QBO to apply the rule to incoming transactions that reference Tim Philip Masonry.
Above is the bottom half of the bank rule window. QBO is instructed to only apply the rule to expense transactions. The payee should select Tim Philip Masonry from the vendor list. QBO should post the transaction to Job Expenses:Subcontractors.
Above is a portion of the banking transactions list. Note that the expense to Tim Philip Masonry is now posting to the correct expense account according to the rule just created. Before the rule was created, QBO displayed Uncategorized Expense as the selected account.
We no longer have to edit the transaction before accepting it.
Hector Garcia, CPA
Certified Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisor
12401 Orange Drive #136
Davie, FL 33330
954-414-1524
hector@garciacpa.com
