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The ACBA uses QuickBooks Online for bookkeeping. It accurately tracks our accounting according to IRS regulations and generates the reports we need.
Some people have other preferences for accounting software, but sticking to a multiuser program that is online, rather than on someone’s computer, ensures continuity when a treasurer changes. We have access to an inexpensive version of QuickBooks Online as a nonprofit so cost is not an issue. Changing to a different system can make it difficult when switching treasurers, and should not be done without a strong consensus that there’s a good reason to change beyond “it would be easier for a certain person to do something different this year”.
Here are some tips about our use of QuickBooks:
Table of Contents
- Attach documentation to everything
- How to record a check donation we receive
- How to record a check we write
- Reviewing automatic debit card payments
- Reviewing PayPal transactions
- Transferring money from PayPal to Citibank
- Reconciling Bank Statements
- Reconciling PayPal Statements
- Reports
Attach documentation to everything
An audit is vastly easier if you attach PDF documents or images to the transactions in question. When you create an expenditure, for example, attach the PDF of the invoice requesting it. When you reconcile the bank or PayPal account, QuickBooks Online has a space for attaching the PDF of the download from the bank or PayPal. And so on: The more original documentation, the better. Think of what would happen if you weren’t around to answer questions, and other people were looking at the attachments to reconstruct what happened.
How to record a check donation we receive
How to record a check we write
This will include things like:
- Honorarium payments for speakers
- Requests for reimbursement for extractor maintenance, meeting supplies, etc.
- Annual insurance bills (two payments)
- Tax filing fees
When you receive one of these, the treasurer must first verify that the payment is legitimate and get the approval of a second officer (usually the president) before sending a check. That approval must happen using a separate channel like a phone number you’ve previously used (nto a phone number from the email message); don’t make the mistake of replying to a forged email message that claims to be from the president and asking the criminal for approval!
Once that’s done, you should enter it this way:
Then you can write the check.
Reviewing automatic debit card payments
Some fees are automatically billed to the club debit card, including payments for Zoom, QuickBooks, Phone.com swarm hotline phone service, and the storage locker. These get automatically imported from Citibank to QuickBooks, and just need to be reviewed to ensure that they’re in the right category:
- Click “Transactions” in the left column
- Make sure “Bank Transactions” is chosen at the top
- Look in the “For Review” section
- Ensure that the category is correct and that the amount is expected when reviewing and saving them
In most cases, it will show as a “match”, and you can simply verify it and confirm it, as seen in this video of five matching transactions:
Note that in this case we left the two unmatched ones untouched — they haven’t yet been entered properly, so it’s best to do that first.
Reviewing PayPal transactions
Most of our incoming money, including most membership payments and donations, is via PayPal. (One thing that has confused many people is that our membership form does show a Venmo QR code that people with Venmo accounts can use, but the club does not have a separate Venmo account. Instead, that form takes advantage of PayPal/Venmo feature where someone can make a Venmo payment, and it will appear in our PayPal account.)
New PayPal transactions will appear in the “PayPal balance account” (you can review past payments by clicking the gear icon, then Chart of Accounts, then View Register). They are automatically imported into QuickBooks using the “PayPal connector app” once every three hours (so if you don’t see it yet, it should appear if you wait three hours).
When they appear, you need to Review them and make sure the payment is accurately categorized in the “Category or match” section towards the bottom before you click Confirm:
- Click “Transactions” in the left column
- Choose “App transactions” at the top
- Look in the “For Review” section
- Ensure that the category is correct — it will default to ACBA Membership, but other possibilities include Donations, Extractor Rentals, or T-shirt or hat
- Click Confirm
Here’s an example of reviewing three transactions — two are membership payments, and one is for extractor rental:
Transferring money from PayPal to Citibank
After you transfer money from PayPal to Citibank using the PayPal website, and then wait a few hours, it will automatically show up in QuickBooks as a transaction to be reviewed. You just need to choose the correct Citibank Checking account when you review it:
Reconciling Bank Statements
When the Citibank monthly statement is available as a PDF from their website, we should go to Transactions, click Reconcile, and choose the Citibank account. Enter the data to match the Citibank statement and ensure the difference is zero before finishing the reconciliation:
After reconciling it, click History by Account and click Attach to permanently add the PDF statement to the reconciliation, as shown above. (If you’ve already left the screen, you can go to Reports and choose Reconciliation Reports to get back to where you can Attach it.)
Reconciling PayPal Statements
When the PayPal monthly statement is available as a PDF from their website, we should go to the Transactions, click Reconcile, and choose the PayPal account. Enter the data to match the PayPal statement and ensure the difference is zero before finishing the reconciliation:
After reconciling it, click History by Account and click Attach to permanently add the PDF statement to the reconciliation:
(If you’ve already left the screen, you can go to Reports and choose Reconciliation Reports to get back to where you can Attach it.)
Reports
The two reports that should be provided to the board and newsletter monthly are the “Statement of Financial Position” and “Statement of Activity Comparison”. Here’s an example of generating the “Statement of Activity Comparison”: