How to Pay Sales Tax in Quickbooks
Does your business collect sales tax from its customers? With the exception of Alaska, Oregon, New Hampshire, Delaware and Montana, most states have a predetermined sales tax. It typically ranges from 2% to 6%, meaning you’ll have to charge customers this additional amount on top of the products or services that they purchase. After collecting sales tax, though, you’ll need to send it to your state’s tax agency. Quickbooks can help you pay sales tax by providing all the necessary records.
Steps to Paying Sales Tax in Quickbooks
To pay sales tax in Quickbooks, go to the homepage and choose “Sales Tax” under the “Vendors menu,” followed by “Pay Sales Tax.” Under the “Pay From Account” menu, choose the bank account from which you want to pay the sales tax. Keep in mind that you’ll only see your business’s bank accounts listed under this menu. You won’t see credit card or other financial accounts.
Next, double-check the field labeled “Show sales tax due through” to ensure it’s correct. If the date is wrong, you’ll need to change it before proceeding to the next step. You should also use this opportunity to double-check the “Starting Check No.” field. This field represents the check number for which you’d like to pay the sales tax.
In the main section, you’ll see a list of all your business’s sales taxes as well as the tax organization for which they are due. Each line in the main section should list an item, vendor (tax organization), amount due and amount paid.
Finishing Up
If all the information looks correct, you can pay your business’s sales tax by clicking the “Pay All Tax” button. This option will pay all the sales taxes your business owes as indicated in the main section. With that said, Quickbooks doesn’t require you to pay sales tax in full. You can make partial payments by clicking the “Amt Paid” cell and entering your desired payment amount.
You can also choose to print or write checks for sales tax payments. To do this, click the box labeled “To be printed,” at which point Quickbooks will place a checkmark in it. To complete the process, click the “OK” button. Quickbooks will then either process your payment or print out the documents so that you can manually pay your sales tax.
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