Online Banking with QuickBooks
QuickBooks has a great feature that makes life easier and
reconciling your checking accounts a snap. But your bank has to
OFFER online banking for QuickBooks. Most of the time you can see if
they do by going to �Banking�on the top menu, �Setup Online Banking
Financial Services�, then click on �Apply� and see if your bank has
it available. You might be asked to fill out a form online, print it
and fax it in. You have to be on the internet at this point to see a
list.
You�d get from your bank a user ID and Password.
If your bank is not listed call and ask them. Sometimes THROUGH
their own online banking there�s a menu choice to download
transactions into 6 different programs, QuickBooks being one of
them. If so, Bingo!
Then you�d go to �Banking� then to �Online Banking Services.� Enter
User ID & password and be on the internet.
QuickBooks will download all transactions that cleared last
night-deposits and checks. You�ll also see your bank balance. You
can even email your checks to vendors from this window rather than
mailing. I pay 85% of my bills through this feature. For ME its $12
per month pays 12 or 24 checks, after that it�s 25 cents per pay.
They either use the Federal Reserve System to pay it (like credit
cards) or they actually print a check FOR YOU and they mail it. Too
easy.
When you download there will be an electronic lighting bolt in the
cleared column, letting you know it�s cleared. If you have a check
that wasn�t entered, it will be on the screen, click on �add to
register�and chose a category and you�re up to date.
Why would a check not be entered? Firstly you might have forgotten.
But you�ll get this for things taken out of your checkbook you that
should be. Like:
Credit card merchant fees on a monthly basis
Bank service charges
Automatic insurance payments.
You can even transfer monies between accounts in the same bank, on
line.
It�s explained in the QuickBooks manual and you should join up. The
last store I went to and set this up (I do it for every store if
it�s available) could get the download for cheap money but PAYING
checks online was about 69 cents EACH. I think that�s too much so we
opted to just get downloads.
Reconciling is easy because all transactions are correct and there.
Lastly, some downloads offer you the choice of how far back you want
to download. On the first one choose �past week�. Don�t choose �ALL�
or you�ll have many duplicate transactions, if you�ve been using
QuickBooks.
Some downloads don�t offer a choice and it will download every
transaction for the past 5-7 months. Nothing you can do.
What you do in this case is to delete them (assuming you already
have them in your register.)
The easy way is to change the date to �December 31, 2003� and add to
register. Then after it�s all done, click done and go to those
dates. Check to be sure these are duplicates (they probably are) and
then delete those duplicated transactions. You can do that by
clicking on one at a time and hitting �Control-D� for delete.
After you�ve cleaned it up, each morning you can download, see what
came in and out of your account, add ones you forgot in a split
second and see your balance. It�s a great part of the internet. David
Geller