What Are Capital Gains in Accounting?
Capital gains are often misunderstood by business owners. It’s not until a business owner is hit with a penalty from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) when he or she realizes the importance of recording them. Whether you run a small or large business, you should familiarize yourself with capital gains and how they are used in accounting.
The Basics of Capital Gains
The term “capital gains” refers to the profits that are generated through the sale of an asset. If you sell an asset at a higher price than the amount for which you purchased it, you’ll incur capital gains. The difference between the asset’s original purchase price and its resell price is its capital gains. A real estate flipping business, for instance, may purchase a house for $75,000, after which it sells the house for $125,000. The capital gains on this real estate transaction would be $50,000.
Conversely, the term “capital losses” refers to the financial losses incurred through the sale of an asset. In a perfect world, every asset you sell would turn a profit. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen. You may even up selling an asset at a lower price than that for which you paid it. In instances where you incur financial losses such as this, it’s considered capital losses.
While capital taxes are taxable, you can minimize this financial burden by holding on to your assets for at least one year before selling them. When you hold an asset for at least a year, it’s considered a long-term capital gain — once the asset is sold — which is taxed by the IRS at a lower rate than short-term gains.
Capital Gains vs Dividends: What’s the Difference?
Although they share some similarities, capital gains aren’t the same as dividends. Dividends are simply assets that are distributed to a company’s shareholders. In accounting, dividends are recorded as income for the year in which they were distributed. Capital gains, on the other hand, are simply the profits generated through the sale of an asset.
How to Track Capital Gains in Quickbooks
Assuming you use Quickbooks, you might be wondering how to track your business’s capital gains. One way to track capital gains in Quickbooks is to create a separate account for them. You can create an income account, for instance, called “capital gains on [enter asset name]” Assuming you sell the respective asset for more than its original purchase price, you can then record the difference in the newly created income account.
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How to View Adjusting Journal Entries in Quickbooks
Does your business have a dedicated accountant who’s responsible for keeping track of its financial records? If so, you may need to view his or her adjusting journal entries. Quickbooks allows accountants to adjust the total balance of accounts. Known as an adjusting journal entry, it’s typically used to fix typos and errors that could otherwise adversely affect a business’s financial records. But how exactly do you view the adjusting journal entries made by your business’s accountant?
Steps to Viewing Adjusting Journal Entries
Assuming you use Quickbooks, you can view adjusting journal entries made by your business’s accountant in just a few easy steps. After launching the software, choose “Reports” under the left-hand menu. Next, click the “Accountants Reports” button. You should then see a list of all the reports made by your business’s accountant. Scroll through this list of reports and click the one that you’d like to open.
If you want to add an adjustment column to a report, click the “Customize” link with which it’s associated. Next, click the “Change columns” link under the section titled “Rows/Columns.” You can then click the checkbox next to “Adj. column,” which should add it to your report. When finished, you can run the report by selecting the “Run report” option at the bottom. Quickbooks will then create the report containing the adjusting journal entry or entries.
What About Adjusted Trial Balances?
In addition to adjusting journal entries, professional accountants often create adjusted trial balances. Basically, an adjusted trial balance is an entry that lists the total balances of all accounts following the creation of adjusting journal entries. It’s often used by businesses to prepare financial statements, which may then be used to secure credit or other forms of financing.
In Quickbooks, you can view adjusted trial balances. This is done by going back to the “Reports” section, followed by searching for “Adjusted Trial Balance” in the search field. You can then choose “Adjusted Trial Balance” from the search results list.
It’s not uncommon for accountants to correct mistakes. After all, their job is to accurately record financial records, so they often go back to make corrections using adjusted journal entries. As a business owner, you can view adjusted journal entries by following the steps outlined above.
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Balance Sheet vs Income Statement: What’s the Difference?
Many business owners assume that balance sheets and income statements are the same. While they are both used in financial accounting, though, they are each designed for a specific purpose. As a result, balance sheets and income statements aren’t interchangeable. By familiarizing yourself with the differences between balance sheets and income statements, you’ll know exactly when and how to use them.
What Is an Income Statement?
Also known as a profit-and-loss statement, an income statement is a financial document that shows your business’s revenue and expenses over a predefined period, such as a fiscal quarter or year. It’s essentially an overview of your business’s profits and losses.
Income statements are often used to secure loans, credit and other forms of financing. If you’re trying to secure financing for your business, the lender or creditor may ask for an income statement. Reviewing the income statement allows the lender or credit to gain a better understanding of your business’s ability to satisfy the debt. If your business shows substantial profits with little or no losses, the lender or credit will feel more confident knowing that your business has the financial ability to repay the debt.
It’s important to note that income statements are zeroed out at the end of their respective period. Once you’ve wrapped up the period for an income statement, you must zero out the balances of the accounts.
What Is a Balance Sheet?
A balance sheet, on the other hand, is a more thorough financial document that shows your business’s assets and liabilities as well as the equity of its shareholders.
When creating balance sheets, you should strive to match your business’s assets with the liabilities and equity of your business’s shareholders. In other words, the total amount of your business’s assets, as recorded on the balance sheet, should match equal the combination of your business’s total liabilities and the equity of its shareholders.
Balance sheets are far more detained than income statements. While income statements are somewhat limited in scope, balance sheets contain detailed information. More specifically, they contain every asset and liability recorded by your business for a given period, such as a fiscal quarter or year. Hopefully, this gives you a better understanding of the differences between income statements and balance sheets in financial accounting.
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How to Delete a Deposit in Quickbooks
Did you accidentally record the wrong amount for a deposit in your business’s Quickbooks account? If so, you may need to delete the deposit so that it doesn’t harm your business’s financial records. In Quickbooks, however, you can easily delete deposits in just a few simple steps.
Follow These Steps to Delete a Deposit
To delete a deposit in Quickbooks, log in to your account and select the “Record Deposits” button under the “Banking” tab on the home page. Next, you should see a new payments window appear on your screen. In this window, find the section labeled “Make Deposits View” and click the button labeled “Cancel” under it.
Assuming you followed these steps correctly, you should see a list of all your deposits. Go through this list until you find the one that you want to delete. You can then click the deposit, followed by ‘Delete Deposit” under the “Edit” menu. Quickbooks will then ask if you’re sure you want to delete the deposit. After clicking “Ok,” the deposit will be deleted. There are a few other ways to delete deposits, but this is arguably the easiest and fastest method.
Keep in mind that once you’ve deleted a deposit, you won’t be able to recover it. You can always go back and manually recreate the deposit, but there isn’t an “undo” button. So, before deleting a deposit, make sure it’s the right deposit. Otherwise, you’ll have to backtrack to recreate it.
What About Duplicate Deposits?
Erroneous deposits are often the result of duplicate entries. For example, you may accidentally record the same deposit twice, resulting in a duplicate entry. In cases such of duplicate deposits such as this, you’ll need to delete one of them.
To delete a duplicate deposit, open your Quickbooks company file and, once launched, click the “Make a Deposit” button under the “Banking menu.” You can then select the duplicate content, followed by “Edit” and then “Delete Line.” When finished, save and close the menu to complete the process.
It’s important to note that incoming funds are categorized as either deposited or undeposited in Quickbooks, depending on whether they’ve been deposited. If you have an erroneous deposit that needs deleting, just follow the steps outlined in this post. Don’t let duplicate or otherwise erroneous deposits throw off your business’s financial records. Use this guide to keep your business’s financial records in order.
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Employees vs Independent Contractors: What’s the Difference?
The terms “employees” and “independent contractors” are often used interchangeably describe workers whom a business hires. However, there are some stark differences between them, specifically in regards to how they treated by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). As a business owner, you might be wondering how exactly employees differ from independent contractors. Below, you’ll learn more about these two classifications of workers and their respective nuances.
What Is an Independent Contractor?
An independent contractor is a non-employee worker who has control over the work he or she performs. The IRS explains that, as a general rule, a worker is considered an independent contractor if he or she can control their work. In other words, independent contractors can choose whether or not to perform a work-related task and when to perform it. His or her employer — known simply as a payer — cannot require the independent contractor to perform ongoing or otherwise pre-scheduled work.
What Is a Employee?
An employee, on the other hand, is a worker who doesn’t have control of his or her work. A worker is considered an employee if his or her employer can dictate their work. Employees typically have little or no say regarding their work schedule. Rather, they are required to perform specific tasks at specific times.
Differences Between Independent Contractors and Employees
Aside from the terminology differences, the IRS treats employees and independent contractors very differently from each other. If you hire an independent contractor, he or she will be responsible for withholding and paying their own income taxes and Social Security. If you hire an employee, however, you must withhold and pay the employee’s income taxes and Social Security.
Furthermore, employees are entitled to certain benefits in the United States that aren’t offered to independent contractors. There’s both a federal minimum wage and state-specific minimum wages that all employers must follow when paying their employees. Independent contractors aren’t subject to these minimum wages. Employers can technically pay them less.
Employees are also eligible for overtime pay. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), all employees who work over 40 hours in a single week are entitled are overtime pay of at least 1.5 times than their standard pay. These are just a few benefits that are only offered to employees. Employers aren’t required to offer these benefits to workers who are classified as independent contractors.
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How to Run a Vendor Expense Report in Quickbooks
When preparing your taxes for the previous year, you’ll need to break down your business’s expenses. Regardless of what type of business you manage, you’ll probably need to purchase products or services from vendors. The good news is that you can write off these purchases as business-related expenses on your taxes. First, however, you’ll need to run a vendor expense report to determine exactly how much you spent with each vendor.
Steps to Running a Vendor Expense Report in Quickbooks Desktop
If you use Quickbooks for your business’s accounting needs, you can run a vendor expense report in just a few easy steps. Start by logging in Quickbooks Desktop — not the cloud-based version of Intuit’s accounting software — and then click the “Reports” button at the top of the screen. From here, choose “Vendors & Payables,” followed by “Unpaid Bills Detail.”
At this point, you should see a list of all your business’s unpaid bills. Of course, this isn’t particularly helpful if you’re trying to determine how much money you spent for each of your business’s vendors. Therefore, you’ll need to select the “Customize Report” button on the unpaid bills screen, followed by choosing the “filters” tab. You can then set the filter parameters to “Paid Status.” When finished, select click the button labeled “Closed,” followed by “OK.”
With the filter parameters set to “Paid Status,” you should see a list of all the bills your business paid. If you have dozens or hundreds of paid bills listed, you may want to set a transaction date range to narrow down the results.
What About Quickbooks Online?
Quickbooks Online uses a different framework than Quickbooks Desktop. As the name suggests, it’s the cloud-based version of Intuit’s accounting software.
To run a vendor expense report in Quickbooks Online, you’ll need to choose the “Expenses by Supplier Summary Report” option. Keep in mind, this only shows how much money you or your business spent with its vendors.
As a business owner, you’ll inevitably spend money with your vendors to perform your business’s operations. Products and services are essential to all businesses, but it’s important that you track them for tax purposes. By tracking your vendor payments, you can lower your tax burden come April. Thankfully, Quickbooks makes it easy to view vendor expenses. Whether you use Quickbooks Desktop or Quickbooks Online, you can run a report that shows all your business’s vendor payments.
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Managerial Accounting vs Financial Accounting
When researching common accounting activities, you may come across managerial accounting and financial accounting. They are two common types of accounting activities conducted by businesses. While similar, though, managerial accounting and financial accounting aren’t the same. As a business owner, you should learn the differences between these two accounting activities so that you can keep your financial records in perfect order.
What Is Managerial Accounting?
The term “managerial accounting” refers to all internal financial activities used to record and track a business’s transactions. It’s generally used to improve a business’s operations and, therefore, increase its profits. Budgeting, for instance, is a common managerial accounting activity. Businesses must look at their past expenses to estimate how much money they’ll spend on similar products and services in the future. Using this information, as well as income data, businesses can create a budget that’s aligned with their objectives.
As explained by Chron, managerial accounting focuses on processes as opposed to financial-based metrics like cash flow. Businesses use this data to make managerial decisions that affect their bottom line.
What Is Financial Accounting?
In comparison, the term “financial accounting” refers to all external financial activities used to record and track a business’s transactions. Also known as cost accounting, it’s a more broad type of accounting that covers all recording activities, specifically those involving income and expenses.
Financial accounting activities are specified in the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). This universal framework contains processes used for financial accounting, including their respective standards and rules that professional accountants should follow.
The key thing to remember is that managerial accounting is used internally within a business, whereas financial accounting is used for individuals or entities outside of a business. With financial accounting, internal workers, such as accountants, often prepare reports. But they prepare those reports for individuals or entities outside of their business, which is in stark contrast to managerial accounting.
Common types of financial reports created during financial accounting include income statements, balance sheets and equity statements.
In Conclusion
Managerial accounting and financial accounting are used by businesses to keep track of their financial records. The difference is that managerial accounting focuses on improving managerial operations, whereas financial accounting focuses consists of more traditional accounting activities like tracking income and expenses as well as creating balance sheets and equity statements.
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Why Is My Accounts Receivables (AR) Balance Negative?
Have you discovered a negative accounts receivables (AR) balance when reviewing your business’s finances? Not to be confused with accounts payables (AP), AR refers to money owed to your business. Normally, it consists of a positive balance, meaning customers or clients owe your business money. But what if your business has a negative AR balance?
A Negative AR Balance Means Your Business Owes Money
With a negative AR balance, your business essentially owes money. Maybe your business owes money to a customer, or perhaps it owes money to a vendor. Regardless, the negative balance indicates a financial liability.
Negative AR balances are typically the result of an overpayment. If you send a customer an invoice for $100 but he or she accidentally pays $150, for example, it will result in an AR balance of negative $50. Your business will then have to pay the respective customer $50.
How to Handle a Negative AR Balance
Now that you know what causes negative AR balances, you might be wondering how to handle them. Assuming the negative AR balance is the result of an overpayment, you can fix it in one of two ways: One way is to leave the customer’s original payment and simply carry his or her credit to the following invoice. Another way to handle a negative AR balance is to issue a refund for the overpayment.
In Quickbooks, you can record overpayments by selecting (+) button from the home screen, followed by “Receive Payment.” In the next window, choose the customer who made the overpayment. Next, find the invoice associated with the overpayment in the “Outstanding Transactions” area. After locating the invoice, click the adjacent box so that it creates a check mark in it. Finally, enter the amount of the customer’s payment — the total amount, including the overpayment — in the “Amount Received” field.
In Conclusion
AR balances are typically positive because they denote money owed to your business. There are times, however, when you may encounter a negative AR balance. As mentioned above, a negative AR balance denotes money owed by your business. It typically occurs when a customer, client or vendor accidentally overpays.
Encountering a negative AR balance can be confusing. The good news is that you can easily handle it using Quickbooks. Just remember to either carry the customer’s overpayment credit over to the next invoice or issue the customer a refund.
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What Are Capital Expenditures in Accounting?
Many entrepreneurs assume that capital expenditures are the same as expenses. While they can be classified as expenses, this doesn’t apply to all of them. Whether you run a small, medium or large business, you should familiarize yourself with the definition of capital expenditures. In this post, we’re going to break down this otherwise common accounting term, revealing it’s meaning and importance for business owners such as yourself.
Overview of Capital Expenditures
Also known as a capital expense, a capital expenditure is money spent towards a product or service for the purpose of improving a business’s long-term fixed assets. It’s not uncommon for businesses to reinvest their earnings back into their operations. When a business spends money on a product or service that extends the usable life of one of its long-term fixed assets, the purpose is considered a capital expenditure.
There are also operating expenses, which are located on the opposite spectrum as capital expenditures. While capital expenditures consist of business-related expenses — specifically those used to improve a fixed asset — operating expenses consist of money paid to acquire or inherit an asset’s operation. The main difference between the two is that capital expenditures are used to improve or extend the life of a fixed asset, whereas operating expenses are ongoing expenses associated with short-term assets.
Examples of Capital Expenditures
Now that you know the basic definition of capital expenditures, let’s take a closer look at some examples of them. Purchasing a fixed asset is a common example of a capital expenditure. If a product or service is designed to facilitate your business’s operations, it’s considered a fixed asset and, thus, a capital expenditure.
Upgrading a current asset used by your business could be considered a capital expenditure as well. A construction company, for example, may upgrade the model of a bulldozer or excavator. Depending on the model, construction companies may spend tens of thousands of dollars on bulldozer upgrades such as this, with each of these transactions being a capital expenditure.
Making repairs to a current asset owned and used by your business can also be considered a capital expenditure. If an asset, such as a machine, is damaged to the point where it adversely affects your business’s operations, you may want to repair it. If you spend money to repair an asset such as this, it’s considered a capital expenditure.
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How to Edit Recurring Payments in Quickbooks
Does your business bill its customers on a yearly or monthly basis? If so, you can set up recurring payments in Quickbooks. With recurring payments, customers will automatically be charged on their billing date.
You can easily set up recurring payments in Quickbooks by accessing Customers > Credit Card Processing Activities > Set Up Recurring Payments > Set Up Recurring Payments. But What if you need to edit one or more recurring payments? Even if you’ve already set up a recurring payment in Quickbooks, you can still change it. Quickbooks makes it easy to edit recurring payments. Here’s how you do it.
Steps to Edit a Recurring Payment
To edit a recurring payment in Quickbooks, you’ll need to first pull up the customer’s information. From the home screen, choose “Customers,” at which point you can locate the customer’s name. After pulling up the customer’s information, identify the section with the information that you want to change. You can then click the “Edit” button in this section to change the appropriate field or fields.
In Quickbooks, you can change information such as the customer’s name, phone number, the billing start date, the billing frequency, billing day of the month, billing end date, credit card number, credit card expiration date and more. Regardless, to change any of this information, you’ll need to locate the area in which it’s contained, followed by clicking the “Edit” button.
It’s important to note that Quickbooks only allows users to change yearly and monthly billing frequencies for recurring payments. You can choose an alternative billing, such as billing customers on a specific day of the month, but you can’t change the frequency if it’s not currently yearly or monthly.
In Conclusion
Setting up recurring payments is convenient for both businesses and their customers. With recurring payments, you won’t have to worry about manually collecting payments from customers. At the same time, customers won’t have to worry about paying their bill on or by the due date. Recurring payments automatically charge customers, making it a mutually beneficial way to sell products and services.
And if you use Quickbooks, you can easily set up, as well as edit, recurring payments for your business’s customers. Intuit’s popular accounting software fully supports recurring payments. If you need to set up or edit a recurring payment, refer back to this post for assistance.
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