This seemingly missed step doesn’t cause any idiosyncratic behavior on the part of QuickBooks. QuickBooks lumps the revenue and expenses from all the previous years into a retained earnings amount reported on the balance sheet. Net income for the current year is also reported in the equity portion of the balance sheet. In addition, if you have a corporation, QuickBooks typically includes a dividends paid account in the equity portion of the balance sheet. I’m getting ahead of myself, however.
The main thing that I want you to know is that this seemingly critical textbook journal entry for closing out revenue and expense accounts isn’t made within QuickBooks. This is okay, because QuickBooks doesn’t need to make the traditional closing entry.
You may want to ask your accountant about this entry. Typically, however, any dividends paid by a corporation are zeroed out or combined with retained earnings at the end of the year. If you want to combine dividends paid for the current year with accumulative retained earnings, you do this with a journal entry. The journal entry credits the dividends paid account and debits retained earnings for the amount of dividends paid for the year. I hesitate to encourage you to make this journal entry willy-nilly, however. I think it’s okay to skip making the entry. And before you make it, consult your tax adviser.
One More Thing …
In this chapter, I try to address some of the common, complicated journal entries and accounting transactions that business owners encounter. I know that I can’t answer every question here, but I do want to provide as thorough a set of instructions as possible. All this is leading up to a special request: If you’ve read this chapter and didn’t find a discussion of the sort of journal entry or accounting transaction that you need to record, send me an email or write me a letter that tells me what help you hoped to find here but didn’t. (You can get contact information at https://stephenlnelson.com.)
I can’t promise you that I’ll be able to supply an answer. But if you describe a journal entry that I should have included, I’ll try to respond to your email with instructions on how to make the journal entry. I’ll also include a description of the journal entry in the next edition of this book.
Book 2
Getting Ready to Use QuickBooks
Contents at a Glance
1 Chapter 1: Setting Up QuickBooks Planning Your New QuickBooks System Installing QuickBooks Dealing with the Presetup Jitters Running the QuickBooks Setup Wizard Identifying the Starting Trial Balance
2 Chapter 2: Loading the Master File Lists Setting Up the Chart of Accounts List Setting Up the Item List Working with the Price Level List Using Sales Tax Codes Setting Up a Payroll Item List Setting Up Classes Setting Up a Customer List Setting Up the Vendor List Setting Up a Fixed Assets List Setting Up a Price Level List Setting Up a Billing Rate Level List Setting Up Your Employees Setting Up an Other Names List Setting Up the Profile Lists
3 Chapter 3: Fine-Tuning QuickBooks Accessing the Preferences Settings Setting the Accounting Preferences Setting the Bills Preferences Setting the Calendar Preferences Setting the Checking Preferences Changing the Desktop View Setting Finance Charge Calculation Rules Setting General Preferences Controlling Integrated Applications Controlling Inventory Controlling How Jobs and Estimates Work Dealing with Multiple Currencies Starting Integrated Payment Processing Controlling How Payroll Works Telling QuickBooks How Reminders Should Work Specifying Reports & Graphs Preferences Setting Sales & Customers Preferences Specifying How Sales Are Taxed Setting the Search Preferences Setting the Send Forms Preferences Fine-Tuning the Service Connection Controlling Spell Checking Controlling How 1099 Tax Reporting Works Setting Time & Expenses Preferences
Chapter 1